“…It is easier to
build strong children than to repair broken men.”
–Frederick Douglass
Saw an
episode on CBS’s CRIMINAL MINDS about this quote last night. Entitled “The Wheels on the Bus,” this very quote
was used near the close of the show. Here’s
my recap.
Two
demented latch key young men, a product of divorce, waste away their after school hours and become masters in playing
video games. Always shown sitting on the
living room sofa, the director fast-forwards the viewer through several years of the brothers Josh and Matt incessant
game playing, from young adolescence up until their present day ages of a young
adult in high school. They become confrontational
within their own competitiveness and at the same time, bored with their mastery
skill set, they fall into an abyss of reality and illusion and proceed to
devise their own video fantasy game, but in real life game.
----
PRESENT DAY 2013 - EXTERIOR SHOT - DAY - AFTERNOON
Somewhere
on the back roads of rural Virginia these boys use a stalled vehicle as a rouse to ambush a school bus filled with the bus monitor, driver of course and students— but kidnapping only ten of the students.
These chosen ten in fact, have been predetermined by a set of parameters
these crazy boys have concocted in their heads and would no doubt, impress any
forensic psychologist.
INTERIOR - ISOLATED BARN
Abandoning the bus
and the unwanted students in an old barn the chosen ten are driven to an isolated
location outfitted like a modern day Rambo is king of the camp and outfitted
with a slew of big brother high tech surveillance cameras and equipment. These innocent, doe eyed students become the
brother’s game pieces and are held like GITMO prisoners in a community cell
similar to those shown in ‘human experiment’ projects. A
dark, dank and cold environment heightens the student’s anxiety as they’re left
to wonder why they’re there in the first place, if they will be killed like their school bus driver, and what the hell is really going on.
The
player with the most ‘kills’ scores and wins… but
of course. That’s how it usually
works. So as these crazy boys peer at
their captives through surveillance monitors, they bark directives to these
scared kids, through blue-tooth technology earpieces and are psychologically controlled
and manipulated into carrying out directives.
Failure to comply will result in a long taser-shock thru an electronic
necklace so anchored.
Big
brother-type stuff going on here.
These
kids are further dehumanized by being called a number rather than by their
given names. Crazy right? Yep. “Number two and number five step forward,” we hear in
voiceover. "The game will commence in three, two, one."
I hate it when they cut to a commercial just when the getting's getting good. Don't you?
But continuing with my recap, and P.S., I really think Mark Gordon (no relationship to me) and Jeff Davis need to pay me for this critique--
In one game round we see a female student
preselected by the brothers because of her strong willed persona being coersed and ultimately she is forced to kill her male friend, Trent-- in spite of her decidedness. "They said they'd hurt my family," Addyson screams out into the air after she takes the kill shot. (A little out of sync embellishment there.)
Adding insult to injury to the overall
pretext of “the game,” the viewer is shown an element of gender bias as the younger brother says to his older brother, "A girl. Dude, I beat you with a girrrrrlllll,” contributing to his folly.
Needless
to say my favorite techie guru Penelope Garcia (next to Abby on NCIS) works her computer magic, locates the abandoned makeshift GITMO facility and
Special Agents Hotchner and Morgan come in guns slinging, just in the nick of
the skinny to rescue them all. But not
before Agent Morgan levels one in the heart to the older brother who just
wouldn’t stand reason to anything in the episode. THAT brother was indeed a piece of work. By the way, I just love those crisp white dress shirts Hotchner's wardrobe person dresses him in.
My hat
goes off to the writer Kimberly Ann for this particular script. “Brokenness of the mind and spirit.” When life imitates art and when man blurs
that fine line, we have to wonder just how damaging these fantasy games are to the
human psyche.
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