Wanted (2008)

James McAvoy: Wesley

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Quotes 

• Janice : Jesus H. Fuckin' Popsicle! I still don't have my billing reports, but you've got time to sit there and Google your ass off? Well, I know one thing: you've got your review coming up next week, and I can't wait to start checking me off some big *fucking* *boxes*!

  [clicks her stapler for emphasis. Wesley cringes at every click] 

  Janice : Attitude: *poor*. Performance: *poor*. Management skills: *poor*. Works well with others? Ha! That's a fucking joke.

  [looks at Wesley's computer] 

  Janice : What is this bullshit; who's this prick? Some loser gets his head blown off in the Metropolitan...

  Wesley : SHUT THE FUCK UP!

  [the office grows quiet] 

  Wesley : [to co-workers]  She has ONE, SINGLE iota of tenuous power! She thinks she can push everyone around?

  [grabs Janice's stapler] 

  Wesley : You don't need this.

  [throws the stapler against the wall of his cubicle, smashing it] 

  Wesley : I understand. Junior High must've been kind of tough, but it doesn't give you the right to treat your workers like horseshit, Janice. I know we laugh at you, Janice. We all know you keep a stash of jelly donuts in the top drawer of your desk.

  [crouches down] 

  Wesley : But I want you to know, if you weren't such a bitch, we'd feel sorry for you. I do feel sorry for you. But as it stands, the way you behave - I feel I can speak for the entire office when I tell you... go fuck yourself.

• [first lines] 

  Wesley : [voice-over]  It's my anorexic boss' birthday. This means there's a certain amount of inter-office pressure to stand around the conference table, eating crappy food and pretending to worship her. Acting for five minutes like Janice doesn't make all our lives miserable is the hardest work I'll do all day. My job title is account manager. I used to be called an account service representative, but a consultant told us we have to manage our clients, and to not service them. I have a girlfriend who I neither manage or service. That's my best friend Barry fucking her on an Ikea kitchen table I picked up for a really good price. I'm finding it hard to care about anything these days. In fact, the only thing I do care about is the fact that I can't care about anything. Seriously, it worries me. My name is Wesley Gibson. My dad walked out on my mom when I was seven days old. Sometimes I wonder if he ever looked into my baby blue eyes and asked himself "did I just father the most insignificant asshole of the twenty-first century"?

• [last lines] 

  Wesley : [voice-over]  Six weeks ago, I was ordinary and pathetic. Just like you. Who am I now? Account manager? Assassin? Or just another tool that was mind-fucked into killing his father? I'm all of these, and I am none of these. Who am I now?

  [Wesley is shown to have apparently returned to his old job. He Googles his name, which returns no results] 

  Wesley : This is not me fulfilling my destiny. This is not me following in my father's footsteps. This is definitely not me saving the world.

  [Sloan trains a gun to his head] 

  Sloan : Still trying to figure out who you are?

  Wesley : This... is not me.

  [the man turns around; he isn't Wesley] 

  Wesley : This is just a motherfucking decoy.

  [the decoy's eyes dart downwards, and Sloan realizes that he's standing on an "X" mark on the ground made from post-it notes] 

  Sloan : Aw, fuck.

  [Sloan is suddenly killed by a headshot. The bullet's trajectory is shown in reverse, showing that it first passed through Barry's energy drink as he walks with Cathy, the hole in a donut Janice is eating, and several car windows before hitting him. The shooter is revealed to be Wesley, who fired the shot from a rifle in his father's house - miles away from Sloan's position] 

  Wesley : This is me taking control... from Sloan, from the Fraternity, from Janice, from billing reports, from ergonomic keyboards, from cheating girlfriends and sack-a'-shit best friends. This is me taking back control of my life!

  [addressing audience] 

  Wesley : What the fuck have you done lately?

• [last lines] 

  Wesley : [to audience]  What the fuck have you done lately?

• Wesley : [after killing first target]  What did he do to deserve to die? You don't know. I didn't know if he was bad. I didn't know if he was evil. I didn't know anything about him. We get orders from a loom; fate. And we're supposed to take enough faith in what we're doing is right. Killing someone we know nothing about. I don't know if I can do that.

  Fox : About twenty years ago, there was this girl. Her dad was a federal judge, so she probably had it in her mind that she would follow in his footsteps. So she's home one Christmas, and her dad's on this big racketeering case. The defendant wanted to get a softer judge who they could buy off. So they hired this guy, Max Petridge, to get him to pay her father a visit. And the way he pays people a visit is to break in, and tie up their loved ones, and force them to watch while he burns his targets alive. And then he takes a wire hanger, twists it around, and brands his initials into each one of them so they will never ever forget. After I was recruited into the Fraternity, I found out that Max Petridge's name had come up, weeks before the federal judge was killed, and that a Fraternity member had failed to pull the trigger. We don't know how far the ripples of our decisions go. We kill one, and maybe save a thousand. That's the code of the Fraternity. That's what we believe in, and that's why we do it.

• Barry : [after Wesley rants at Janice]  Yeah, that was great, bro! Who's the man?

  [Wesley smashes his keyboard against Barry's face. Bloodstained keys fly past spelling "FUCK YO", the final "U" being one of his molars] 

  Wesley : I'm the man!

• Wesley : [sarcastically before shooting a victim]  I'm sorry!

• Cross : [weakly]  Wesley, listen to me...

  Wesley : Shut the fuck up. You don't get to talk to me. You don't get to talk to me!

  Cross : Everything they told you was a lie.

  Wesley : Shut up you lying piece of shit. You shut the fuck up.

  Cross : You're my son.

• Wesley : [voice-over]  You know when you have a dream and you're half-awake, but still in the fringe of your brain, and when you open your eyes you're so damn glad it was a dream?

