Hard (but respectful) disagree! Thought Sandler was great. It's a version of his angry characters, sort of the same way his character in Punch-Drunk Love was, but there's a lot more going on there. It's an admittedly fine distinction, in the sense that Anthony Hopkins could play another sophisticated serial killer and we'd all have a hard time not just thinking of it as him rehashing Hannibal.
Honestly don't understand this. It goes everywhere. It's positively breakneck.
That's not what a morality play is, though. A morality play exists to teach a lesson, not to give you someone to root for.
That's exactly why. The entire movie, that particular thug gets angrier and angrier, is antagonized more and more. And the fact that he's a hired thug means he's a mercenary, so at a certain point he decides it's better to just kill everyone and take what's there.
But, if you don't buy that, that's the morality play part: the universe (the one inside that little gem, no less) punishes Howie for his refusal to learn. The last moment to save himself is when he's hovering over that button on the phone, when he knows he can call Julia and pay off his debt and get on with his life, and he chooses to let it ride anyway. That shows he'll never learn, never change, and that's why he dies.
Eh, people who are superficially "out of each other's leagues" get together all the time, especially when issues of power and money are involved. Not that weird.
The plot makes little sense and ultimately ends up going nowhere
The safdies obviously have a morality play in mind but when none of the characters have any morals, who are we rooting for?
The ending made no sense regarding the characters involved, why would they shoot him, there was never any indication they were anything but hired goons by Arnos and Arnos was going to get his money back.
But, if you don't buy that, that's the morality play part: the universe (the one inside that little gem, no less) punishes Howie for his refusal to learn. The last moment to save himself is when he's hovering over that button on the phone, when he knows he can call Julia and pay off his debt and get on with his life, and he chooses to let it ride anyway. That shows he'll never learn, never change, and that's why he dies.
Also no idea or motivation for Julia to be with a guy like Howie...so pointless