Fargo

I recently watched Fargo for the first time, and the idea of "Capitalist Monsters" echoed in my head during many of the movie's scenes. Although it is never precisely explained in the film, the story begins with one of the main characters hiring two criminals to kidnap his own wife, for a ransom. Why he needs the money is never touched upon, and the exact details of its use continue to morph as the story unfolds, including how the husband plans to collect on his part of the ransom.

When the story first begins, the husband meets with the two criminals to discuss the plan to kidnap his wife, who comes from a wealthy family, and to receive the $80,000 ransom from his father-in-law. Then, the husband would split the ransom 50/50, earning $40,000 from the crime. This initial greed, which drives a man to seek to kidnap his own wife, even baffles the criminals; one of them stops the husband mid-explanation, asking him to elaborate on the circumstances -- he just doesn't understand the husband's motives.

Then, later in the story, it is revealed that the husband scammed a government body for a loan of over $320,000 -- a scam which was quickly revealed, and in the process of being investigated. The husband has a small meltdown over this, but continues on with his day, selling cars loaded with unwanted features to customers who end up angrily paying for them; the husband just continues to collect money, even though his methods aren't ethically sound.

Then, the biggest act of greed is revealed: the husband convinces his wealthy father-in-law that the "ransom" for his wife is a total of $1 million. The husband intended to give the robbers only $40,000 and keep the remaining amount for himself, for god-knows-what! The greed that this man exhibits in the story not only causes his wife to be hurt and captured by madmen, but then spills out and hurts many others; his son, who is emotionally distraught (and never comforted by the husband), his father-in-law, who is killed in a ransom exchange gone wrong (whose body is then hidden by the husband), and by many different innocents, from police and security guards who stopped the criminals at the wrong time, to innocent bystanders who drove past and viewed their crimes. The husband's greed for money caused him to attempt to manipulate forces that he didn't know he could control, and resulted in harm for many others; this alone makes him more of a monster than many others.