Cyn

Life takes strange twists sometimes.  Sometimes, well actually a lot of the time, you can't choose where you live as a kid, what school you attend, who your neighbors are.  And sometimes, those lack of choices influence who you grow up to be.

That's what happens in Birdman by Jack Teeter.   The anti-hero and his family have problems with the neighbors.  Problems that extend throughout Dante Coalson's high school and college career.  Problems that leave Dante with an unsatisfied thirst for revenge, a revenge that lasts his entire life.

Birdman isn't for everyone (like young kids or people looking for a romance).  Dante is a dangerous man who lives a violent life in the world of drugs.  He inspires little sympathy past the opening scenes because Dante is the bad guy.  But how did he get that way?  Why can't he let go of the past?

Dante Coalson, in my humble opinion represents the dark side of all of us.   All of us who can't figure out why the system has let us down again.  Why the rich get richer, why the airlines can steal employee pensions, why those who commit insider trading get a slap on the wrist. All of us who can' t understand that the rain falls and the good and the wicked equally; who resent the neighbor who gets all the breaks when we get all the crap.  You know the ones who live the fairy tale life that we think is so ideal, that we think they took from us somehow.

That's what Birdman is about.  How all the repressed anger expresses itself in the revenge we wish we could carry out sometimes, but our humanity and morals refuse to allow.