
I just saw Wanted and really enjoyed it. Unlike what I expected it was actually a very smart movie. Most reviews I saw of it like it or not, but thought it was silly, which it is not in the least, but actually quite intelligent. As far as a review goes: I liked the actors, and found the movie really fun and intelligent.
I wanted to say a couple of things on what I found interesting in it.
Spoiler Alert - if you haven't seen the movie
stop reading now! I am assuming if you continue reading that you saw the movie already and I'll divulge the ending and many twist and turns which will greatly decrease your enjoyment of the film if you haven't seen it yet. You have been warned.
1. It is quite clear from the beginning that the person he wants to kill doesn't want to kill him and will turn out to be good. But, him being his father (a la star wars) is surprising, together with him actually killing his own father. What I found quite brilliant was that the reason he was the chosen one and the only person who could kill his father was that his father wouldn't hurt him. Quite a brilliant twist which I don't remember ever seeing.
2. The movie is thus staged around the question of the law, the law for which the usual representative figure is the father.
The law here comes in the form of mysterious encrypted message on fabric, .
Angelina Jolie,

whose father was a judge, is in complete obedience to the law. When first we see her willingness to kill him, we see her as maybe bad, but then later, when she kills herself because the law said so, we understand she wasn't bad but simply in total obedience to the law.
Morgan Freeman is the supposed representative of the law; the judge and the jury. He is the father figure who interprets the law. Only he has access to the law which arrives in the form of an encrypted piece of fabric from a mystic loom. judge and jury.
There are the soldiers who follow the law as long as it suits them, and their place as cops or outlaws is questioned.
James McAvoy (the hero) didn't know his father and though he obeys the law, is reflecting on its morality and correctness at the same time. It starts with his boss who he listens to while quitely hating her. Then, Freeman takes the place of the law and he listens to him, while still questioning its correctness, he kills who he needs to kill. Then the father figure changes to his real, now dead, father, and he follows his law and design in killing the others, and at last Freeman. But now what happens. He has no law any more so what will he do now?
The movie, like many/most hollywood movies nowadays is influenced by the war in Iraq. That is, when acting, when killing, when are we in the right and when are we murderers. We don't know. We listen to our superiors that these or those people are killers and must be killed to save the world, but then are our superiors lying to us? What can we do? Do we let them live to kill other, or do we kill and hope we are in the right? It asks these questions not merely regarding the war in Iraq, but with regards life in general and the place of the law in our life. Questioning its origin outside you, but also the trappings into adhering to it.
I'll finish with the one inconsistency of the movie. When Angelina Jolie gets the order to kill him, Morgan Freeman tells her to wait until he kills his father to kill him. As long as we think she is bad it works, as Freeman is actually bad. But then later we understand that Jolie is simply following the law, and then when the law says to kill him it doesn't say when (we know the law is simply a list of names to kill) and then she should kill him immediately.
This was simply one way of reading this movie and I'm sure there are many others (in fact I can think of some). I found, though, this one interesting enough to mention as I think many missed it.
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