Attacks on the ruthless may actually increase their allure.
He and Ms. Huston talked off camera about the playwright Tom Stoppard, then shot a scene in which Mr. Azenberg was more ruthless than he actually is.
Indeed, in the second of the series, Paul Greengrass's The Bourne Supremacy, ruthless CIA boss Brian Cox actually says: 'Cut to the chase, Pam' when his junior colleague Pam Landy Joan Allenn) starts on a third sentence.
"One of the things people don't always understand about her is she's… actually a ruthless political operator," says Jonathan Powell, who got to know her when he was chief of staff to the UK prime minister.
And Morten actually the more ruthless, power-hungry of the pair.
We both found these events enormously disturbing, but I had never seen vigilantes actually complete their ruthless mission.
The thesis was that Britain's electoral system had led to an overpowerful executive that ruled the country only nominally through debate in Parliament, and actually by the ruthless whipping of subservient members through their parties' lobbies.
Mr. Reitman, best known as a director ("Ghostbusters," "Ghostbusters 2"), also produced "Animal House," which itself parodied the conventions of the genre, though it raised the stakes with a kind of ruthless bad taste that was actually refreshing.
"As the author writing the screenplay you can actually be far more ruthless and audacious," he says.
"It sounds like common sense," Jackson says, "but you actually have to be ruthless in creating the environment for attention you need.
