Blog 6

Irony. In the  movie “Hero” irony  plays a big part in the way the movie is seen. There many instances in  the movie where ironic situations come up. In the movie “Hero” the main character Bernie Laplante is really a not so pleasant person, he has a criminal record, he has many legal problems, he lies a lot and does many illegal things, even when he’s in court with his attorney he steals money out of her purse to pay her back money he owes her. While on the other hand John Bubber is a under privileged man who yet is a good Samaritan who is a very honorable and trust worthy person. But even though Bernie wouldn’t even give back a lost wallet who went into a plane and saved 54 people and even though John is a very honest person he lies and says that he saved the people, the irony being that these to characters are polar opposites but yet they still do the thing that the other one would do. That’s just one of the ironies this movie portrays, here’s some more examples of this pattern.

Another example of irony in the movie is after Bernie saves the people from the plane and goes to see he’s son and then gets kicked out the house trying to explain why he was late(saving the people) and the only reason he saved the people in the first place was when his son told him that his ex-wife’s boyfriend who was a fireman saved a man from a fire and he said he was hero. Then when his ex-wife’s boyfriend came home from the plane accident he called the guy who went into the burning plane crazy and when his ex-wife said you sound like the my ex-husband the boyfriend said he “I should probably meet this guy he sounds like he has his head on straight”.  The irony in that being that the only reason Bernie went in there in the first place was to impress his kid because he heard about the fireman but then the fireman calls the guy that went in the burning plane crazy and says that Bernie was a smart guy for not being the type of guy to do that.

The biggest ironic moment that comes up to me is when Bernie and John are on the side of the building and they’re talking about the whole situation with Bubber lying to the everyone and taking credit for saving the people, and Bernie talks into staying with the story. It’s ironic because Bernie was being accused of buying the purse off of Bubber and black mailing him, but yet when Bubber’s on the ledge he goes out and basically saves him by talking him out of jumping and then Bernie slips on the ledge and Bubber saves him from falling. The ironies are that Bubber saves Bernie from falling, The fake hero who lied saved the real hero.

Many things in life are ironic. There are ironic situations that happen everyday and with that being said still no one usually sees these things coming. I guess irony just works funny that way and the movie “Hero” portrays it very well.