Forewarned is…

Recently, I saw the film Kinky Boots, which was OK, but had one thing that really annoyed me.

In fairness, it’s not just that one film that does it – it’s almost a staple cliché of the film industry – Dirty Harry did it for sure, and so have many, many others.

The sin? Lazy writing. When a film – or anything else, in fact – relies on something relevant being repeated. In the instance of Kinky Boots, yes, it’s amusing when the boot lands on the microphone’s activation switch, and thus the entire factory hears what is being talked about in the office. It is NOT as amusing when that self-same device is then used again towards the end of the film. It’s just lazy. Find something else, some other way of doing what is essentially the same joke.

In the other example I used, Dirty Harry repeats his trademark line – if he’d only done so once, at the end of the film, it would have had far more impact than it does at the end when it’s already been done before. It’s dull, and makes the character – previously ruthless and decidedly unconventional – repetitive and unimaginative too. Which isn’t how it should be.

I don’t have an answer, I don’t know how to fix it. It’s just something that really annoys me.