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‘Reacher’ and ‘Shooter,’ or violence as the only solution

Television networks and platforms could not remain on the sidelines of an already traditional custom of glorifying violence as a solution to problems

Ryan Phillippe in 'Shooter.'Netflix

Ángel S. Harguindey

Jan 03, 2024 - 15:27CET

In these times of Putin and Netanyahu, and without forgetting the fascist outburst of beating up a dummy of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez at a demonstration in Madrid last week, television networks and platforms could not remain on the sidelines of an already traditional custom of glorifying violence as a solution to problems, or reporting extensively, almost with glee, on all the evil and misery of which human beings are capable.

The second season of Reacher (Prime Video), with a formal wrapping of a thriller in which the protagonist and his team seek revenge on those who murdered some of their colleagues, is actually an ode to blows, deaths, and tortures in which the saints are barely distinguishable from the sinners, with that ambiguity that characterizes certain popular parties allied with the extreme right, eager to seek the support of voters who in other instalments managed to raise a scoundrel like Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States.

On the two seasons of Shooter, on Netflix, suffice it to say that the protagonist is a former Marine who was decorated for being the most effective sniper in his unit — that is, the one who achieved the most deaths in Afghanistan — and now, in his Texan retirement, he is forced to return to action after trying to thwart an attempt on the president’s life, an attack that will turn into a series of attempts to kill him and his family carried out by an evil Chechen, who is actually the armed wing of an American businessman for whom greed is the only guide. Naturally, all the protagonists of these series, who conceive the world with a Manichean clarity, succeed in their efforts to save the world.