  [gun falls out of Wesley's pants] 

  Wesley : [voice-over]  This was nothing like that.

• Wesley : [voice-over]  Want to hear something sad? I use an ergonomic keyboard to keep my repetitive stress injury in check. Just the fact that I repeat something enough that it causes me stress is fucking sad.

• Wesley : [voice-over]  You know there are people, beautiful people, you just wish they could see you in a different setting, a different place. Instead of where you are, what you've become. But most of all, you wish you weren't such a pussy, for wishing for things that'll never change.

• The Butcher : You are a pussy!

  Wesley : I'm not a pussy. I got a healthy respect for the human... condition.

  The Butcher : Fuck that! You are a pussy!

• Wesley : [while being chased by Cross]  Please, please, please drive faster!

  Fox : Please be quiet!

• Wesley : You're not an assassin of fate, Sloan. You're just a thug who can bend bullets.

• Wesley : Why did you make me do this?

  Fox : Because you are the only person he wouldn't kill.

• Wesley : What did you say to me? It's a name, it's a target. I don't want this person dead, fate does! Well fate wanted you dead.

• [the Repairman ties Wesley down to the chair] 

  The Repairman : That's not too tight, is it?

  Wesley : No, that's... nice.

• Wesley : [upon being startled by Fox]  I'm sorry.

  Fox : You apologize too much.

  Wesley : [awkwardly]  Well, sorry about that.

  Fox : I knew your father.

  Wesley : My father left the week I was born, so...

  Fox : Your father died yesterday on the rooftop of the Metropolitan Building. Sorry.

  Wesley : [laughing in disbelief]  Look, the liquor aisle is just over there, so if you want to go...

  Fox : [interrupting]  Your father was one of the greatest assassins who ever lived. The man who killed him is behind you.

• [Fox breaks windshield during car chase and climbs out] 

  Wesley : Get back in here!

• Wesley : I have a gun, sir!

• The Butcher : Do you spend a lot of time with knives?

  Wesley : Breakfast, lunch and dinner.

  [the Butcher hits Wesley with the handle of a knife] 

  The Butcher : That was a rhetorical question, puto. You interrupt me again, I use the business end. Here's what you need to know, puto. Knives are easy to hide. They don't jam, and they never run out of bullets. They come in handy when you want to do some close contact work.

• Cathy : Wesley!

  Wesley : [half-asleep]  What is it?

  Cathy : What do you mean what is it? Listen.

  [subway train passes by and shakes the entire apartment] 

  Cathy : How the hell am I supposed to sleep with all that fucking racket? When are we going to move so that we don't have to wake up to that shit?

  Wesley : I kind of like it.

  [voice-over] 

  Wesley : It helps to drown out the sound of your annoying fucking voice. Now please, let me sleep.

• Wesley : [voice-over, after Barry calls him the man]  I'm the man? Yeah right, Barry. I'm the man. In fact, I'm so much the man that I have a standing prescription for medication to control my anxiety attacks. God, I wish I had something else to relieve my stress.

• The Exterminator : This is the Recovery Room. This bath stimulates white blood cells and speeds up the process. If you have bruises, cuts, breaks - heal in hours, not days.

  Wesley : [while in bath]  You shitting me?

  [the Exterminator gives Wesley a sip of alcohol] 

  Wesley : Is that vodka?

  The Exterminator : Yeah.

  Wesley : Are you Russian?

  The Exterminator : Yeah.

• Wesley : [upon seeing a dead woman hung on a meat hook]  Oh my God! Hey, we can't shoot a dead woman! She might be somebody's mom!

  [Fox shoots the corpse in the head] 

  Gunsmith : You need to know what it's like to put a bullet in a body.

• Wesley : You know, if I wanted to get beat up, I would've stayed in my cubicle!

• Wesley : Have you ever thought about doing things differently?

  Fox : How do you mean?

  Wesley : I don't know. Being somebody else? Someone... normal?

  Fox : [after a long pause]  No.

• Wesley : [to Fox, while being chased by Cross]  I think we lost him... I think we lost him. Can you let me off at the next corner, please?

• Wesley : Are we gonna "bond," now?

  Fox : Would you like to?

• Wesley : [after being scooped into Fox's car]  Oh my God! Oh my God! What the fuck just happened?

• Wesley : [while being chased by Cross]  He's fucking persistent, you know?

• The Repairman : I'm the Repairman.

  Wesley : What do you repair?

  The Repairman : A lifetime of bad habits.

• Fox : I want you to curve the bullet.

  Wesley : How am I supposed to do that?

  Sloan : [walking in]  It's not a question of how. It's a question of what. If no one told you that bullets flew straight, and I gave you a gun and told you to hit the target, what would you do? Let your instincts guide you.

• Fox : [while beating Wesley]  Why are you here?

  Wesley : I don't know who I am!

  [Fox turns Wesley over] 

  Fox : What did you say?

  Wesley : I said I don't know who I am.

• Wesley : [to Sloan]  Do you make sweaters, or do you kill people?

• Wesley : [to Fox]  So, bending bullets. Can you do that? You do that... hello?

• Wesley : You want me to kill Robert Dean Darden?

  Sloan : Not me. Fate.

• Wesley : I say kill them all, and let fate sort out the mess.

• Sloan : [handing Wesley a gun]  Shoot the wings off the flies.

  Wesley : [nervous]  I don't... I don't know what that means.

  Sloan : [slowly]  Shoot the wings off the flies.

  Wesley : I really think you have me mixed up with somebody else.

  Gunsmith : [holding a gun to the back of Wesley's head]  On three, either you shoot or I do.

• [repeated line] 

  Wesley : I'm sorry!

• Barry : I'm gonna go get some Post-It notes, do you want one?

  Wesley : No.

  Barry : Really?

  Wesley : Yeah.