Hancock as America?

So, Hancock opens up on Wednesday. I’m reviewing it for the Standard’s website, thoughts’ll be up on Wednesday. But I would like to touch on something Kyle Smith posited in his review, namely the idea that Hancock the character is an allegory for America. It’s certainly not an outlandish idea–while taking notes during the preview screening, I jotted down this one: “lots of eagle imagery–Hancock as metaphor for U.S.?” When I wrote “lots of eagle imagery” I meant LOTS: Smith’s drunken, surly anti-hero has a knit wool cap with an eagle on the front, for starters. When he’s whiling away the days in prison, he etches eagles into every free space on the walls, and I’m pretty sure there’s one more instance I can’t remember at the moment. This imagery is never explained; it simply seems to be an intrinsic, unexplained obsession.

Kyle takes the idea that Hancock is America writ small and runs with it:

Hancock is a guy whose symbol is the eagle. He’s the “only one of my kind,” a lone, lonely superpower. He’s unpolished, maybe even swinish. He does the right thing (in Winston Churchill’s words) only eventually. He whales on pissy little Frenchmen named Michel and his name, of course, is in a sense the name of the first American. (When else should his story be told but on the Fourth of July weekend?)

Hancock didn’t ask to be the most powerful force in the world, and after taking a lot of abuse about his methods he is having trouble coping with himself. You might say his personal sense of whether he’s headed in the wrong direction or right direction is at an all time low. He sleeps the days away on benches with a bottle of booze.

When roused to duty he calls to mind Colin Powell’s remark that America didn’t ask to be the world’s policeman–but who else can you call when you need a cop?

Kyle’s argument has some credence–a ton of credence, actually. Watching the movie the first time, I took the American imagery as a snide swipe at American power and hegemony: America, the drunken lout, throwing its weight around, causing oodles of collateral damage while basically not giving a damn. But maybe director Peter Berg (and producer Michael Mann, the duo behind The Kingdom) were going for a pro-America allegory. A second viewing appears to be in order…