To walk out of this obsession, they have to “die” before public’s eyes. So here comes the first scene—the two bank robbers shot to each other because of a woman and both of them die in this bank robbery. These two most famous bank robbers die without saying goodbye to the world and their body even burn to nothing on the way to hospital. Actually, they run away to Mexico and live a happy life with a huge number of money.
This movie is very popular, once shown and attracts many attentions from public. One of the audiences says,
“Bandits, is the best of all time. It is absolutely hilarious. Billy Bob Thornton is at his best! Bruce Willis is as wonderful as always, and doesn't disappoint this time. Cate Blanchett is beautiful, a wonderful comedic actress. The 3 of them together must have been handpicked. They play off of each other so well.”( http://www.100share.com/zzB00005V4YG.htm)
Some people pay attention to the whole plot and comment that it “wasn't done in a silly way though, a lot of it was very subtle and deadpan.”
2. Three Elements of a Perfect Life
In the movie, all of the bandits—Joe, Terry, Harvey and Kate—have pursuits and dreams and what they do is to get approach to it—a perfect life. They rob banks, but they never hurt innocent lives. For life and self-values, they have understandings and ideas by themselves, and they work consistently to find them out. Finally, they succeed and enjoy the perfect life they have worked so hard to earn.
As what is explicitly expressed in the Declaration of Independence,
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and independent; that from that equal creation they derive in rights inherent and inalienables, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” They are pursuing their happiness—a perfect life.
What we can get from the movie are the elements of a perfect life, namely, adequate money support, well-bounded interpersonal relationship and strong spiritual pursuit.
2.1 Adequate Money Support
Material is usually the foundation for superstructure. To enjoy a perfect life, adequate money is formost a necessary part. In modern society, money can help people to buy anything they want. With a lot of money, one can eat delicious food in whatever restaurant they like, go to everywhere of the world and watch different scenes of nature, drive luxurious cars, and live in the most gin places. Not like ordinary middle class people who worry about the loan from bank, the education of their children and the social welfare after retired, rich people don’t have this kind of concerns. They don’t need to worry about their late will cause them to lose their work; their illness will run out of their money so they can’t afford the rent of next month. In the movie, Joe and Terry want to run a nightclub in Mexico so they need to have a lot of money to reach there, to buy a hotel themselves etc.. To gain so much money, they get back to their old work—bank robbing.
Also on some aspects, money stands by the social status. The more money you have, the higher social status you enjoy is the most common situation in our society. At the same time, high social status will help rich people to become richer. Moreover, social status will help people gain more hospitable service from others and make them feel respect from the society. When they drive limousines and behave like gentlemen, nobody will suspect that they are bank robbers and offer them their best services.
And in other cases, money makes people feel safe in the world, and without it people will lose their sense of being safety. People use money to arm themselves to teeth like they will never be defeated by anything. Adequate materials, highly social status and sense of being safety are the basic three strong points of money, and also money is the basic element of having a perfect life. 英语论文《完美盗贼》中的完美生活(2):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_2686.html