Written by Mr. Mouseburger 9th Feb 2006
Kindly submitted by Novus
After militaristic Frank Fitz witnesses what he believes to be his son performing a homosexual act on middle-aged next-door neighbour Lester Burnham, Fitz confronts Burnham while he is working out in his garage. It is pouring rain outside Fitz has on a white shirt which is soaked. He is crying.
As Lester embraces Fitz in a fatherly way, he asks the Colonel what is wrong and if he can help. Without a word, the Colonel, presumably attempting to understand why his son is gay [I disagree, see below for my comment - OB], kisses Lester. Lester pushes him back and tells him he has the wrong idea, at which point Fitz leaves the garage.
Lester Burnham's marriage had fallen apart after he became despondent with his wife and their suburban lifestyle. We see his wife, Carol, in her car outside the house listening to a self-help audio tape, pulling her gun out of the glove box, saying to herself, "Lester, I refuse to be a victim!"
After resolving his obsession with his daughter's best friend, she asks him how he is. He tells her he's great. She leaves for the bathroom, and he smiles to himself, repeating, "I'm great." A gun barrel appears behind his head and the camera pans to a white wall. The shot rings out and the wall is covered with blood and brains.
In an ironic twist, Carol enters the kitchen where Lester was killed, gun in purse, and is surprised to find her husband has been killed. She collapses, crying.
In his home office, Colonel Frank Fitz's white shirt is covered with Lester's blood as he puts up his gun, telling us who killed Lester.
I have two problems with this review.
Firstly, I personally think the Colonel had some serious latent homesexuality issues of his own, which is why he was so homophobic in the first place. I don't think he kissed Lester as an experiment, I think he was genuinely jealous (and furious) of his son, and couldn't help himself. Afterwards, the shame and humiliation he felt was enough to doom his neighbour - if Lester was killed, nobody would ever know what had happened.
Secondly, I would be inclined to say Lester was Major Ambivalent. We feel sympathy with him throughout the film but I'm not sure he has enough admirable qualities to qualify as a "Goody".
OB
Great snakes-on-a-plane, this is complicated! Please make the conflict less vague, also try to better clarify which Fitz (actually spelled Fitts). you are speaking of.A bit mixed-up on pronouns and antecedents, better as; After Lester resolves his obsession with Angela, his daughter's best friend, his wife, Carolyn asks him how he is.
Uh, no you're both wrong. It was Angela who asked him how he was.
And yes, Col Fitts was a flaming homosexual in serious denial.
Frank Fitz was not the killer! The power & velocity of a gun shot results in blood, skin & other body parts being sprayed in the same direction that the bullet was traveling. The shooter, even at close range, would not have the blood bath evident on Frank Fitz's t-shirt.
Was this just a technical mistake, or was someone else responsbile for the shooting?
Uh... yes, he was. Who else could it be?
Okay, so if Frank wasn't the one who shot Lester...where did all the blood on Frank's clothes come from, then? Technical error or not, the fact Frank is shown afterwards with blood on him is meant as a visual cue to let us know he was the killer.
i dont think that frank killed lester - like the comment before the blood spray was wrong . I reckon the colonel killed his wife after realising that his marriage was just a cover up, "for show" as said before in the garage.
I think Sam Mendes intended the audience to not know who shot Lester - for all we know it could have been someone else e.g. buddy or "brad" from work..