Film's casual racism left me embarrassed

As someone who has managed to sit all the way through recent cinematic clunkers like dire Johnny Depp folly Mortdecai and Scarlett Johansson’s Lucy, I consider myself almost bullet proof when it comes to experiencing Hollywood’s most embarrassing, cringe worthy assaults on the senses.

You’re talking about someone who actually watched Tommy Wiseau’s epic The Room with his wife and didn’t even blush.

So my reaction to Gerard Butler’s latest action flick was unexpected.

Travelling through to Glasgow with the aforementioned wife to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary, with the boy and the dog safely deposited with Cambus Gran and Grandad, we took in a so-so Nathaniel Rateliff gig at the O2 and then headed for the flicks to round out the night.

While we were waiting for our late night showing to begin, we had a titter at two young Asian lads sitting beside us outside in the foyer. They were talking avidly about computer games.

Bigger geeks than us, we laughed.

The laughing stopped halfway through the film as Butler’s human wrecking ball started to decimate terrorists left, right and centre while making some shockingly ignorant remarks at the expense of almost every race who ever dared to go up against the US of A.

I could have handled that, but I looked across the aisle and saw the two young Asians sitting low down in their seats, totally embarrassed and getting angrier by the minute.

So did I when I started to view the film through their eyes.