Butcher - The Devil's Own

When Frankie McGuire arrives in the U.S. he is sent to the O’Meara household. The Irish-American family immediately welcome Frankie in, and he soon becomes just like a member of their own. Tom especially takes to him, jovial at the thought of another male companion in the house of four women. Frankie, known to the O’Mearas as ‘Rory,’ is the son that Tom always wished to have. At his arrival, he meant to simply use the O’Mearas as a safe house, but by the end of The Devil’s Own, Rory develops a strong bond with his host family. As his situation with Burke complicates, he comes to the defense of the O’Mearas.

One afternoon, Tom and Sheila discover intruders in their home, all masked men looking for Rory’s stash of money. While they struggle to fight off the intruders, Rory intervenes to help the O’Mearas. Knowing that Burke was responsible, Rory takes action to make Burke pay for harming his surrogate family. Armed with a gun, Rory pays a visit to Burke to send a warning. Rory exhibits his love for his new American family in his persistence to protect them from further harm. It is pertinent for him to confront the party responsible in the only way he knows how: through violence. From the beginning of his life, violence was prevalent in Ireland. Fatherless at a young age, gunfights and struggle against those stifling the IRA became the norm.

“It’s not an American story; It’s an Irish one,” reiterates Rory to Tom. Rory’s initial plans to acquire weapons in the U.S. bring together these two Irishmen. One is a proud Irish-American cop, and the other, a true Irishman fighting with the IRA. Connected by heritage these men form a bond with each other like that of a father and son.

Butcher - Families in Patriot Games

There are several families, both nuclear and organizational, that are present in Patriot Games. One could argue that families are, in fact, the central theme that the whole movie revolves around. The action that takes place is all action that threatens the family. Some of the “families” represented in the film are: the Ryan family, Miller’s family, the Royal family, the IRA, the CIA, and the Naval Academy.

The IRA is an interesting family to observe in this film. On the one hand, we see the Irish as incredibly loyal to each other. The spokesman for the IRA refuses to give Jack Ryan any information on his fellow Irishmen, claiming that he would never betray his people. This is a very important point that reverberates throughout the film. Because of the conflict between the British and the Irish, many Irish were seen as betraying their people for pledging allegiance to the crown, in some way or another. When Jack Ryan approaches the IRA spokesman in the Irish bar, he scoffs Ryan in his attempt, announcing this publicly to the rest of the bar patrons.

On the other hand, the splinter groups of the IRA will kill their own if that means that they will become closer to achieving their ends. Any man, Irish or not, that threats their goals will be taken down. We see this when Miller’s sect of the IRA kills off “Jimmy boy.” Their sect focuses on violent actions that send a message. Toward the end of the film, it is clear that Sean’s motives are different from the group, and when they intervene with him, Sean will kill them.

Sean Miller’s family, consisting of his brother and himself, is broken when Jack interferes and accidentally shoots his brother. This is the inciting incident that sets Patriot Games into motion. From that point forward, Sean’s motivation to seek revenge for his brother death pushes the plot forward. Act II of the film begins when Sean threatens the lives of Jack Ryan’s wife and daughter, chasing them on the highway till their car crashes. Miller continues to pursue the Ryan family till the very end of the film, which ends in a daring boat chase between Jack and Sean.

Jack Ryan is extremely protective of his family. After his pregnant wife and daughter careen into a highway divider, Ryan does everything in his power to bring justice to the situation. Always a man of action, Ryan becomes completely involved in the case when he re-joins the CIA, hoping to contribute to their search for Miller and the rest of his IRA group. Even his wife, Dr. Ryan, who had resented his former place in the CIA, supports him in his efforts to hunt Miller down. At the end of the film, Jack puts his own life on the line to ensure the safety of his family, and the Royal family.

It seems as though familial relationships are central to the plot of Patriot Games, and these relationships function within the device of political tension. The violence that Miller's IRA splinter group inflicts affects all the characters within the film. People find the need to create close ties with one another, and when the lives of family members are threatened, tension is created. This tension is what engages the audience and makes them anxious. We start to imagine what we would do if our family and friends were in danger. Harrison Ford, acts as the hero that we would all wish to be if encountered with this situation.

