The Pursuit of Happyness
made the mistake of hoping the breathless hype of this review at LRC (by a young punk who apparently shouts at the screen in public theaters so everyone can know what a blowhard he is) was based on something solid.
minor spoilers
this film is probably more fiction than fact, apparently. not that it matters, but “based on a true story” here is the usual hollywood stretch.
max raskin at LRC makes a big deal about chris gardner not wanting to steal from others, preferring to do things for himself. horse shit! he fucks over two landlords into the eviction stage. they are subsidizing his life involuntarily, in direct contradiction to the claims at LRC. would it be worse if he spread the theft among more people, in the usual socialism scam?
he rips off a cab driver, running away after stiffing the guy on a fare for which he was at least half liable (fully liable, IMO). evading the cab driver, who put himself in a bad position to chase this thief, he loses a medical gizmo he was trying to sell. it’s then claimed, somewhat reasonably, by a nutty bum. in a chance encounter with the bum another day, gardner chases him and takes the gizmo. huff huff. okay for gardner to steal, but don’t try it on him. this double standard is shown again with somebody he loaned $14, and who thought, perhaps understandably, that he’d worked off the debt.
gardner lies to coworkers, his bosses, potential clients, and landlords, all in the quest to work at a brokerage firm notorious for the fraudulent practice of stock churning.
the ultra favorable review from LRC is classic overreaction from the “all businesses are good” delirium choir of the liberty circuit. because they may be put out of business, all businesses not up the ass of government are superior to government, but it does not make them automatically good. it doesn’t insulate all clients from fraud. it doesn’t make everyone hanging up a shingle worthy of unqualified praise.
gardner may have gone back much later to make things right with his landlords. that isn’t shown. regardless, he didn’t handle it properly at the time, and his attitude upon second eviction was pure resentment, though he’d been amply and justly forewarned.
the film does help expose the criminality of the IRS, and highlights the monopoly tactics of cops and other parking nazis. however, selling gardner or the film as picture perfect is a full crock — as big a crock as the following ludicrous claim:
[...] everyone knows injustice rarely occurs on the free market.
my ass.