# The least subtle film ever made **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 22, 2013, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-subtle-film-ever-made/653612 "2013-03-22T04:11:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2013, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-subtle-film-ever-made/653612/121 "2013-03-27T15:42:46Z")
There are so many films that aren’t subtle that picking just one is tough. But I’ll point to a pretty good movie that ditched subtlety because, even though the filmmakers had a likable hero with a compelling story, they just weren’t confident enough in their star or plot, and felt as if they had to turn the antagonist into Evil Incarnate. I’m referring to _ **Cinderella Man,** _ Ron Howard’s movie about Jimmy Braddock. As I said, Braddock was a good guy, his story was a very interesting one, and he was played by a very good, very likable actor, Russell Crowe. The audience was almost bound to root for Braddock! But just in case they might not, Howard and his writer(s) turned Max Baer into a heartless killer. That wasn’t fair or accurate, and worse still, there was no need for that! ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2013, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-subtle-film-ever-made/653612/122 "2013-03-27T19:57:43Z")
American Beauty. I unfortunately watched it back to back with Sautet’s En Coeur en Hiver and the contrast was overwhelming. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2013, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-subtle-film-ever-made/653612/123 "2013-03-28T04:54:17Z")
Say that Empire of the Sun is a “not subtle” movie is incorrect. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2013, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-subtle-film-ever-made/653612/124 "2013-03-31T02:43:39Z")
“I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.” ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2013, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-subtle-film-ever-made/653612/125 "2013-03-31T15:33:41Z")
> [@Sam\_A.Robrin](#): > > No contest: _The Trial of Billy Jack_. To cash in on the success of the original, they just tripled everything–including the length–and the points that were laid on with a trowel in the first were laid on with a steamshovel in the sequel. > The National Guard doesn’t just fire on students, they shoot a little kid. Not just a little kid, but a little _crippled_ kid. Not just a little crippled kid, but a little crippled kid _holding a bunny rabbit_ … And every scene does that! …not just any bunny rabbit, but a bunny with his feet chopped off and given to Charlie Company soldiers as good luck amulets before embarking on their scenic hike through the hamlets of My Lai… ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-subtle-film-ever-made/653612/126 "2013-04-01T15:17:13Z")
It strikes me that time-travel movies are uniquely suited to this sort of thing. Take, say, _The Butterfly Effect_: his childhood sweetheart just killed herself, so he goes back in time to change history such that – well, now she’s still breathing, but he’s behind bars. So he goes back in time again to change history such that – well, now he’s a quadruple amputee. So he goes back in time yet again, finally changing history with all the precision of Bill Murray on his last run-through for _Groundhog Day_: preventing a kid from getting molested, reuniting a mother and daughter, making sure everybody is alive and well and in possession of all their limbs, and THE END. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-subtle-film-ever-made/653612/127 "2013-04-02T01:59:07Z")
So we see George Bailey’s life play out like a noble biopic – saving the lives of helpless children, keeping his grieving boss out of prison, sacrificing his education and his honeymoon so hard-working people can own homes – and we see him contemplate suicide upon taking the blame for his uncle’s mistake, but he considers how awful everyone would be without him and heads home so people from all walks of life can give detailed explanations of why they’re appreciatively coming through for him. Now, that’s already “explicit” rather than “subtle”. Less subtle: a for-real angel walks him through just how great a guy he is – _“Every man on that transport died! Harry wasn’t there to save them, because you weren’t there to save Harry!”_ – because, to somehow make the film even less subtle, that ‘biopic-up-to-now’ bit is the story of yet other angels showing that angel the simple truth of why he has to save George by showing our hero simple truth in turn. That’s, like, a Russian nesting doll of unsubtle. ---
**Author:** ![April\_R](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@April\_R](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/April_R)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-subtle-film-ever-made/653612/128 "2013-04-02T02:16:27Z")
No \*Kill Bill \*yet? That film is as subtle as a karate kick in the face ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-subtle-film-ever-made/653612/129 "2013-04-02T02:24:34Z")
> [@April\_R](#): > > No \*Kill Bill \*yet? That film is as subtle as a karate kick in the face I’ve been thinking of unsubtle films as ones that slap you in the face with their messages. I have no idea what message Kill Bill was trying to deliver, other than maybe, “Don’t fuck with Uma Thurman.” ---
**Author:** ![April\_R](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@April\_R](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/April_R)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-subtle-film-ever-made/653612/130 "2013-04-02T02:38:40Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > I’ve been thinking of unsubtle films as ones that slap you in the face with their messages. I have no idea what message Kill Bill was trying to deliver, other than maybe, “Don’t fuck with Uma Thurman.” Pretty much “Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill, Vol. 1” is about as basic a movie as you can get–The Bride (Uma Thurman) was once upon a time badly beaten and shot in the head by people she once worked with and (well, one of them, at least) loved; she falls into a coma, sleeps a couple of years, and wakes up demanding payback, big time.” ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-subtle-film-ever-made/653612/131 "2013-04-02T03:19:36Z")
_Still_ no one’s mentioned _Scarface_? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-subtle-film-ever-made/653612/132 "2013-04-02T03:25:35Z")
I don’t know… KB had some pretty subtle moments. Hell, KB was even referenced in Pulp Fiction (KB has the basic structure of _Fox Force Five_), which many people don’t get: > [@](#): > > Mia: It was show about a team of female secret agents called “Fox Force Five.” > > Vincent: What? > > Mia: “Fox Force Five.” Fox, as in we’re a bunch of foxy chicks. Force, as in we’re a force to be reckoned with. Five, as in there’s one..two …three..four..five of us. There was a blonde one, Sommerset O’Neal from that show "Baton Rouge, she was the leader. A Japanese one, a black one, a French one and a brunette one, me. We all had special skills. Sommerset had a photographic memory, the Japanese fox was a kung fu master, the black girl was a demolition expert, the French fox’ specialty was sex… > > Vincent: What was your specialty? > > Mia: Knives. The character I played,Raven McCoy, her background was she was raised by circus performers. So she grew up doing a knife act. According to the show, she was the deadliest woman in the world with a knife. But because she grew up in a circus, she was also something of an acrobat. She could do illusions, she was a trapeze artist – when you’re keeping the world safe from evil, you never know when being a trapeze artist’s gonna come in handy. And she knew a zillion old jokes her grandfather, an old vaudevillian, taught her. If we would have gotten picked up, they would have worked in a gimmick where every episode I would have told a joke. My favorite KB subtle moment followed the “Green Hornet” sequence. Immediately after, the Bride pulls up to a stoplight, to the right of Sofie Fatale. Sofie’s cell phone rings, she answers it, and the Bride flashes back to the massacre, her memory going to Sofie laughing on the phone while people are getting killed around her. This is the first time we see the Bride remembering Sofie. The ringtone on Sofie’s cell phone? The tune to _Auld Lang Syne_. The words accompanying that part of the tune? “Should auld acquaintance be forgot…” The overall movie isn’t “subtle”, but there’s a lot going on in it that requires careful viewing to catch. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-subtle-film-ever-made/653612.md?page=6)