Why does the eye surgeon help Anderton

Question

I just watched Minority Report again and I always wonder about one part of the story.

When Det. Anderton is about to get his eyes transplanted illegaly, the eye surgeon tells him, that he got imprisoned by Anderton in the past, which ended his normal life and made him an illegal eye surgeon in a shabby apartment after a not very nice time in prison.

I wonder though why he then helped Anderton, considering that he already got paid (I think) and Anderton was already about to anesthesize. He could just have left him blind or do whatever to him. But he doesn't do anything bad to him (well, he left the rotten food right next to the good food in the fridge, but I'm not sure if this was intentional besides not being that evil a trick).

He tells Anderton something about learning new things in prison and finding himself, but this sounded a bit sarcastic and I don't really believe he was actually happy to have been imprisoned.

So my question is:

• Was this just a plot device which wasn't thought out that well (raise the tension by implying the eye surgeon is evil, which he then isn't)?
• Was the eye surgeon really happy to have been imprisoned?
• Has he just got over it and forgiven Anderton and now only does his job?
• Or was there indeed something I may have overseen in the story?

Answer 1

Great sample of the dialog by the way, between Anderton and Dr. Solomon Eddie at IMDB.

While the doctor was describing his experience in prison, his um difficulties in the shower, notice something? Something not in his words, but in his tone. He's dispassionate. He's not angry. I think he actually was reformed. Now he just wants to make a living. He talks as if he's going to mete revenge on Anderton. But never does. He's actually thanking him for turning his life around. I mean, a plastic surgeon who sets his patients on fire for entertainment -- look how far he's come. And he knows it. (This is a better question than I first thought.)

There was also the creepy assistant. Doctor talked at one point as if his assistant saved Anderton, because she had a kind of crush on him. But I don't think that's the real reason the doctor helps Anderton. He's way cynical, to be sure, but he's resigned to a boring life of relatively unremarkable crime. And he's okay with that. So maybe he kinda owes Anderton in the end.

@Shane F. makes an excellent point: the doctor's back-story is a plot device meant to call his trustworthiness [and motives] into question, thereby boosting the suspense about whether he will help or hurt Anderton.

Notice how many other ways this movie tricks you with the good-guy / bad-guy dichotomy. Witwer (Colin Farrell) seems bad but turns out good. Von Sidow's character seems good but turns out bad. Other characters are more nuanced than pure good or pure evil. These surprises strategically support the overall point of the movie: to question your assumptions about criminality.

The eye surgeon is just one more bad guy that wasn't all bad.

Answer 2

He did it because

1. He was hired through "a mutual friend," who must have been the eyeless wiff dealer, and so was partially bound by this relationship.
2. He was a businesses man, and probably knew that you don't screw over your clients.
3. He actually cared about doing a good job, you can see it in his demeanor and actions (but doing a good job on eyes, does not mean not messing with him with the sandwich and milk).
4. He still was mad about being jailed, but kind of knew it was his own fault, and probably knew that if it hadn't been John that put him away, it would have been someone else.
5. Yes, plot device, and a vehicle for 2 cool characters and a cool scene.

Answer 3

Ready to blow your mind!

There seems to be a connection with having a cold and being evil intent. Near the beginning of the film, we are introduced to Lamar, John’s boss. Lamar has a cold at this point, later in the film we meet Dr. Solomon Eddie, who also has a cold.

It seems that the film can create a coincidence of evil men with evil intents who have colds, but later we find that Dr. Eddie gives John drugs from a mutual friend. We think the mutual friend is the drug dealer with the missing eyes, but it can also be Lamar, who knows about John's drug addiction and knows how to fake the system, which means he wants the eye transplant to go through to match the pre-crime.

But this also answers the question, if Dr. Eddie hates John, why do the transplant? Going through with the surgery will help Lamar put John in a halo prison.

Answer 4

The reason because the surgeon helps Anderton is that prison confinement showed to him a unknown side of his personality: he got bisexual tendency. This the line:

Dr. Solomon: "For true enlightenment there is nothing like... well, let's just say taking a shower while this large fellow with an attitude you couldn't knock down with a hammer, that keeps whispering in your ear: Oh nancy, Oh nancy. Now that was a lot of fun, thank you so very much John for putting me in there, thank you so very much for giving me an opportunity to get to know myself much better."

he said "Now that (the event in which the man whisper him during shower was probably a raping, also defined "true enlightenment" about his sexual taste) was a lot of fun...omissis...giving me an opportunity to get to know myself much better" could be read in ironic way but in this case you have to intend in strictly literal way! So dr. Salomon is grateful to Anderton for this wondeful discovery and now he want heartly gives something in return.

Answer 5

In my opinion, he is a sociopath. This makes it almost impossible for most people to understand how he thinks or feels or what his motivation is in any way for almost for anything. What a damaged mind like has developed to become and do almost never makes any sense to a mind that hasn't been damaged. Even for people that have studied these types of minds and experienced being around them in person quite a bit, it is still quite hard just to remember to even try to think like them because it is so different than most people.

With that being said, from my life experience of being with a sociopath who tricked me into believing they were a normal person for over a decade, this quacking doctor is doing the same. He is doing whatever he can to make life the most interesting at all costs even to the point of it causing harm to himself if that is what is necessary to keep the game going and keep it interesting and fun. He is just playing a game. This former plastic surgeon and now illegal eye doctor is a sociopath and all of life is just a game to him. His rules are obviously very different than our though.

To me, he is thinking or feeling that it would not be fun to just kill the doctor? It would be over so soon. He probably thinks it's hilarious to think about if he will go to the fridge and choose the right food to eat or not. He'll probably be laughing about that one little trick for days, weeks, years, and decades to come. He'll probably store it in his memory bank and bring it up from time to time and laugh out loud for no reason. He probably enjoys quacking at him like it's a hilarious joke. Everything he can do to make it more fun and interesting and memorable to him, he will do it. Maybe he's burned enough people by setting them on fire at this point. Maybe it became too boring. Who knows?

Sociopaths make absolutely no logical sense. He probably also gets a real kick out of having someone's life in his hands and then letting him go. He is a god now. He is all-powerful and was forgiving. So he is a kind and benevolent god. Now, I'm not saying any single bit of this makes any sense to any regular human being. They think almost exclusively in fallacies. So, there's my take on the good doctor. What do you think about my theory?