A 1985 film directed by Peter Weir and starring Harrison Ford, who also earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Also starring Kelly McGillis, Lukas Haas and Danny Glover.
Samuel Lapp, a young Amish boy journeying to Baltimore with his mother, the recently widowed Rachel, witnesses two men kill an undercover police officer in a Philadelphia train station bathroom. Detective John Book takes the boy into custody to protect him when it turns out that the killers are crooked narcotics cops. After a shootout, Book is wounded and hides with the Lapps on their farm, and ends up developing a relationship with Rachel as he recovers, adapting to the Amish lifestyle and being tentatively accepted by the community. But their idyllic lifestyle is soon shattered once the villains figure out where they went and descend upon the unsuspecting Amish town with their guns.
This film provides examples of:
- Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: Inverted. The movie has only a few - albeit nail-bitingly intense and suspenseful - action scenes in the first and third acts, the entire middle portion of the film is tender, elegaic romantic drama.
- Actually Pretty Funny:
- After spending a night in Eleine's house, Rachel has a talk with John about him and his sister, working almost like a mouthpiece and a mediator for Eleine. Eventually both Rachel and John end up laughing about all the things she repeats to him.
- During the milking scene, Eli asks Book, who is having trouble with it, "You never had your hands on a teat before?" to which Book deadpans "Not one this big." You expect the dour Eli to get indignant at this fairly sexual quip, but after taking a second to realize what Book means, he instead gives a roar of laughter and claps him on the back in a You're all right, kid manner.note
- Actual Pacifist: Naturally. Though in a very humanizing moment, that doesn't mean Daniel can't enjoy the sight of some jerks who were harassing him getting their asses kicked.
- An Aesop: The film depicts violence as never being the answer and depicts it unpleasantly and having negative consequences. As satisfying as it may be to the viewer, Book angrily punching the Jerkass tourist who was bullying Daniel is what allows Schaeffer to track him down. At the opposite end, the movie, by this same logic, avoids having Book kill Schaeffer in favor of a nonviolent conclusion.
- Affably Evil: Police Chief Schaeffer remains calm, collected, cordial and keeps up a friendly attitude rather than trying to antagonise Book or Carter. He still is the mastermind behind a massive drug deal, but remains much more humane than his underlings.
- Anger Born of Worry: Book yells at Samuel when he sees him looking at Book's gun. Book immediately apologizes, and tells him it's just he doesn't want to see Samuel get hurt.
- Arcadia: Zig-Zagged. While the life of the Amish is portrayed as peaceful, calm and with a closely knit community that supports all members, it doesn't shy from also portraying all the hard work it takes to run a farm, especially one with only basic tools, while also showing the concept of shunning.
- Artistic License – Gun Safety: Defiantly averted, see Reckless Gun Usage below.
- Artistic License – Religion: Mostly averted in the case of the Amish, however, a lot of the more controversial aspects of Amish life were cut to assure the cooperation of the community.
- Badass Pacifist: All the Amish. Best shown when the entire town, from the oldest elder to the youngest child, confronts Schaeffer, an armed known murderer with a shotgun, and simply stand watching til he gives up and surrenders.
- Bad Guy Bar: John and Elton, his partner, raid one early on to get a suspect for Sam. The bar is called "Happy Valley".
- The Bad Guys Are Cops: The reason Book has to hide among the Amish is because so many of his own fellow officers are corrupt drug dealers, including his superior, Schaeffer.
- Barn Raising: Probably the film's most famous scene. Well, maybe second most famous (see Shower Scene below)
- Big Damn Heroes: The entire Amish community shows up in the end.
- Bilingual Bonus: Knowing German helps a lot with numerous scenes, as there is no translation provided. This even includes jokes told between the Amish.
- Bilingual Dialogue: Samuel talks in this fashion, mixing words from English and German.
- Black Dude Dies First: Elton Carter, John's partner, gets murdered by the corrupt cops. This turns the entire case into a very personal matter for Book.
- Bottomless Magazines: Averted in the parking garage shoot-out, then played straight at the climax, where three guys with shotguns appear to divide up one box of shells and then shoot far more than that.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Despite knowing the Lapp family and living in the Amish community for only a few days, Book is able to blend in pretty well and adopt their mannerisms. The only times he slips up are when he threatens a lady or gets into a fight with some tourists that harass Daniel.
- Buried Alive: Fergie. Ouch. note
- But Now I Must Go: Book, at the end, goes back to his normal life.
