I like to watch cops-and-robbers flicks – not to see the plainly good guys chasing after one-sided bad guys, but to study the moral dilemmas that characters on both sides are scripted to face. In ‘The Stool Pigeon’, another dimension is added to the sometimes convoluted nature of good and evil. A cop becomes uncertain as to whether to use a stool pigeon (informer) to solve major crimes, just as the informer too is uncertain as to whether to secretly serve the cops.
At some points, the cop feels racked with guilt, as he wonders if he had sent the informer to the dark side, where he will certainly risk his life, while the informer also feels racked with guilt for pretending to be evil, as he is driven to be perpetually on the edge of really crossing over. It is the greyness of it all that is as intriguing as it is disturbing. The cops are not totally good or evil, just as the robbers are neither totally good nor evil too, just like the informers. The main characters are on a sliding scale of good and evil, changing positions from one crucial decision to another. Is this the story of our lives too, albeit told in a more intense manner?
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