Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)

The movie promotes the British idea of egalitarianism. This idea is elitist. Instead of resetting the civilisation by bringing everyone down to the lowest common denominator, lift everyone up to the best practice of the meritocracy. Cultivate the substance, flirt on the surface.

The movie's incessant violence suggests that any policy decision (or indecision) entails human suffering, and so ethical tradeoffs are unavoidable. These trade-offs are to be resolved to promote the diversity of competing ideas embedded into humanity.

The movie gets away with a lot of violence because it does not expect the viewer to savour it. There is no time. Violence is fast; it kills before it hurts. Nor does the director outsource violence to the audience by building up the anticipation. Violence is unexpected; the focus is on the consequence, not the process.

Colin Firth’s persona—in this and in other pictures—accords with—and here, endorses—Hemingway’s definition of nobility: “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” Intrapersonal competition is art; interpersonal competition is business.