- The Cast Show Off: Harrison Ford is a skilled carpenter in real life, having worked as one prior to acting, and demonstrates carpentry skills several times in the film.
- City Mouse: Averted. Book very quickly adapts to life on an Amish farm. However, early on he has problems with simply waking up early enough to milk the cows, as he is not used to getting up before sunrise.
- The City vs. the Country: Naturally. The country wins on the moral side, but the film avoid portraying it as a Utopia.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- The grain silo.
- Averted with the actual gun.
- In a way, the tradition of "shunning" comes back when the entire town comes back to passively observe Schaeffer's sin, and he realizes there's no way out for him and gives up.
- Chekhov's Lecture: Samuel shows John the entire farm, including the silo.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: John and Daniel are the only guys who wear white and navy blue, respectively, during the barn-raising scene, but this seems mostly just to be so the audience can pick them out from the crowd easier.
- Cool Old Guy: Eli Lapp, who despite his strict demeanor is surprisingly cheerful and joking, while also showing deep affection and concern to his family rather than being the sort of tyrant his initial behavior toward Book might have indicated.
- Comforting the Widow: John and Daniel are competing for this. Book gets with her first, but she ultimately ends up with Daniel.
- Convenient Photograph: Samuel would have had no clue who McFee was, how to identify him, and nobody else would have ever known that the police are involved if there wasn't a photograph of him on the noticeboard of the police station in his plain view.
- Crime After Crime: Schaeffer and his gang killed the undercover cop in the first act because he uncovered their drug operation. They then spend the rest of the movie trying to kill Samuel who was witness to that crime as well as Book and Carter who who he told about it. While they do kill Carter, Schaeffer is unable to murder Book and Samuel because he'd have to murder the entire Amish community to cover that crime.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Death by grain silo drowning.
- Culture Clash: It's prominent especially early on, when the film is told from Sam's perspective - it's his first time outside the Amish community. And he ends up witnessing a murder. The rest of the film heavily contrasts the relatively peaceful life of the Amish with the hectic, brutal and cynical modern world around them, instead making Book the person experiencing customs and things completely alien to him.
- Dead Man's Trigger Finger: McFee dies this way. Instead of trying to hit anyone, he simply falls heavily on the ground, while shooting the roof of the barn.
- Did Not Get the Girl: Book returns home to the city at the end, while Rachel stays in the community. Book isn't heartbroken about it because he knows Daniel will be a great husband to Rachel and a great father to Samuel.
- Dirty Cop: Schaeffer, McFee, and Fergie run a drug-dealing ring, and are willing to murder fellow police officers to hide their crimes.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Daniel. Notably, apart from a pointed question about when Book is going to leave, he doesn't create any problems for him and Rachel. Justified in that his patient courting is implied to win out in the end when Book leaves, while Book also earned a personal trust with Daniel.
- The Dragon: McFee.
- Earthy Barefoot Character: The Amish women and some of the children, as seen during the barn-raising scene.
- Even Evil Has Standards: This is how the Amish win through nonviolence. They passively witness Schaeffer doing evil, meaning he'd have to slaughter every man, woman and child in the village to keep his secret. He realizes that he cannot bring himself to go that far and gives up.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Downplayed, but Daniel Hochleitner has clearly developed a mutual respect for Book after he joins in on the barn-raising and beats the shit out of the obnoxious redneck who was being a dick to Daniel for no reason. After he's saved the entire community from Schaeffer and his goons, they're like flesh and blood to each other, and on passing him on the road out of town, Daniel tips his hat to Book like they're old friends.
- Florence Nightingale Effect: While taking care of the badly wounded Book, Rachel starts developing feelings toward him. Besides, she's already grateful for him taking care of her and Samuel up until that point.
- Friend to All Children: As callous as he might appear, John actually does genuinely care about kids, both Samuel and his own nephews. Book is freaked when Sam almost started playing with his gun, hangs around with the boy and even builds him a wooden toy, utilizing his carpentry skills.
- Full-Name Basis: Almost all Amish call John by his full name, with only few exceptions. In fact, the more people are intimate with him, the more they are likely to use his full name. (Titles are considered vain in the Amish community, so people are often addressed this way)
- Good Is Not Soft: While Amish are Actual Pacifists, that doesn't mean they are naive and most certainly they are not stupid. Their true strength lies in their strong, tightly-knit community.
