The Mad Man In The Mask

(3 of 3)

Here's another tough question: whether V for Vendetta is the movie that will start that conversation. The kind of delicate ambiguity that Portman talks about is hard to achieve within the narrow constraints of a popcorn movie--morally speaking, they tend to be shot in black and white--and V may come off as a bit too noble for the movie's good. As both the product of violence and its perpetrator, he should be doubly twisted. "What was done to me was monstrous!" V snarls. "And they created a monster," Evey replies. But if V plays as a Phantom of the Opera monster, a Beauty and the Beast monster, a monster with a sweet, sad center, he becomes less than he should be: a mere action hero. Maybe that's a lot of nuance to ask of an action movie, but terrorism is a subject that demands nothing less. Give poor, tortured V back his goodness, and you take away his greatness.