Word: righteous
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...away under the cloak of snivelling libertarianism. The district attorney, backed by an intellectual judge from Berkeley, informs Harry that the criminal's rights were violated. This inverted bit of deus ex machina gives Scorpio time to terrorize a busload of children and sends Harry off again on the righteous pursuit of his maniac...
Violence clung to the IWW; its members wore the scars inflicted by the self-righteous brutality of vigilantes. Repression and cruelty were an unavoidable part of the IWW's burden, a load that Joe Hill helped to bear. Widerberg avoids this facet of his story until the film's historical pretense forces the issue. Obliged to include such a mob action scene in the San Diego sequence, he skims over the ugliness and jolts the camera so that most of the clubbing doesn't show. Either from disinterest or squeamishness he is unwilling to deal with Joe's life...
However, not all dead Indians were good ones, nor were all whites savage and self-righteous in their dealings with them. Brown is careful in making the distinctions. Some whites, like General John B. Sanborn, spoke out in words that one now finds sadly familiar: "For a mighty nation like us to be carrying on a war with a few straggling nomads, under such circumstances, is a spectacle most humiliating, an injustice unparalleled a national crime most revolting, that must, sooner or later, bring down upon us or our posterity the judgment of Heaven." Although from time to time...
...Righteous Lard. A line like that never sounds like a howler on paper, but in the theater it brings the house to a roar. Which is a tribute to the palpable miracles of timing and inflection that a director like Mike Nichols and an actor like Peter Falk can produce out of their sheer unfaltering professionalism. Falk is perfectly cast. He has just the right sag to the shoulders and a face that a mirror would wince at in the morning. Lee Grant is tart, perky and warmly sympathetic. Vincent Gardenia is a pillar of righteous, lard and quivers hysterically...
...peculiar tension characteristic of American democracy. Policy is not created to realize quixotic ideals. No American President invaded Vietnam to preserve freedom. The reasons were partly economic, partly diplomatic, partly strategic. Perhaps even a bit idealistic. But surely altruism was not the motivating cause. Wide-eyed idealism and self-righteous fervor thrive amid official justifications and popular explanations. Among themselves, the professionals are somewhat less noble...