- Gory Discretion Shot: Although it's still an extremely nasty scene, the undercover cop's murder never clearly shows the deathblow or the gruesome aftermath, we only see McFee pressing the knife to the man's exposed throat before immediately cutting to Samuel watching in silent horror. In the next shot, we get a close-up on the last few breaths leaving his exposed chest with a spray of blood coming from offscreen, but we still never see the actual neck wound.
- Gratuitous German: The Amish often speak their "Pennsylvania Dutch" to each other. It is very distinct from the European version, but still can be understood on a basic level.
- Greed: The drug deal done by the dirty cops was worth 22 million dollarsnote . Assuming it was a split for just three people, it really gives them a reason to be so vicious in keeping it secret.
- Hard-Work Montage: And what a montage it is. The barn-raising scene is one of the best in all film. Never has carpentry work looked so awesome and profoundly life-affirming.
- Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist: The type of tourists visiting Intercourse, "the most Amish town in the world". And the locals exploit both their naivety and nearby Amish communities for their own gain.
- Have You Told Anyone Else?: When Book finds out that the perpetrator of a recent cop murder is a narcotics detective, and upon further investigation realizes the detective was involved in the theft of confiscated drugs, he goes to Police Chief Schaeffer and, upon telling everything he knows, is asked whether he has told anyone else. When Book says no, Schaeffer tells him to keep it quiet. Justified by the fact that Book trusts Schaeffer and, as a police corruption case, it would make sense to keep as few officers in the loop as possible. It turns out Schaeffer was in on it though and he uses this.
- He Knows Too Much: Both Book and Carter end up as targets for the corrupt cops, who eventually murder Carter. Also, Samuel is a witness to a drug-related murder, making a little boy another person they are willing to kill.
- Heroic BSoD: Book has a couple. Notably, this is the reason he finally hauls off and punches out the tourist picking on Daniel: he'd just learned his partner Carter had been killed and the tourist picked then of all times to push Book's buttons.
- Hero's Classic Car: Actually it's the hero's sister's classic car, because John's is covered in his blood and is in his garage: Elaine's pale blue 1971 Volkswagen Type 3 Squareback, that John borrows and uses to drive Rachel and Samuel from Philadelphia to Lancaster, and which then sits out the rest of the movie being fixed up, danced around and eventually driven away again.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: Justified. John tries to reach the top of the silo to get it open as a distraction, but can't move the hinge. Fergie, the corrupt cop after him, looks up, but since the ladder is inside a narrow, dark tunnel without any lights, he fails a spot check, while looking directly at Book's feet.
- Home Sweet Home: Due to the events he went through, Samuel is traumatized by the modern world and big city life. The return to the farm makes the boy finally calm down and feel safe.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Book's reason for leaving. He knows Daniel will make a better husband for Rachel and father for Samuel. And before that, he made sure to stay as close as possible to Amish customs to spare Rachel from gossip and being shunned.
- Improvised Weapon User: Quite possibly the only example in film history of a character killing someone with grain.
- Indy Hat Roll: In a tiny moment of comic relief in what's an otherwise tense and terrifying scene, Samuel grabs his hat like this when fleeing the bathroom stall right before McFee kicks it open.
- Indy Ploy: Appropriately enough, John Book pulls one of these in the climax, drowning Fergie in grain, getting the jump on McFee to kill him with Fergie's shotgun, and convincing Schaeffer to give himself up instead of trying to kill everyone in town.
- Insistent Terminology:
- Amish call all the outsiders "English". Daniel even jokingly explains to John it doesn't make much difference if they are Yanks or English - they are simply not Amish. At the end, Eli tells John, "You be careful out there among the English", showing that he's now been accepted as one of them.
- Gun of the hand, aka a handgun.
- Jerkass: Those redneck tourists in town who harass the Amish.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Inverted. Eli tells off Rachel for fooling around with Book, which makes him unsympathetic as it goes against the audience's desire to see them get together, but he's not really being a Jerkass: as he points out, if she is shunned by the community then he can't associate with her and it would mean the end of their family.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While being a self-righteous hot head with a deadpan attitude, John still does the best he can for people around him in a genuine effort to help and show gratitude.
- Just a Flesh Wound: Subverted. Book is badly hit and only barely survives getting shot in the side by McFee.
- Leave No Witnesses: McFee tries to kill young Samuel within a minute after the murder, to eliminate the only witness. Then Schaeffer plots to do it, only to find he can't do it when he has the chance and to be shamed into giving up.
- Limited Wardrobe:
- Amish in general wear a very distinctive set of clothes and even when they do change them, they just change into an almost identical set.
