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Downbeat endings are a Clint Eastwood speciality.
The good guys dont always win in his movies.
Make no mistake, this is a downbeat ending, too.
But its also, in another sense, kind of … hopeful.
Over the course of this brief conversation, Justin pleads his own case.
The defendant may be innocent ofthiscrime, he argues, but hes not an innocent man.
He has a history of violence and could hurt someone in the future if given the chance.
Would it be justice for Justin to go to prison for a crime he didnt even know he committed?
And what about the greater good Faith could do if elected district attorney?
Her election bid will surely be over the minute the truth about the case comes to light.
Its certainly alluring to the lawyer and maybe to an audience sympathetic to the movies central moral dilemma.
Justin isnt just appealing to Faiths self-interest.
Hes using intellectual gymnastics to justify his own.
By tacitly accepting this miscarriage of justice, Faith makes a devils bargain.
But then comes the final scene, when Justins domestic bliss is interrupted by a knock on the door.
Its Faith on the other side.
She has to come clean, regardless of the damage it will do to her career.
The system is often the enemy in Eastwoods movies.
It leaves soldiers out to dry inAmerican SniperandFlags of Our Fathers.
It protects the privileged at the expense of the vulnerable, as inAbsolute Power.
You could call this a happy ending of sorts.
Not for Justin, of course he wont be getting away with what hes done.
But maybe a happy ending for the American judiciary.
It offers a vision of an America ruled, and maybe ruined, by self-interest.
Until the last scene, that is.
Here, a glimmer of optimism at last appears via one lawyers virtuous rejection of self-interest.
Not for nothing, perhaps, is she named Faith.
