The binary opposition between the personification of private property and the accumulation of wealth in a rich Texan woman who racially abuses her workers and the redistribution of said wealth into public good by the preacher who kills her to regain his freedom and personhood puts forward the clashing of the tenets of liberalism, between wealth and freedom, god and justice, in another of Linklater’s films deeply ingrained with his liberal ideology. Whilst on trial, the battle between a killer who preserved the body and cannibalistic family members coming out of the woodworks with vulturistic financial advisors to pick the meat from the bones sees the questioning of the legal, religious, and social systems of America, and whether any can bring justice. When put to a jury it is necessary to escape the cult of personality American culture brings to messianic figures appearing to do any social good as the machine of commodification sets it sights on turning community into hierarchies of social capital; when put to the people the law fails to serve its purpose in representing their will; and when put to god, there is silence. Much like the conclusion of another religious epic in Blues Brothers, whilst the protagonists belong in jail, they belong there not to rot, but to heal the hearts of their fellow inmates.
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