De acordo com Michael Mann :
DEADLINE: So you have the equally competent cop and robber who think
they are in control, but can’t control the circumstances of people
swirling around them…
MANN: There’s Neil, living a catechism of non-attachment. That is the
smart way to live your life when you’re living outside the law and you
come from circumstances of alienation and loneliness. You maintain
your loneliness, you maintain your alienation, except for your bond to
your partners, and you don’t get attached. You don’t have anything in
your life you can’t walk from in 30 seconds flat. Because you’ll make
one phone call, two years from now in Brazil, and they’ll be tracking
that call and if you have sentiment for that woman, they’ll locate
you. So you don’t get attached. You leave that for after you’ve scored
and take off.
Then he described his life to Eady as a needle starting
at zero and going the other way, a double blank and then you come
along. So he abandons it and there’s an initial rush of living an
emotional life spontaneously, which he’s not supposed to do. In making
that happen, he’s abandoning navigation. So then he’s susceptible to
being seduced with vengeance to go get Waingro, which is his undoing.
IMHO tentando analisá-lo muito de perto está perdendo a poesia estranha dele. Tecnicamente, uma agulha não pode ir abaixo de zero (embora haja metros em que permanecer abaixo de zero seja uma coisa boa, por exemplo, decibéis), e isso é de certa forma seu ponto: não é como se ele não tivesse tido a oportunidade ou que interessado no passado, ele evitou ativamente.