- John ends up wearing clothes of Jacob, Rachel's late husband. Hilarity Ensues, since Jacob was apparently a head shorter than Book, making all his clothes looking as though they were taken from a younger brother, until Rachel starts to re-fit them.
- Lock-and-Load Montage: A downplayed version as befits the rest of the movie. The car driven by the villains appears on the crest above the Amish village, then quietly reverses out of sight. Three men then exit the car, remove shotguns from the trunk and load them from a box of shotgun shells, then enter the village on foot.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Schaeffer gives up at the end when the entire town comes to Rachel's rescue, and he realizes that he would literally have to kill every single person in the entire community there to escape and avoid being identified, something he is either incapable or unwilling to do.
- Major Injury Underreaction: Justified. In the thick of the fight John didn't notice McFee shot him in the side due to the adrenaline rush. He patches the wound the best he can by himself and gets Rachel and Samuel to their farm. Since he's barely moving for the whole time, the blood loss doesn't affect him as quickly as it would normally.
- Married to the Job: Book. But unlike the typical example of a failed marriage or being a loner, he substitutes having a family on his own with being a regular guest for his sister and her kids, still playing the role of the overprotective older brother to her.
- Ms. Fanservice: An extremely emotionally-charged and plot-relevant example of female nudity (and the only example of it in the movie), but the topless scene is legendary nevertheless.
- Mugging the Monster: A group of rednecks antagonize a group of Amish for no particular reason aside from "just because". Book doesn't take it lightly, especially since he just learned Carter was killed, but first tries to find a peaceful solution. When it fails and the redneck in question keeps pushing, John breaks his nose with a single swing. Just because he dresses like the Amish, it doesn't make him one.John Book: [in sincere, non-threatening tone] You are making a mistake...
- Mundane Made Awesome: You will want to run to the countryside and participate in a Barn Raising after watching this movie. Carpentry in general has never looked so uplifting.
- Naughty Narcs: The murder of the undercover cop witnessed by Amish boy Samuel turns out to have been perpetrated by corrupt narcotics agents who are determined to keep the 22 million dollars they made from a drug deal a secret. The Police Chief is also in on this.
- Not So Above It All: Although they are disappointed in Book for resorting to violence, it doesn't mean Daniel Hochleitner and Eli can't take some satisfaction in watching him break the obnoxious redneck's nose after he was abusing Daniel for no reason.
- Number Two: Viggo Mortensen's character appears to be this for Eli, since he accompanies them on the wagon ride into town and Eli is shown delegating him to directly assist John Book and Daniel Hochleitner with the barn-raising.
- Oh, Crap!: John realizing the Police Chief is part of the drug-dealing circle and he reported the entire case directly to him to keep things secret.
- One-Word Title: Witness, not The Witness.
- Overly Narrow Superlative: Numerous Amish characters comment on how John "looks plain", as a way of complementing him. For them it means an actual praise, but it takes John a while to stop chuckling every time someone tells him that.
- Papa Wolf: While neither being their son, father or husband, Book will do anything to protect Eli, Samuel and Rachel.
- Perfect Pacifist People: The Amish. They still come to the rescue at the end, though, in their own way.
- Power of Trust: John is more than aware how important it is to be able to trust people, especially after Chief Schaeffer turns out to be part of the police drug deal. He trusts his partner and his sister and knows they won't fail. After ending up among the Amish, he does his very best to gain their trust on different occasions. This greatly helps him, as the Amish don't antagonize him in any way nor pay it back on Rachel.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Schaeffer has a family and doesn't seem as vicious as his two overzealous henchmen.
- Put Down Your Gun and Step Away: Done twice. First by Schaeffer to Book when he has Rachel hostage, and later by the Amish to Schaeffer. Surprisingly it works, and Schaeffer is shamed into surrendering after realizing he can't actually kill so many.
- The Quiet One: A young Viggo Mortensen plays one of the most prominent young Amish men, Moses Hochleitner. He doesn't have many lines, but he's in quite a few scenes, directly assisting Book and Daniel during the barn-raising, and he joins them on the ill-fated ride into town where the rednecks make the mistake of provoking John.
- Rated M for Manly: Quite possibly the softest, gentlest, and most positive example of this ever, but damn if the Hard-Work Montage doesn't make barn-raising look like the greatest activity any red-blooded man could possibly devote himself to.
- Reality Has No Subtitles: Not a single line is translated from the Pennsylvanian Dutch. Most notable is the opening of the film, where it's more about the atmosphere of the situation than understanding the dialogue.
