That’s a straight-up awesome movie. No heroes, no good guys. The main character does not grow whatsoever by the end. Despite the context of its subject it’s not sentimental, not preachy and displays no “message” for the viewer to learn from. Entertaining, well-acted, great story. How movies should be. And that opening credits sequence is a glorious and brilliant piece of pessimistic art.
I think that the terms of this deal are very bad for the US. We traded the wrong person, a god-damned arms dealer, for the right reasons. Were it an even trade, a Russian in the US on drug charges for Griner, that'd be fair. I'm glad she's coming home. I may have said, when she got caught, that she broke another country's laws she shouldn't get special treatment, blah, blah, blah. I don't think I thought that, but... I can't remember. I'm glad she's out of an inexcusably long and unfair prison sentence for possession of small amounts of cannabis product. In the same way I feel nobody should be serving sentences for weed. I want every government on the planet and beyond to get on the Weed-is-alright bandwagon and stop locking people up for it.
“Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up.” -Barack Obama. The people celebrating this as some kind of victory are brain-dead.
But we brought her home! I think we absolutely should have and gone pretty far to do so because it was clearly a flex on Russia's end. At the end of the day she broke a law in a place where you don't break the law. You don't trade what amounts to an actual criminal under their laws for a multinational arms dealer no matter how much it saves you on domestic PR.
I'm celebrating it as a victory for "not having this fucking thing hanging over our heads anymore." The White House was in an absolute no-win situation, and were going to get a ton of criticism no matter what they did. At least now we can get all of the criticism out our system and move on to turning Poland into a glorious post-Soviet NATO hedgehog.
Wow what a victory. It’s almost like those people in office are supposed to make the tough choices. The best one being not releasing an arms trafficker. All they had to do was nothing and it’s a major fuck-up no matter how people try to spin it. Meanwhile, people are still in American prisons for the same shit.
If you think the American people were going to stand for "we don't negotiate with terrorists, so we're going to let an American citizen rot in a Russian prison," then I think you've misread the American people. They're already (pretending to be?) mad that we haven't gotten back an American that the Russians stated they were 100% not going to release. Americans think the President is some kind of Magician/Monarch.
It also continues to promote the narrative that rich people / famous people / athletes / actors get special treatment. You know they wouldn't have trade that dude back to Russia for me if I had been locked up in a Russian jail.
If her first meal isn't at Enzo's.... Of all the things we'd like Russia to do or stop doing, this feels paltry at best. Maybe the time was right now that the election shit is over, before the House spins up a bunch of investigations into everything we're sending into Ukraine. Maybe this was one part of a larger and more quiet negotiation. The visibility was the only thing that made this an issue. Griner was paid a stupid amount of money to play basketball in Russia, and fucked around and found out why "doing business in Russia" comes with all those warnings. If any country can look at one arms dealer and laugh, it's the US government. "Ok, here you go. Tell us how Javelins taste in a few weeks, why don't you?" That said....why is the WNBA still a fucking thing? Between this and the rail strike think, Biden has fucked this week the fuck up.
The people stand for it all the time. She's not the first or only person that is currently locked up in a foreign prison for a petty crime. It was a PR stunt and nothing else. There is no way to spin this into being a good trade.
Can we all agree that "Merchant of Death" Viktor Bout is the dopest name of all time, and needs to be a Bond villain like....immediately?
Of course it's a PR stunt, that's why the Russians grabbed a prominent athlete instead of some random vodka-enthusiast from Dubuque. They were forcing the White House into the stunt because the only other option was for the White House to come out and say "She's no LeBron, we're leaving her there." Americans who believe the President has a "gas prices" lever and a "override Congress" button under his desk would think he's just refusing to pick up the "make Russia give her back" phone.
I don't think "prominent" as much as "demographically kryptonite". You may not, because it sounds like what you call your bits. Seriously, Viktor "Merchant of Death" Bout is the villainous leader of every 1980's "fight to the death in this underground fight club" movie. Maybe it was done in conjunction with Belgium to ensure JCVD's retirement plan? "Give me arms dealer Viktor Merchant of Death Bout for lesbian black giraffe sports ball lady" "Yeah, I have that much cocaine in me. Fuck yeah." (Does a cool split and jet skis away) He could also be the final boss you unlock in the Street Fighter games.
Does any of that change the fact that the US traded an arms dealer for what amounts to a simple possession ticket? US could have just thrown their hands up saying she broke the law. We didn't have to give up an arms dealer because she's famous. We took the bait.
It's a PR nightmare. No way Biden would have done this before midterms. It's that bad. But it will be old enough that most people won't care in 2024, and the people that wanted it, no matter what, will still be happy then.
The opening credits were the message of the movie. The only message you were going to get. If after that, you chose to stay and watch Nick Cage do his Nick Cage thing in the wacky world of illegal arms trading, you just became a willing accessory to the crime.
I'm convinced that Margot Robie just watches that movie on repeat for the catharsis of seeing a coked-out Jared Leto get killed, just the way she fantasized throughout the entire shoot of Suicide Squad.
I go back to Biden can take the PR hit (or he thinks he can), and Putin needs the win, but the real exchange was over something else, likely getting those two to sit down and decide Ukraine's future. The timing had to be right to avoid the new House slew of investigations, and I'm willing to bet there are a few dozen folks who've done the same shit as "Most metal name ever" but happen to be from allied nations and we are all to happy to let them go about their business. Arms dealer in our world means "Raytheon or Lockheed executive". Also, at this point an arms dealer going back to Russia will do what...? Seriously, the state of their military, and the environment they are operating in...I think this dude is more neutered by the circumstances than anyone would admit. This was a PR stunt, and the real question was timing: how long could the Biden State Department let Griner rot, or would the incoming House force his hand, or could this arms dealer be rendered inert with a long enough stay in Guantanomo? I don't think you get any progress in de-escalating Ukraine with this stunt still outstanding, and this creates space for some back-room deals. Not a win, and if the story in the news is the full story, it's fucking embarassing.