Back in 2004, in a Mount Washington McDonalds, an eighteen-year-old cashier was held against her will by her manager. The manager had gotten a call from a serial scam artist pretending to be a cop, and convinced her the cashier was wanted for criminal activity and to hold her there until he arrived. In the next few hours — on the direct orders of the voice on the other side of the phone — the cashier was humiliated and sexually assaulted by her co-workers and those she trusted. These people had no prior convictions or arrests. They weren’t secret Satanists or nihilistic Nazis twirling their mustaches. They were everyday people. They did what they did because of some fucked up code written in our DNA: a code that makes us bend our own judgment to authority.

We can sit here and judge Ethan Hawke’s character for following Denzel’s insanity throughout the day. He’s convinced to smoke PCP laced marijuana, raid a man’s house (just to steal from it) and use a fake warrant. We understand the danger Hawke’s in, and we either scoff at him for not being self-aware or see it for what it really is: us on Monday morning.

Guys and gals like you and me, we’re normal. We’re Ethan Hawke. We want to make end’s meet, feed our kids, have a little scratch of earth to call our own. We don’t want to rock the boat; we want to help keep the boat afloat. People like Alonzo revel in that. They prey on it, exploit it. They turn what should be respected into fear, and make us hate ourselves for trusting in it to begin with.

Alonzo: “It’s not what you know, it’s what you can prove.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG7wg6HPZ4Q