- Really Gets Around: Eleine, John's sister, is apparently constantly having a new admirer. John even half-jokingly, half-scoldingly mentions he can't keep track of their names anymore. It's not made explicit if she's divorced or never married, making it very murky who is the father of her sons.
- Reckless Gun Usage: Averted, if not outright defied. Out of pure curiosity, Samuel starts looking through John's things, including a revolver, when Book is not in the room. However, before he can even touch the gun, John shows up and stops him. Then he takes a long while to carefully explain the boy the dangers of handling a loaded weapon. He then tells Rachel and Eli about it, making it explicit to them it was his own fault and neglect, not Samuel's, all while being genuinely freaked by the sheer possibility of the boy handling the gun.note Then Eli explains to Samuel why it's wrong to even touch a weapon. The entire sequence is handled with amazing grace, given the subject, and without any heavy-handed preaching, while also carefully explaining the Amish pacifistic stance.
- Red Herring: The revolver hidden in the kitchen and the importance of bullets being stored separately? They are never used in any way. Book doesn't even get a chance to run to the house for it and is forced to improvise instead.
- The Reveal:
- It's an undercover cop getting shanked and not just a random guy killed by two mafioso types.
- The culprits are police officers themselves.
- Paul Schaeffer was part of the scheme, a thing Book learns only when he's attacked by McFee and quickly makes a connection between the two.
- Ridiculously Average Surname: A third of all Lancaster Amish are called Lapp.
- Romantic False Lead: Subverted with Daniel Hochleitner, other than some (admittedly understandable) distaste for the outsider Book, he's a genuinely Nice Guy who's neither a jealous creep nor an antiquated misogynist that we might expect. It's actually Book who's the false lead for Rachel.
- Rube Goldberg Device: Downplayed. Book builds a toy version for Samuel as a gift of gratitude.
- Searching the Stalls / Indy Hat Roll: The bathroom scene that sets up the plot. Hey, that's another Shout-Out!
- Secretly Dying: At least from Rachel's perspective, since she didn't know Book was wounded.
- Scary Black Man: McFee, especially when shown from Samuel's perspective. Him being played by Danny Glover, he's like an Dirty Cop Evil Counterpart to his later heroic Cowboy Cop characters Roger Murtaugh, Mike Harrigan or even David Tapp.
- Scenery Porn: Plenty of beautiful long-distance shots of the lovely Pennsylvania countryside.
- Shout-Out: Book has some coffee, strikes a pose and says "Honey — that's great coffee!" He's clearly parodying a commercial, even if you've never seen it; of course the Lapps don't know what this is about. Early in his career, Ford had auditioned for a Folger's commercial, but couldn't say the line the way the director wanted it.
- Show, Don't Tell: A movie that is very good at this. Most of the core plot details are expressed visually, through a minimum of plot exposition. The scene where Samuel positively identifies the murderer
is an especially brilliant example of this, establishing the incredibly strong connection between John Book and Samuel without a single word of dialogue between them, or anyone else. - Shower Scene: A variant, as the Amish don't use showers, instead rubbing themselves down with a wet cloth. But Rachel and Book share a sexually charged moment where she's finished bathing and lets him get a good look at her.
- Shown Their Work: Ferguson's death in the grain silo highlights the fact that a good portion of deaths in such places aren't usually due to being buried in grain, but being suffocated by grain fragments that are inhaled into a person's lungs. In fact, the falling grain increases the amount of grain particulate in the air, and soon enough, Ferguson is shown struggling to breathe until he essentially suffocates to death.
- The barn-raising was in fact a real barn-raising for the community working with the film crew. The actors, most notably Harrison Ford (who used to do carpentry), volunteered to help and the cameras recorded nearly the entire process. Outsiders or not, the Amish were glad to accept every (male) hand willing to help get the barn up.
- So Much for Stealth: Samuel makes a noise just about when the villains decide to leave the bathroom. An Indy Hat Roll keeps him from being caught though.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Rachel and Book. Their relationship is pretty much doomed from the get-go. What's really important is how they are both aware of it. In fact Book does his best to stay away, as their relationship would put Rachel in danger of being shunned by other Amish, and that's the last thing he wants for her.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- Without access to modern medicine or a trained doctor, John spends two days just regaining consciousness after getting shot, barely living through the heavy blood loss and fever. It takes another few days for him to get back on his feet.
