Mile 22“Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” This astonishing quotation comes from an essay by American journalist H. L. Mencken. Writing in 1919 about a certain rage perceived in new writing from Ezra Pound, Mencken at first expresses tongue in cheek sympathy with Pound's anger—“the stupidity he combats is actually almost unbearable”—before dismissing it as detrimental to the writer’s poetry. Put into the mouth of John Malkovich’s CIA honcho James Bishop in Peter Berg’s latest film Mile 22, however, this incendiary quotation becomes much more ambiguous—particularly since there is no citation given, appearing as it does to be just another whimsical thought spoken out loud by this eccentric character. Bishop, as head of a special black ops division, is deadly serious and clearly sympathetic towards the sentiment. Whether the film itself is remains another story,...
- 9/2/2018
- MUBI
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