butterfly on a wheel

The title is quite intriguing and from it I could not guess the movie’s genre. I did a little research about it and here’s what I found.

The film’s title is an allusion to a line of Alexander Pope’s Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot: “Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?” The line is usually interpreted as questioning why someone would put massive effort into achieving something minor or unimportant.


The movie started slow and I thought about finishing only half coz I watched the movie around 11PM. But the gist of the story came when tom ryan (played by pierce brosnan) popped into the scene. As in literally “popped” into the car backseat of couple’s neil and abby randall (played by Gerard Butler and Maria Bello) announcing captive of their only child. the situation was hopeless. The motive of kidnapping is usually equated to the need of money but the story has its own twist. There are lots of questions unanswered by your thoughts as the story goes along and it will actually tempt you to go back into the first part of the movie, when all is quiet and nice and if you’re trying to pick up some clues – well you actually won’t see them unless you let the movie finish. It was getting late and so I thought that an hour short of sleep is better than prolonged anticipation.

I swear at first I wanted to strangle tom ryan because I was so affected at what he was doing, later when the movie nears its end, I realize that everything happens for a reason. The twist was actually turning your punch to the victim… but which one? … watch it yourself and tell me which one you’d like to hit that hard. ;)