Movie:13 days (main character-JFK) and the Duty Triangle - Essay Example

As too many cooks spoil the broth, here too many script writers have spoiled the story. The director has tried to give equal space to all the writers, but that has not worked to his advantage. One thing that this movie makes you think of is somewhere in all professions, duty takes priority. Irrespective of how one performs, duty is the only thing necessary for sustenance in a profession. Duty comes encased in a triangle with intuition, principle and consequences forming the three edges. This ethics triangle seeks a thin thread balance of virtue, principle and good consequences.

Each of the three depends on and is supported by each other. It suggests that the valuable aspects of each approach should be incorporated in one’s own ethical reasoning without ignoring that any of the approaches used single-handedly can cause problems. As James Savara rightly says in her book ‘The Ethics Primer’ that, “One is best grounded when operating within an ethics triangle formed by the three approaches with duty at the centre.”(Chapter 4, page 48). Now, applying this ethics triangle or duty triangle to the main character of the movie ‘City Hall’, what we have is; the movie begins with a street shooting between a detective and a gangster.

In the exchange of bullets, they are both killed along with an unlucky 6 year old black boy who gets caught in the crossfire. For the New York Mayor (Al Pacino) this is all in a day’s work. He is a silver tongued populist with ambitions towards the White House. He moves into smooth action accompanied by his young 29 year old deputy Mayor Calhoun (John Cusack). Those who prowl in the corridors of power do not come with convenient labels. Different aspects of his nature impel him to choose alternative courses of action; ethnic, genial, altruistic, egotistical, touchy -- and crooked.

Now here comes the duty triangle. For every step that he takes, it is backed up by one or all three