“Let Him Have It” Movie Reaction Paper
The film, Let Him Have It, by Peter Medak conveys the controversial decision of the
court to sentence Derek Bentely to death by hanging after uttering the words, “Let him have it,
Chris” prior to the shootings of two police officers, one resulting in a murder. Despite not firing
any shots or physically harming any police officers at the scene of the crime, Derek received a
more severe punishment than Chris, who was detained in prison for 10 years, solely because he
was an adult whereas Chris was a minor at the time. The phrase Derek shouted, “Let him have it
Chris,” was interpreted by law enforcement as his way of supporting Chris in his endeavor to
shoot and kill officers, causing him to be seen as an accomplice to the crime (LHHI, 1991).
While others viewed the phrase as Derek trying to tell Chris to hand his gun over to the
authorities, even more argued that the punishment given to Chris was too severe. Despite his
family’s effort to overturn his conviction, Derek was eventually hanged for crimes he did not
commit.
After watching the film, I think that Derek meant for Chris to give his gun to the police
officer, not use it on him. Many of Derek’s actions and words leading up to the shooting reveal
that he was afraid of the consequences of his crimes and was not trying to get into more trouble
than he was already in. When he realized the police were coming to the roof, he said, “My dad’s
going to kill me,” and even tossed the keys to the butcher shop away after realizing he could get
into more trouble for having them in his possession (LHHI, 1991). However, for Chris, his
mindset was very different than Derek’s as he proceeded to taunt the officer, causing Derek to
call him stupid. Derek even tried to warn the police officer that Chris had a gun, which was a
clear indication that he was trying to help him rather than hurt him. Even after Chris shot the
officer, Derek ran to his side to check on him, which would not be the actions of somebody who
intended for him to get shot (LHHI, 1991).
Derek’s infamous words can be analyzed using H. Paul Grice’s Cooperative Principle and
Conversational Maxims to figure out what he truly meant when he said, “Let him have it, Chris!”
According to the Cooperative Principle, the ideal purpose of having a conversation is
comprehending what is being said and giving the expected response in order to make the
interaction go as smoothly as possible (Week 2, Tu). In the scene on the rooftop, the officer says,
“Give that thing to me,” which is followed by Derek telling Chris to let him have it (LHHI,
1991). In accordance with the principle and assuming that Derek was intending to cooperate his
words with those of the officer, he would be telling Chris to give him the gun. Because of the
ambiguous nature of the phrase in question, multiple of Grice’s maxims are violated as a result.
The phrase does not follow the maxim of quantity or of manner, which causes a lack of
understanding when it comes to interpreting what Derek really meant. Since the phrase does not
include enough information to convey his thoughts and because the phrase contains words that
cause the meaning to be ambiguous, it is difficult to comprehend (Week 2, Tu). However, the
reason for not following these maxims could be caused by Derek’s lack of education due to his
condition of having epilepsy. Because of his poor education, it would make more sense to
assume that his speech is straightforward in nature rather than figurative. The straightforward
meaning of “Let him have it,” would be let him have the gun, where “it” would be the gun.
When the phrase is interpreted as let him have the bullet, meaning to shoot the gun, the phrase
has more of a figurative meaning rather than literal. Since Derek does not have much schooling
and is not even able to read, it would be more difficult for him to use figurative language to
imply Chris to shoot the officer, which is why it is more probable that Derek actually meant for
Chris to hand over the gun.