Anthony wrote:
> What moral quality? Loyalty? Robert Mitchum's Coyle
fails the
toughness
> test then cause he rolls over on the guys he works
with. I didn't say
he
> couldn't be hardboiled cause he's a criminal. He
isn't hardboiled
> because he isn't true and loyal to his criminality.
Neither is he
tough.
> Mel Gibson's Parker is hardboiled. He's tough and
demands loyalty from
> his peers. He doesn't go to the cops and rat them
out like that
> chicken-shit Coyle. He goes and takes them out
one-by-one until he
gets
> what's coming to him and nothing more. There ain't
nothing more
> hardboiled than that.
>
Well, yeah, loyalty I do think of as being a moral quality. I
have no desire to defend Coyle as a person (he is, for
starters, a fictional character) & even less desire to
defend his hardboiled status. I would like to know, however,
does your disapproval of Coyle mean that you think he's not
worth writing about or reading about either? And does it mean
that you disliked the book? (Or the movie?)
(And purely as a matter of personal opinion, I find it
hard to imagine Mel Gibson as hardboiled no matter who he's
playing. I don't find him convincingly tough or hardboiled in
the way that I do Lee Marvin, for example).
Rene
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