It's all our fault! Supposedly. (Popcorn - Ben Elton)

Member Name: steveny

Product:	Popcorn - Ben Elton
Date:	11/11/02 (725 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Underlying idea

Disadvantages: unrealisitic Characters, unrealistic situation, conflicting idea

Okay when I got this book to tell you the truth I was just getting rid of some book vouchers before they expired and this above all looked like it would be worth a look, I was wrong as I will continue to explain.

The Plot:
Scout and her lunatic of a boyfriend Wayne are the mall murderers, they randomly kill Americans (which by the way isn't really a crime!). Bruce Delamitri is a well known director of violent films and winner of best Director Oscar. Whats the link well a rather poor one actually. The Mall murderers are huge fans of Bruce's films and they decide that since they are obviously doomed for what they have done that the director of these violent movies can be their scapegoat. They go to his house abuse him and anyone else that comes through the door until the scum bag journalists arrive and then they explain to the world how society is to blame for their wrong doings. I don't wanna say anymore as it will ruin it when you read the book.

Okay so basically we have a couple of psycho killers and a Film director who is apparently cool. I ask you this though the character of Wayne and Scout are quite good, Wayne on the surface is a red neck idiot school drop out loser, however underneath he is a media made genius who has grown up watching and learning from TV. For one he'd have to be a bloody genius to get away with being filmed killing poeple on all the security camera's yet still managing to go unnoticed till he got into the house of the Best Director in the world. Anyways we have a confrontation of minds between this angry red neck and some arsey film director who to be honest would never confront a criminal in the manner that he does in this book let alone the bloody mall murderers.
Imagine Quentin Tarantino in his house and some mass murderers arrive after killing his security guard and proceed to kill his agent and threaten his wife and child, do you think he would do anything apart from crap his pants? I thi
nk not. The idea is clever to the point it's a question probably every educated family has discussed round the dinner table, is society to blame for the mindless killers that seem to roam our streets an awful lot. And the answer quite simply is no. Violence and 'evil' cannot be put into jusat anybody it is only taken up by those with already poor mental state. The whole point is to do what these mall murderers did in the total stupid and unplanned method they did it in takes a certain person and that person is born with that mental condition.
The media does glorify crime and does abuse it's power in order to pay their wages and feed some fatcat boss of a media company's obsession with snuff movies or something. I mean come on who has ever been brought up without seeing loads of violence in real life and on TV and yet they lead perfectly normal lives without any need or desire for crime. You'ds have to be pretty poorly evolved to think that what you see on tv or read in the press is anything but glorified recollections of events and not the real story it is made out to be.
Ok anyway back to the book, the author is criticising the same mediam which he himself owes his entire success, if it wasn't for critics and fans he would not be the millionaire he is. I think it is absurd to criticise the very thing that you owe so much too. Maybe I got it worng maybe he wasn't maybe he agrees with me that it is a ridiculuos idea to blame the worlds criminals on Media and society portrayal of crime, but even then he would be doing a pretty half arsed job of it, the book was in my view poorly written with unrealistic characters and an absurd ending (which I'll be surprised if anyone makes it to!) I for one will not be buying any more from this author as I think this book was an utter waste of time.

Summary: