Let's refer back to the tagline of the film found on its poster: "A bold new film that takes a look at a country seduced by fame, obsessed by crime, and consumed by the media." Is that what this movie is really about? It doesn't seem that way. What seems instead to be the case is that Oliver Stone thought this was what he was saying with his film, but he ignored the instructions Tarantino's script gave him on how to do this effectively. Stone says in his introduction to the director's cut of the film that, "it's not the filmmaker's fault that society is the way it is." That is correct, but when he fails to separate his voice from the voices he is condemning, he becomes part of the problem.

I'm not saying Stone should be held liable for the actions of those imitating his film. He certainly should not be; those people acted of their own free will and probably would have done what they did anyway, eventually. Stone was, however, irresponsible with his rhetoric. This is what Aristotle was saying about "good rhetoric," that it should be for the benefit of others, out of good intentions. Stone's intentions were perhaps good, but his use of rhetoric is in this instance dangerous because he was not responsible with the power given to him.