Troy Warr writes: "Killers makes obvious comments on violence in American society and in the media, but it is so excessive it becomes guilty of the same thing it criticizes. Its power comes from the use of violence, and it would be weak without it. Eventhough a film like Killers is at least trying to bring up the issue of violence, I'm not sure that it is useful. It seems to me that the only people who recognize the use of violence as a critical cultural statement are the people who are already clued into the fact that such a statement needs to be made. There are too many people who are either unaware that they are being manipulated by images in mass media, or they are saying, "Cool...more blood." " The use of violence to critique violence is old theory applied to practice in various ways over the years (just speaking of cinema history alone). At least as far back as PUBLIC ENEMY and SCARFACE, the filmmakers defending the use of violence on the grounds that they were depicting "reality" and needed to show it in its gruesome glory in order to turn people away from it. By the 1960s, directors like Peckinpah in THE WILD BUNCH and Penn in BONNIE AND CLYDE were making similar claims and upping the ante in the depiction of bloodshed. Now, the ante has been upped to include scenes of sadistic torture. I know all the debate about whether violence breeds more violence and the conflicting or inconclusive test results. But I do think--as a product of random observation and anecdotal evidence--that at the very least the depiction of violence does nothing to lessen violence. The only claim that can be made for it is whether such violence works artistically in the context of the film. That may include some reference to its effects on the viewer's emotions, but we should at least stop pretending that it is a kind of social therapy. (If it were, we should all give the kids as many quarters to play MORTAL KOMBAT as possible!) --Don Larsson, Mankato State U., MN