The lead character, Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) or Wes, is the most disaffected, cube-dwelling, time-punching drone this planet has ever known. He is chewed out by his boss continually and his girlfriend cheats on him with his closest friend -- even though he knows, he says nothing. In addition to his indistinct character, this unsocial slacker's heart starts beating wildly in the face of even a mildly stressful event and he takes sedative pills for his panic attacks. The last thing he needs is to get involved in an armed conflict in a supermarket, speeding away in a sports car from would-be killers or slaying somebody.

But this disengaged and frail personality is put through far greater ordeals than he could ever have imagined. One day he finds out that his long-lost father, a member of a secret society called the Fraternity, was killed -- he had been told his father had been a pilot and had abandoned him as a baby. Furthermore, he has no clue about what this society of assassins does. The Fraternity trains him to avenge his father's death by bringing out his latent wicked powers. It lives by an ancient and unbreakable code: to carry out the death orders given by emotionless fate. The assassins in this society believe that the wrongly woven loops in what they call "the loom of destiny" have a special meaning. Each having a particular meaning in line with its shape, these wrongly woven loops provide them the names of the people to be killed. According to their philosophy, they prefer killing one person rather than the deaths of thousands, thereby justifying their cause as a noble one. This feeble Wes undertakes intricate training and is forged into a fearless killer in his father's mold.

Wes' character development is as inwardly radical as the outward mutation of Hulk in "The Incredible Hulk." He finally pours out the hatred he has harbored for his boss, smashes in his closest friend's face and, most importantly, now enjoys his new mission in life: killing the person whose name is given by the loom, whatever the circumstances may be. He bears another resemblance to Hulk. Just like Edward Norton -- or Hulk -- who unexpectedly mutates into a giant green man, McAvoy, with his innocent looking face, blue eyes and unpretentious looks, mutates into an assassin with lightning-quick reflexes, even though he is the last person one could imagine in such a position. His partner and foxy tutor, Fox (Angelina Jolie), holds her gun in such an artistic fashion that she wants the audience to believe that manslaughter is an art in its own right. The assassins enjoy the perverse pleasure of seeing themselves as God while slaying people. Moreover, they kill in utter submission, believing that it is a holy mission launched for humanity's good. What they submit to is the "loom of destiny." Later in the movie, the course of things undergoes a major change and mortal human interpretations meddle in the loops of the looms; that is, personal ambition and vengeance come into the play, spoiling the holy cause.

"Wanted," which opened this week in theaters across Turkey, has been adapted into a motion picture by Russian director Timur Bekmambetov from a comic strip in which evil people are the heroes. It's not a one-on-one copy of the original work. In this $65 million film, you will see lots of fancy cars being written off one after another, bullets hitting their targets under all conditions and a large number of action scenes as in previous films by Bekmambetov. Even though the setting is Chicago, the film was shot in Russia. The notion of destiny is explained in a symbolic manner through a loom, in addition to a message given by Sloan (Morgan Freeman), the leader of the assassins, who suggests that whenever human will intervenes, the loom of destiny cannot be read correctly and will be read arbitrarily according to personal bias.

The nature of a simple loom's circumscribing destiny itself, and the characters' submitting to this loom as if messages coming from it were divine decrees is a quandary this film leaves us in. Watching many people killed so that the target may be killed makes one question by what standard these people are deemed good or evil or whether thousands are really saved with the death of the target. From this angle, the presentation of names given by the loom as defective lives that need to be disposed of for others to continue living is an indicator that man, who tries to forge a notion of justice despite his utterly limited understanding and insight, thinks he can perceive everything that exists in the world of creation.

Today's Zaman