2+2, not 4

Treat the audience intelligently

Mar 05, 2021

Mystery Mob!

A few weeks ago I wrote about how mysteries and thrillers utilize technology in creative ways. It was fun to work through some of my favorite examples. This week I’d like to do the same thing, but for an entirely different topic:

Don’t underestimate your audience.

The best crime, mystery, and thriller tales have to toe a line -- give the audience too much and there’s no suspense; give the audience too little and they’re too confused to enjoy themselves. The stories that tend to stick with us are those that make the you put things together - they don’t give you 4; they give you 2+2.

I’m highlighting an instance from two of my favorite crime films where the writers/directors force their audience to put the character backstory together on their own (in very different ways), and why it really works.

No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men is a neo-Western crime thriller. Oh, and it’s a masterclass in treating the audience intelligently. From a plot perspective, the movie keeps us on the line, teasing us with juuuust enough to understand, provided we’re paying close attention.

However, plot aside, No Country for Old Men is about character. The film reveals character backstory subtly, using silent action rather than “as you know” dialogue or flashbacks. Let’s take a look at the film’s main character, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin).

Right off the bat, in his opening scene, we’re introduced to Moss as he’s hunting in the desert. While hunting, he stumbles on something more: it looks like the wreckage from a shootout, some deal gone wrong.

He moves slowly, creeping forward not with uncertainty but the exact opposite - he’s measured, controlled. He uses his binoculars. He checks surroundings. There’s no fear, no misstep. He’s clearly done something like this before.

Moss eventually finds the “last man standing” from this deal gone wrong. The guy is mortally wounded, holding a boatload of cash. (I won’t get into the rest for the sake of spoilers, but that basically sets the whole movie off to the races.)

Anyway, it’s not until much later, in the last third of the film, that a bit of dialogue from another character reveals to the audience some important backstory about Llewelyn Moss: he was in the Vietnam War. Of course he was, we think as we watch. No wonder he’s so good with that gun, so comfortable in all of this action.

A weaker film would have handed out that tidbit early in the film, instead of making us believe it first. They treat us intelligently, and it’s a better story because of it.

Check out the scene for yourself (graphic content warning).

Pulp Fiction

Pulp Fiction is a neo-noir film that tackles crime in Los Angeles, following a large cast of characters and multiple, semi-connected storylines. It’s easily my favorite Quentin Tarantino film (and honestly a top 3 all time favorite film of mine in general, but I digress).

Unlike No Country for Old Men, which gives us 2+2 instead of 4 through silent action, Pulp Fiction gives us 2+2 in typical Tarantino style: his trademark “shoot the shit” dialogue. He uses action to reveal character too (as any good storyteller will do), but he goes further - he has the characters chat about ideas completely unrelated to the plot in addition to their action. The two aspects work incredibly well together to reveal character without the audience being spoon-fed.

Let’s look at the introduction of Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent (John Travolta). We have two sharply dressed men opening a trunk filled with guns. They lament “not having shotguns” for this type of thing and mention “our guy” in there, but don’t give us much more.

The scene continues on as we follow them into an apartment complex and up an elevator. They have a conversation that has nothing to do with what they are about to do (kill some people).

What is their conversation about you ask? Well, it’s about whether giving a foot massage to another man’s wife is okay or not. Through that seemingly innocuous conversation, we get to know quite a few things:

These men are pros. They’re wielding guns, and about to go use them in some capacity, but are calm enough to chit chat about something dumb.
These men don’t care much for human life. They mention their boss, Marcellus, tossing Tony Rocky Horror off a roof for giving Marcellus’s wife (Uma Thurman) a foot massage. Do they lament the man’s injury? Nah, not really. They’re more interested in the abstract debate of the foot massage.
These men are chauvinistic. They see Marcellus’s wife as that - their boss’s woman. They don’t see her as Mia (her name in the film) and they don’t ever consider what her side of the story might be. They see the tale through the lens of the two men: the man who gave her the foot massage and Marcellus.
They are Los Angeles through and through (or at least Jules is). They go into another side conversation about television Pilots and Jules explains what they are and how they work - it’s a conversation you’d hear in LA, but not in Milwaukee, for instance.

The dialogue and action together, weave a nice tale about who these two guys are. But it’s all inferred, not explicitly told. And it really works.

Check out the scene for yourself (graphic language warning).

What other films treat their audience intelligently?

Any other instances of treating the audience intelligently in crime/mystery films that you loved? Let us know in the comments (I’m sure there are plenty I’m not thinking of).

As always,

Stay ‘spicious

-Andy & Mark

Mystery Nibbles

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