‘Black Adam’ brings back the vigilante violence of Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson

‘Black Adam’ has conquered the box office around the world in its first weekend thanks to the charisma of its protagonist, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnsonbut also because Warner Bros was able to lower the level of violence enough to receive the rating “Not recommended for children under 13”, after 4 versions that took the provisional category of “Not recommended for children under 18” .

Those responsible for the DC film had to eliminate several scenes of graphic violence without losing the essence of the character, as the producer explained. hiram garcia. “One of the things he’s known for is his aggressiveness and violence, and making a movie about Black Adam that didn’t have that just wouldn’t have been authentic.. So we always went into this knowing that we were going to take it as far as we did.”

Reviewing the keys to ‘Black Adam’ with Dwayne Johnson at the film’s presentation in Madrid, the actor also highlighted those characteristics of the character as his personal brand: “I think brings a level of fury and violence that we haven’t seen in other superheroes. Many of the fans may not agree with the philosophy of my character, but our goal is that everyone understands the reasons behind it.”

And what is this philosophy that Johnson talks about? Well, we already anticipated in our review of FOTOGRAMAS that Black Adam is not a hero to use. To get started, he is not a hero, to dry. But not a villain either. Black Adam is a man seeking revenge against the forces that took his family and people from him, and he ruthlessly executes them. “Heroes don’t kill people, but I do.”

Possible SPOILERS for ‘Black Adam’ below

The film is a constant debate about whether the end justifies the means and whether violence is justified in certain cases. And the answer is quite clear: yes. The Justice Society acts as soon as Black Adam reappears and begins to assassinate all the minions of power that cross his path. But his supposed fight for “freedom” is hypocritical. It is to use violence so that there is no violence. As the not-so-subtle metaphor that it is, it’s invading a country, bombing it, and plunging it into the rubble to “liberate” it from the tyranny that rules it.

But Black Adam does not care about public opinion, what is politically correct and the negotiating and dialoguing spirit, from his first appearance to the post-credits scene of ‘Black Adam’. It is not about turning the other cheek, but about responding with 100 times more force to any attack. “Who is going to teach this child violence?” He asks in amazement when his mother tries to defuse the situation. Later that same mother has to end up admitting to the Justice Society that “what Black Adam achieves with his methods, you would not achieve with yours“, after they have to reclaim the services of the village “Champion” because “sometimes you need the dark“And the boy, in his eagerness to lead the rebellion of his people, ends up uniting his fellow citizens in a fight against the system… With sticks and axesto the enraged mass, of course.

Black Adam is, as the director has declared Jaume Collet-Serra and actor Dwayne Johnson on several occasions,”DC’s Dirty Harry“. An agent who breaks the rules (“heroes don’t kill”), who acts with violence and uses all the necessary methods, whoever falls, to achieve his goal and defend his own. Like the vigilante neo-fascists a la Charles Bronson, Black Adam takes justice into his own hands in the face of the passivity of the forces of order and, also like in those films, he receives the populist support of a jaded people who find their salvation in violence.

The parallelism of Black Adam with Clint Eastwood is more than a declaration of intent when Collet-Serra dares to recreate the iconic final scene of ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ with the music of Ennio Morricone, tracing the very close-ups of Sergio Leone in a duel from the Wild West, where there were no rules, laws or forces of order and conflicts were resolved with the blow of a gun.

Of course, it is not the first time that a superhero movie has used these methods or this level of violence, but almost always an attempt is made to soften it with comedy (Deadpool) or with a twilight patina of a tormented hero who ends up somehow accepting morality and human kindness (Wolverine). ‘Black Adam’ doesn’t invent anything, but it does take us back to a time when action movies didn’t care about anything other than offering pure and simple entertainmentwithout thinking about messages or consequences, and that is increasingly in the doldrums…

Will Black Adam follow this path in the future, or will “soften” for all audiences How has it happened so many times in the recent past?