Hostage

The synopsis first took me to a similar setting from Six Sense. A guy haunted by his failure to handle a situation he was supposed to be good at. After watching the movie, I saw a different ending. And when I browsed through the deleted scenes and extended scenes, I saw the internal conflict that they did not want to show in the theatrical version: He still cannot get over the event and is not coping with it as well as the theatrical version.

As a doctor, Death comes part and parcel of daily events. You can kill a patient. A doctor from Seremban onced tried to lecture us, that we have the licience to kill. You can issue the wrong medication, wrong dosage, or administer the wrong management. This is the licence that we own. Of making mistakes which may cause death.

But how do you cope with that knowledge? Just like Jeff Talley (Bruce Willis). He knows his job comes with a risk of losing lives, and in the first scene, he screwed up. Lives were lost. What pierced his heart, was the death of a small child. He could not let it pass him.

Honestly, even from my past post, I still don't know how to cope with Death when it comes.

But I think, knowing about this licence, is only the first step. Accepting it is the one that allows us to move on. For Talley, he could not accept it, and from the extended version, he was even toying with the notion of suicide. For one, how could you live by your mistake that took innocent lives? How could you carry on doing what you are doing? If you made a mistake, you can do it again. If you haven't, you could one day...

Then again, what is the principle of doing what you do?
It's about helping save lives. Taking risks to save lives.