Butcher - Fugitive Blog

The Fugitive begins with a fuzzy, black and white account of the murder of Dr. Richard Kimble’s wife. It is disorienting and blurs the viewers initial opinions of her murder. Just as the police, at that point the truth is not clear. As the film unfolds, the true story of her murder is uncovered piece by piece. Dr. Kimble’s innocence is proven through a series of flashback’s shown from Dr. Kimble’s perspective. The more flashbacks we see, the more we are convinced that Kimble did not kill his wife.
In the scene shown in the photograph, we see a flashback from the night of the murder. Dr. Kimble fights off the one-armed man, but he allows the culprit to escape in order to be by his deceased wife’s side. This screen shot shows Kimble looking after the one-armed man, not in the frame, as he limps away, prosthetic arm loose. We can assume that Kimble is innocent, as this scene reveals another part of the murder scene that had not previously been provided. Using Kimble’s flashback, he tells the audience of his struggle against the stranger, and weep over his bloody wife.
Dr. Kimble plays the part of the detective in this story. He rapidly uncovers more about the circumstance of what got him framed for cold blooded murder. Gerard is simply the chaser, following Kimble’s clues as he leaves them. When Gerard encounters Kimble at the beginning of the film, he tells Kimble he is not interested in whether Kimble is innocent. His only concerned with bringing in a fugitive. Only after leading him to the one-armed man’s house does Gerard realize that Kimble is providing him with secrets that point to a bigger problem. This ties in appropriately with the first blurry, black-and-white images of Mrs. Kimble at the beginning of the movie. This story follows the story of Dr. Kimble and his determination to uncover the truth; it is not about his wife’s murder. Rather, he is driven by his wife’s murder. His ultimate goal is to prove his innocence and figure out why and how he was framed for murder. The technique used at the beginning emphasizes that this film is really a murder-mystery detective story.

Butcher - The Patriarchs and the Sons in Witness and Mosquito Coast

There is a scene in Witness, when Eli is sitting with Samuel at the kitchen table with Book’s pistol and bullets laid in front of them. The camera is looking at them face on, and they sit close together, while the pistol appears far away on the table. Eli is the patriarch in their community, and Samuel’s role model. After his mother caught Samuel handling Book’s unloaded pistol with curiosity, Eli found it in his patriarchal duties to address Samuel’s fascination with the gun. Eli tells him that this gun is meant for “the taking of human life,” something which they in the Amish community believe to be wrong. Samuel respects his grandfather, but tells him that he would only use the gun to harm a bad man. Samuel lost his innocence when he witnessed a murder at the beginning of the film, so he claims to know badness through his experience. He has witnessed something that the patriarch has not. The question is now whether Samuel would kill, essentially become a bad man in Eli’s words, in order to protect his community. Eli must pose this philosophical question to enforce the Amish values taught in their community. The bonds that persist in the Amish community are strong, and Samuel must figure out whether these bonds are strong enough to overpower any of the badness that the city has revealed to him.

Contrary to Samuel, Charlie does not loose his innocence until the end of the film. Charlie holds his father, Allie, on a pedestal for half of Mosquito Coast, claiming in his voice over that his father is a genius. Allie drags his family on an adventure that transitions from bad to worse. In an effort to build a utopian society, Allie ends up destroying his perfect community and putting strain of his family, who, by the end of the film, simply wish to go back to the United States. After Allie builds fat boy and attempts to bring ice to the native people out in the jungle, Charlie begins to realize that his father has taken a turn for the worse. In the final scene of the film, after Allie sets fire to the church, the Fox family is floating away, down the river. Allie is lying down, paralyzed. When he comes to consciousness, Charlie rushes to his side. He appears above his incapacitated father, visually showing how Charlie has risen above his father. His father tells him that “the human body is a bad design,” that we’re not tough enough. In Charlie's final voice over he states, "Once I believed in father and the world seemed small and old. Now he was gone and I wasn't afraid to love him anymore. And the world seemed limitless." Charlie has seen the fault in his father, constantly seeking an unattainable perfection, and accepting that his father is not perfect, can move on.

Butcher - Leia the Goddess in Return of the Jedi

In The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Campbell posits that the goddess exists for the hero to act as a driving force for his journey. When we first meet Leia in Episode IV: A New Hope, she is an image of beauty, dressed in white, desperate to escape the clutches of the Empire. She is anything but the stereotypical damsel in distress. Although a prisoner of Darth Vadar, she alone takes action to help in her own rescue. This is far from the typical fairytale images of women like Snow White, or Sleeping Beauty. A goddess is a ruler, a deity, a supreme being more powerful than a earthly human. Leia remains a strong character throughout each film, and is always at the forefront of the rebellion, as a main character to the plot. As a superhuman character, a goddess, is often in control, and escapes danger time and again. This can be said of Princess Leia. She is bold enough to attempt to rescue Han in Return of the Jedi, even though it results in her capture. Even in the process of being saved, she is always active. When Luke comes to rescue Leia and Han from Jabba, she ends up strangling Jabba with her own chains to escape. Perhaps this is a visual metaphor indicating that she cannot be chained.

In each Episode she becomes increasingly important. In the larger picture, her relationships with Han and Luke motivate both heroes. Leia constantly puts her life on the line for Han and Luke, and in return both men find themselves constantly protecting and fighting for her. For example, in Return of the Jedi, Darth Vadar entices Luke to lash out at him when he insinuates that she could turn to the dark side. She is definitely an intriguing character, and it is interesting to watch the development of Han and Luke around her.

Finally, here's a funny picture of Leia and R2....