Daredevil

Watched the film "Daredevil" recently. I'll cut right to the chase - its worth half a star for the kind of nice 50s feel to the flashback sequences. It was a dud. But something struck me about it. See what you think. Here we have:

A vigilante character who wreaks terrible revenge on domestic crimes that far out-strip the severity of the original allegation.

• Example: our protaganist is a sympathetic lawyer whose client is an implied rape victim, and the sleazy nightclub owner rapist walks away free. So said character heads out at night, sets fire to the club, wacks about 3 guys and then kills the accused by chucking him under a train.

Protaganist is convinced he is carrying out "justice".

An Irish Catholic preist appeals to the protaganist's moral sense that he is not bringing about justice when it is motivated by vengance.

A reporter is seeking out the proteaganist vigilante to expose him as a dangerous psychopath.

The protaganist (Daredevil) goes in search of the ultimate evil, the boss who organises all the crimes and assassinations in the city. When he discovers that the ultimate evil is also the biggest business leader, he simply disables him temprorarily, effectively allowing big, embedded crime to continue to operate without controls. Daredevil sites "I'm not the bad guy" to to justify this decision.

In a confrontation with a killer hired by the crime boss, some church windows get broken and the priest's life is threatened. At this point the priest condones the vigilante, while he is rescued and allowed to go free.

After the big showdown with the crime boss, the reporter has enough evidence to expose both organised crime and the vigilante's identity. But he self-edits the last detail in his reporting, instead allowing our "hero" to carry on his petty vengences without public scrutiny.

• Example: The reporter, on seeing the shadowy Daredevil flit past of a night after some thief, kind of salutes and says "Go get 'em Matt" (or simliar).

Daredevil is a self-styled police force, inventing his own level punishment with no system of governence who is sanctioned by the church and the press, but who veers away from challenging capitalism to preserve a public opinion of good vs evil. Sound like anything from recent world politics to you? The movie has no sense of irony either. In case you were wondering.