Murderer, Your Insides Must Be Hollow

[DISCLAIMER]

*Caught Stealing (2025) spoilers contained herein.

I recently watched Caught Stealing (2025), as I was pleasantly surprised. In particular, I enjoyed the two Orthodox Jewish characters Lipa Drucker (Liev Schreiber) and Shmully Drucker (Vincent D’Onofrio).

For context, I draw your attention to the science-fiction action film The Fifth Element (1997). In specific, I like that character Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg (Gary Oldman) states:

I don’t like warriors. Too narrow-minded, no subtlety. And worse, they fight for hopeless causes. Honor? Huh! Honor’s killed millions of people; it hasn’t saved a single one. Tell you what I do like though: a killer. A dyed-in-the-wool killer. Cold-blooded, clean, methodical, and thorough.

What the black comedy crime thriller film Caught Stealing has in common with The Fifth Element is that neither film downplays the existence of people who kill and murder, knowing what they are. In common parlance, to kill is to deprive of life: cause the death of a living being.

Colloquially, murder represents the crime of unlawfully and unjustifiably killing a person. Noteworthy, killing may be accidental or intentional, though doesn’t necessarily involve criminal intent, as murder is necessarily intentional. I support killing, though not murdering.

For instance, I maintain a License to Carry (LTC) in the state of Texas. Although I hope never to find myself in a situation that requires self-defense whereby I stop a threat by killing someone, I’m prepared to lawfully and justifiably do so regarding an imminent danger circumstance.

Unproductively, people use “killer” and “murderer” synonymously. Yet, all people who murder have killed, though not all people who’ve killed have murdered. Adding even more context to this topic, consider my approach to Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT).

When providing psychoeducational lessons on this approach to rational living, I invite people to consider that the words we use matter. Regarding the acts of killing and murdering, I’ve demonstrated herein that these are specific actions which aren’t indicative of specific people.

For instance, it’s common to say that one who has killed is a killer or one who has murdered is a murderer. However, I argue that people aren’t their actions. As an example, earlier today, I defecated. Yet, I’m not characterized as a defecator, am I? Of course not.

Thus, labeling people according to their actions isn’t entirely useful. All the same, because I can’t correct the fictional character Zorg when practicing my approach REBT as illustrated herein, I’ll set aside my rigorous perspective and concede his point. He likes killers.

Furthermore, I imagine that given Zorg’s depiction in The Fifth Element, he doesn’t distinguish between killers and murderers. He simply appreciates those who are “cold-blooded, clean, methodical, and thorough” in their act of taking the lives of others – knowing what they are.

In contrast, take for instance that in one scene, character Hank Thompson (Austin Butler) unintentionally hits his friend Russ Minor (Matt Smith) in the head with a baseball bat. Unfavorably, Minor eventually succumbs to his injury and dies while riding on public transit.

To my excitement, the following scene featured Thompson carrying on with his life as one of my favorite songs from Jamaican dancehall musician Buju Banton played. On his album ‘Til Shiloh (1995) is the track “Murderer” that I used to mix as an amateur DJ when stationed abroad.

Lyrics include, “Murderer, your insides must be hollow.” In REBT, “must” in this context relates to an empirical must statement. Rather than causing unpleasant self-disturbance like an absolutistic must statement, the empirical form is something along the lines of an observation.

For instance, when Hank struck Russ in the head with a baseball bat, it makes sense to conclude that it “must’ve” hurt (empirical statement of observation). Alternatively, saying that baseball bats “must” never be used on anything other than balls is a prescriptive absolute statement.

In “Murderer”, Buju Banton empirically states that one who murders must have hollow insides. This is a common judgment regarding people exhibiting traits of psychopathy, which the American Psychological Association defines as “a synonym for antisocial personality disorder.”

Here is where the Druckers are relevant. In Caught Stealing, they were depicted as characters who approached the act of killing in a manner that was simply matter-of-fact (being plain, straightforward, or unemotional).

In one scene, they’re described as men who were “scary monsters” and who cut out the eyes of their victims. Noteworthy, in a blogpost entitled No Monsters, I stated that “there are no monsters” while arguing that there are fallible human beings who are capable of heinous acts.

Unhelpfully, people who don’t practice the REBT tool of unconditional other-acceptance (UOA) fail to understand this crucial point. For context, UOA addresses the matter of other-downing by which people appraise other individuals as wholly bad, evil, undesirable, and so forth.

Using an REBT tool known as the ABC model, other-downing is a form of global evaluation. In the case of Lipa and Shmully, they illogically and unreasonably (collectively “irrationally”) murder a relatively significant number of people in the film.

For instance, they murdered the girlfriend (Zoë Kravitz) of Thompson. Not long after doing so, they joked about their actions, carried on with rudimentary tasks, and even stopped by their grandmother’s home to enjoy a bowl of matzah ball soup with Thompson.

Property of Columbia Pictures, Protozoa Pictures, and Sony Pictures, fair use

To characterize someone as wholly evil, for instance, denies the depiction of Lipa and Shmully as compassionate family members. When at their grandma’s home, they showed affection to their loved ones. Thus, they weren’t all bad. All the same, they did do undesirable things.

While slurping their soup, the Druckers laughed about a murder they planned on committing. In the following scene, they walked into an establishment and randomly slaughtered anyone in their way. Personally, aside from illegal, I consider their behavior immoral and unethical.

A moral is a person’s standard of behavior or belief concerning what is and isn’t acceptable for the individual and other people. As such, morals generally relate to what’s considered good, bad, right, wrong, or otherwise acceptable or unacceptable.

An ethic is a set of moral principles, especially those relating to or affirming a specified group, field, or form of conduct. Whereas morals relate to what is thought of as pleasing or displeasing behaviors and beliefs, ethics – based on morals – are the social rules by which we pledge to live.

My characterization of Lipa and Shmully’s actions is one matter. Yet, to unaccommodatingly characterize them as people according to negativistic appraisals is another matter altogether. Thus, I denounce their behavior while not condemning them as flawed humans.

Also, when teaching my approach to REBT, I note that I see no evidence of objective morality. Therefore, I can comprehend that the in Caught Stealing the Druckers are doing right or wrong, as they see it. One could even make the argument that they perceive their actions as rational.

While I disagree with that proposition, I can understand the argument. In any event, considering global evaluations and the practice of UOA, I maintain that Lipa and Shmully aren’t their murderous behavior – even though their actions clearly reflect antisocial personality disorder.

In conclusion, I was pleasantly surprised by Caught Stealing, as I enjoyed the Druckers most of all. Like Zorg, I like when people know what they are. With hope, after reading this blogpost, you understand that this is an altogether different matter than who they are.

If you’re looking for a provider who tries to work to help understand how thinking impacts physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral elements of your life—helping you to sharpen your critical thinking skills, I invite you to reach out today by using the contact widget on my website.

As a psychotherapist, I’m pleased to try to help people with an assortment of issues ranging from anger (hostility, rage, and aggression) to relational issues, adjustment matters, trauma experience, justice involvement, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and depression, and other mood or personality-related matters.

At Hollings Therapy, LLC, serving all of Texas, I aim to treat clients with dignity and respect while offering a multi-lensed approach to the practice of psychotherapy and life coaching. My mission includes: Prioritizing the cognitive and emotive needs of clients, an overall reduction in client suffering, and supporting sustainable growth for the clients I serve. Rather than simply trying to help you to feel better, I want to try to help you get better!

Deric Hollings, LPC, LCSW

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