- Revolvers hold a maximum of 6 bullets and usually one chamber is left empty as a safety measure. After going dry, both Book and McFee can't shoot anymore and are forced to flee from each other.
- When he's confronted by the entire Amish community, Schaeffer realizes he has no chance of escaping justice with so many witnesses and gives himself up rather than try to kill everyone in town.
- Suspect Is Hatless: The best description Samuel can give of the killer whose face he saw can be summed up as "he was black" and "not schtumpig (small)". Detective Book gets nowhere until Samuel wanders the police department and spots the murderer in a newspaper clipping.
- Talking the Monster to Death: John convinces Schaeffer to turn himself in rather than try and kill every last person in town.
- Take a Third Option: Part of the Amish reasoning for pacifism - locking the world in us-vs-them logic is simply wrong and harmful. Even if John wasn't present when Eli lectured Sam about it, he still uses a variation of the same logic to talk Schaeffer into surrendering.
- Three-Act Structure: The film's execution of a traditional three-act structure is so flawless that it's often used as an example in screenwriting classes and books. It also earned an Oscar for Best Screenplay.
- Totally Radical: Played for Laughs. Rachel can't find a proper word to describe Book's aggressive behavior early on, ultimately settling for...John Book: ..."Whacking"?
- To Win Without Fighting: The end has the Amish aid Book in defeating Schaeffer simply by bearing ''witness' to his misdeeds. He's unwilling to try murdering them (and probably couldn't, even practically speaking). Instead, Schaeffer surrenders to Book.
- Trailers Always Spoil: The trailer itself tells only the basic premise of the film, but it uses the scene from the very end, showing three dirty cops walking, armed, toward the Amish farm. While it makes the trailer suspenseful due to the way it's edited, it definitely spoils the fact John will be found, which isn't that obvious till it happens in the film.
- Translation Convention: When Eli is explaining to Samuel all the complicated matters of taking life and staying away from weapons, he makes a quote from The Bible. The translated quote is from the King James' version, which the Amish rarely use, but is much more accessible to Anglophone audiences than the usual German version.
- Two Decades Behind: Forensic facial composition has been a thing since the early 70s. Instead of even trying to make one, which would greatly speed up the search for the killer, Samuel is put in front of an album full of mugshots to pick out the murderer.
- Unperson: Being shunned means no member of the Amish community can share a meal or even talk to the shunned person, basically making them an outcast for the entire congregation.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Subverted. John always makes the important details explicit to his different allies, but at the same time keeps enough things secret to make it possible for everyone to pledge an honest Plausible Deniability in case they are captured and interrogated.
- He tells his sister what she's supposed to say in case of being asked, but doesn't explain much more, so she can't give anything away.
- Carter is told to get rid of the files of the case, but John doesn't tell him what he plans to do or where he's heading.
- John explains to Rachel why he can't see a doctor due to his gunshot wound, which in turn makes it much easier for her to explain it to her father and the elders of their community.
- Viewers Are Morons: The card reading "Pennsylvania, 1984" was added on executive demand in the opening scene, ruining an otherwise neat setup implying for a while that the film is set in an unspecified past.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Not only are the bad guys police officers, but the newspaper clipping from which Samuel positively identifies McFee has him pictured for an article reading "Officer Honored for Youth Project".
- Violence Is Disturbing: Big time. The opening murder is, while not overly gory, as brutal and terrifying as you'd expect, and the few gunfights in the film are shown to be messy, chaotic, and over in a matter of seconds. The scene where Book lectures Samuel about playing with his gun makes it clear that while Book won't hesitate to defend the innocent, he'll only choose violence if absolutely necessary. There's no satisfaction in the deaths of the bad guys Book blows away, McFee only dies because Book gets the drop on him and Fergie's death is
quite nasty and not at all cathartic or satisfying for the viewer. - Would Hurt a Child: Played with and subverted. Schaeffer initially seems hellbent on killing Samuel for witnessing the murder but he finds himself unable to actually do it when the time comes, and is shamed into giving up.
- Played straight in the case of McFee. It's strongly implied that he would have murdered Samuel had he found him in order to eliminate the only witness to the murder of a fellow police officer.
- Wretched Hive: Philadelphia gets this treatment. It's portrayed as a massive city, where people get shanked in a public restroom, cops are corrupt or rabid, women indecent and everyone remaining anonymous in their actions.
- You Can Barely Stand: John took a bullet in his side. While he still drove from Philly to the Lapp farm in Lancaster county, it almost killed him.
