The film is scathing in its depiction and analysis of what director Thompson considers the human potential for sadistic, conscienceless action. Yet, it frames this in a clear indictment of US foreign policy as Macher can validate his sadism as a proper means of the demonstration of torture as a valuable political instrument and be accordingly condoned by all governments. Morally devoid from the repugnant cruelty of his actions, he even believes that he is a good man. Bronson too is a killer, but in form true to the actor’s image he is one who acts with care and discretion, however solid in his self-righteousness. Even in the world of killers there is a moral code which apparently must be maintained: the torturer is the nadir of this persona, at one end of an already questionable moral spectrum. With his incestuous love for his sister nicely implied throughout the movie, Macher represents the depths of human perversity, in the process making the morally ambiguous Bronson a figure of moral restitution – indeed, in his developing relationship to Saldana and her child he even has the potential to assume the role of father, the most valuable responsibility in any patriarchal order and even the proof of redemption. Despite the potential for human warmth in the relationship between these two characters The Evil That Men Do is an unrelentingly depressing movie experience, powerful and disturbing in its moral implications and ambiguities.
Even in such a body of work as that between Bronson and Thompson The Evil That Men Do is despairing in its irony, Macher at one point even stating that his real reward will be in heaven. The implication is that the human quality of evil is its very inability to recognize or accept that it is in effect doing evil. The quality of moral self-righteousness can thus condone the worst actions – an idea making the film amongst the most corrosive of the vigilante cycle of films that began in earnest with Death Wish. Bronson’s exercise of moral choice is thus seen as a responsible decision: indeed, with a past as murky as this character’s, punishing Macher may be Bronson’s final act of validation. Unlike his other vigilante characters on film, Bronson here gets little visible enjoyment out of his mission – he is a professional avenger but still a moral man with a grasp of good and evil, the last bastion left the vigilante. Still, as in all of the Thompson / Bronson output, the vigilante figure remains morally ambiguous. It is as if in a world where evil has spread to the extent that it can no longer recognize itself, good (let alone absolute good) is now accordingly relative. Morality and justice can only be restored through acts that are morally compromised in themselves. The innate fallen-world despair in this systemic dissolution of morality is a theme essayed throughout the Bronson / Thompson films and one which grows from seeing the films in sequence. read more