The Action-Movie-Badass Guide to Self Surgery
I saw No Country for Old Men last night. It's a good movie, certainly, but since it followed many of the rules of a typical genre action/chase/thriller. In that context, which you'll understand if you've seen it, it's ultimately unsatisfying.
One of the classic action genre moments is where character of Anton Chigurh performs self surgery using supplies he recently stole from a pharmacy. I love these scenes. I'm normally so squeamish about blood, all aspects of our organic machinery, but I'm fascinated watching someone who can suture their own wounds as if they were wiring a plug. Like the wetware equivalent of recompiling a kernel.
It's Hollywood shorthand for badass. Assassin, outlaw, good guy who for some reason is on the run from the authorities. It says "I don't need anyone's help". Full respect for the expression of self-sufficiency, yet uneasy distrust at someone who consciously prepares themselves to survive outside of society's protections.
It seems clichéd, yet when I check the imdb for movies with the keyword 'self-surgery' I only get five results, none of them the aforementioned. Fail. Come on internets, there has to be more than that. A Bourne at least?