Movie
Come with Me
Narrative tropes
Revenge Destroys You
highSimon's arc is the core D3 pattern: real grievances (home invasion, job loss, friend's death) curdle into a radicalized vengeance quest, and the film explicitly frames this as a cautionary portrait rather than a satisfying payoff. His identity is hollowed out as radicalization deepens ('internal war between his former self and the identity Kirby is forging'), mapping to the signal of the avenger becoming morally compromised. His closest emotional anchor is severed (best friend's death) and he is socially alienated (privately seething at a gathering where others mock Kirby's worldview), covering the 'loved ones lost or alienated' signal. The escalation from 'sense of empowerment' to explosive violence without cathartic resolution signals that revenge brings no peace. The film's stated cautionary framing confirms the story treats the vengeance quest as self-destructive rather than triumphant.
About this trope: Pursuing vengeance — even when justified — is ultimately self-destructive, hollow, or morally degrading. The avenger is consumed by their quest.
Movies that share these tropes
Full plot (spoilers)
Simon Ward (Theo Rossi) is a working-class man living a relatively stable life with his partner when a violent home invasion shatters his sense of safety. In the aftermath he acquires firearms, but the trauma lingers and compounds: shifts in management put his job in jeopardy, and the death of his best friend strips away his closest emotional anchor. Psychologically fractured and searching for an explanation for his mounting misfortunes, Simon gravitates toward Dalton Kirby (Ron Perlman), a self-styled talk-radio host who markets himself as 'unbiased and uncensored.' What begins as background noise during Simon's daily routine gradually becomes gospel. Kirby peddles conspiratorial rhetoric about a sinister plot to upend the lives of ordinary Americans, framing cultural change and institutional failure as deliberate persecution of people like Simon. Simon internalizes this worldview, increasingly viewing his personal grievances through Kirby's ideological lens and assigning blame outward rather than grappling with life's inherent unfairness. In one illustrative scene, Simon outwardly joins others in mocking Kirby's worldview at a social gathering while privately seething — a moment that captures his internal war between his former self and the identity Kirby is forging in him. As his radicalization deepens, the desire for justice curdles into something more violent. His sense of empowerment — rooted initially in real suffering — explodes into a quest for vengeance against the perceived enemies Kirby has named, culminating in an explosive, tense conclusion. The film functions as a cautionary portrait of how trauma-induced vulnerability, economic precarity, and extremist media rhetoric can combine to radicalize an otherwise ordinary man.
Sources: Wikipedia, Film Inquiry review, InBetweenDrafts review, TMDb overview, Hollywood Reporter / web search