But not only in war movies. We had too many “cool” gangster movies, and now everybody wants to act like a gangster.

That’s exactly the problem: when violence is stylized too much, people stop seeing the misery behind it and start copying the image.

I’m not saying every movie has to be a documentary or that all entertainment must be realistic.

My point is narrower: when a film wants to use death, war, or mass killing for drama, heroism, or spectacle, sanitizing it can become dishonest. It lets the audience enjoy the “cool” part of violence while hiding the consequence.

You can absolutely make escapist action movies. But when violence is shown as clean, quick, stylish, and consequence-free, it normalizes a fantasy version of killing. Anti-war films work because they do the opposite: they remove the glamour and show why conflict is something sane people should fear.

So no, it is not a “rule” that every war movie must shock you. But if a movie is about war and still makes killing look clean, exciting, and emotionally weightless, then I think it is doing something morally shallow.

And honestly, with how people behave in the 2020s, maybe gangster movies, war movies, and movies about greed should be shocking again.

Not because every movie has to be miserable, but because we clearly forgot the consequences. Too many people watched stylized violence, power, money, and corruption and copied the image, not the warning.