Essay

How does the opening scene of Triple X establish Zander, as a rebellious hero?

In the beginning of the scene, we see the boot of the senators car and the bumper sticker says "Skateboarding is a crime". Later on in the clip we see one of Zanders friends who is famous for sports such as skateboarding. This creates a dislike towards the senator because we favor the celebrity, and we all know that there is nothing really wrong with skateboarding, and it's definitely not a crime.
All movie characters consist of good and bad or heroes and villains. Villains are usually ill mannered and rude to the heroes. The beginning of this sequence has the perfect example of this, when the senator impolitely speaks to Zander, this helps us to easily establish who the hero is (Zander) and who the villain is (the senator).
The rebellious side of our hero is first shown in the shot which shows his tattoos, a few shots after that we see yet another tattoo on his neck which says xXx. Due to the title of the film 'Triple X', this tattoo shows us who the main character is, ordinarily the main character falls into the good/hero category. Also, when Zander steals the car he casually drives away whilst the mirrors are broken by the arch he drives under, this again shows us his rebellious side.
Heroes are consistently on the public's side, and this opening tells us that Zander is on the peoples side, trying to take away the potential bands on things such as video games and rock music, that not everyone is happy about.

Additionally, he shows that he doesn't care about the consequences of his actions, as we distinctly see that he is aware of whose car he's stealing and that the police will chase him. He does not commit any acts of violence. However he does pull a very brave stunt with the bridge jump, whilst jumping off the car, the non-diagetic music playing, sounds a lot like something you would hear in a James bond movie, which makes it very theatrical and makes him look like even more of a hero.

During the time at which Zander is driving the car and videoing himself, he calls the senator a "Bad man", generally the good is against the bad so once again this suggest that Zander is the hero.