Shotgun Stories is a very raw and gritty approach to naturalistic type A storytelling. It reminded me of a contemporary redneck version of the Montague/Capulet rivalry. In general, the story focuses on the hostility and ugliness of human nature yet without being obnoxious or judgmental. It is simply an attempt to portray as objectively as possible the impacts that certain social issues have on society, including: poverty, child abuse, divorce, addiction, spousal infidelity, anger, revenge, and unforgiveness. However, it is not motivated by any political agenda to entice social reform. Instead, it allows viewers to decide what the core issues at stake are as well as provide solutions for the world's most troubling social epidemics. Succinctly put, this film shows how life is for many people who live under less than fortunate circumstances.<br /><br />I never found any of the characters to be morally repulsive. Rather, I felt compassion for them. It was sad to see how most were earnestly trying to live as best they could, yet were constantly swept away by the incessant waves of human frailty. An example of this is when Son throws away his gambling addiction in order to salvage his broken relationship with his girlfriend. After solving this problem, another charges against him when he realizes his brother was murdered by the opposite side of his step-family. The battle then becomes if whether he'll be able to bridle his feelings of revenge. One frailty after the next, Son, like many of the other characters, is tested on how resilient he really is.<br /><br />In this sense, the film merely illuminates the weakness of the human condition, given all of its vulnerabilities, rather than stereotype a given group of people as morally depraved. In other words, I do not believe the filmmakers were trying to point fingers at any group, let alone personality type as being evil. I don't believe many people will walk away from this film saying, "Gee, that one guy was so awful because of such-and-such." I think people will recognize that these characters were simply victims of poor social circumstances. The film was showing that there are reasons for people behaving in less than tolerable ways, and often times understandable reasons. Therefore, unless people have the full story of these characters, and more importantly, the lives of "real" everyday people, they would be wise to withhold unrighteous judgment.<br /><br />The characters in this story are highly dysfunctional victims of destitution due to a lack of strong parental care when they were younger. Consequently, there wasn't really one person to blame for each character flaw, yet ironically each character shifted responsibility to avoid being blamed for the step-family's eventual downfall. Abusive parents spawned abusive children, which eventually sparked the civil war within the step-family. A memorable yet haunting monologue given by Son is when he blames his cold-hearted mother for the violent rivalry within the family: "You taught us to hate those kids…and now look what's happened." This line demonstrates the seriousness of causality and its potentially detrimental effects when children are raised to hate others because of an unforgiving heart. The film's moral purpose, then, was to show the precarious consequences of what happens when the family is destroyed. Since families are the moral fabric of societies, all societal plagues can be traced back to the destruction of the family.