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country's assistance). The head of the camp returns to being a doctor and denies having taken part in the tortures and excesses he ordered, while the tortured co-worker that accused Joe of conspiracy is given a government job. This ex-coworker makes a number of empty promises to get Joe out as soon as the "political climate" settles but says that his confession to helping murder
Maximilian makes him a sensitive case. For having destroyed the old government, but also never having 'played ball' with the new one, Joe is stuck in a prison cell until the end of time. Twelve years later, we find Joe writing his memoirs in a white cell resembling that of a prison's or an asylum's, seemingly oblivious even to his daughter's visits. It is possible that he is insane, or that he is perfectly sane, but the woman that visited was an actor pretending to be his daughter to break him down. She leaves Joe writing his memoirs and exits his cell that is really located in some low end residential apartment complex implying that Joe is not a political prisoner but is under some sort of
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itself. One of his former co-workers, assumedly after being severely beaten, admits to the conspiracy's veracity and accuses Joe of being involved. Joe is quickly brought to the dreaded Room 12. It is there that the audience is revealed to a shocking twist: Joe is accused of never helping Thorne conquer the government or being a commando in a covert-ops group, but rather a standard recruit in the armed forces discharged after the standard two years. During this, Joe seems to hallucinate heavily, his interrogators becoming characters dead and alive we have seen throughout the film and is asked once again what is better than a big juicy steak (a recurring question with a wordplay answer, a slogan concerning the obligation of veganism). Throughout the scene it is suggested he may be being tortured mentally or is undergoing a paranoid or psychotic episode. His answer to any of the questions is never shown.
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respect him for his bearing and intellect, if not his message. Maximilian, trying to quash spiraling dissent, takes the risk of letting Thorne out of jail, hoping to have him thus become not a great folk hero but another greedy, dishonest politician. Joe, too, is soon promoted to one of the guards at
Maximilian's palace and a position in the country's elite military unit. After seeing Junior's madness firsthand, he lets Thorne and his followers into the palace's inner chambers while Junior and Josephine are engaged in a revolting sex game. Thorne shoots the pair and becomes a ruler governing a country as absolutely totalitarian, if not more so, than the deceased Maximilian. Thorne also encourages separating children from their parents, imposes
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Subjected to numerous beatings and isolation, Joe continually refuses to sign his loyalty oath. At one point Thorne visits but does not recognize his old friend, even after Joe attempts to show him repeatedly who he is. Joe is also accused of being part of a "hidden" conspiracy within the prison
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Joe is a warder working at the prison where John Thorne is held at the beginning of the movie. During this period, Thorne squats in a shabby cell, endures frequent beatings from the other guards and writes revolutionary slogans on the walls with his own feces. Joe comes to learn from Thorne and
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Thorne is killed in his bath by one of his once loyal followers. The revolutionary government is quickly overthrown. Junior's in-laws and nephew are revealed to have escaped during Thorne's revolution and, having lived in exile, have returned to re-establish the old government (with an outside
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For his assistance in assassinating the dictator, Joe is hailed as a hero by Thorne. Nevertheless, as Joe realizes that his one-time friend is just as bad as, if not worse than, his predecessor, he refuses to ally with the new regime. For this, Thorne sends Joe to a re-education camp.
373:) is the ignorant, vindictive and petulant ruler of a troubled (but unnamed) country. Maximilian has two main interests: enjoying himself and running his country's movie industry. The output of the nation's film studios is limited to terrible action-adventure schlock with names like
293:, based on several incidents throughout history in which tyrannical rulers were overthrown by new leaders who proved to be just as bad, if not worse, and several such cases are alluded to. The title is taken from the saying, "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."
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Monsters and
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712:. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
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429:as President Maximilian II (a.k.a. "Junior")
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564:Historical references in the film include
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16:For the EP by Information Society, see
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423:as John Thorne (later Chairman Thorne)
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840:. The Quotations Page.
162:Bauer Martinez Studios
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252:$ 15,180 (Worldwide)
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439:Marc Warren
218:101 minutes
106:Marc Warren
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678:References
648:Weathermen
616:'s play),
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