In 2014 the cinematic feature “Captain America: Winter Soldier” thrilled audiences as a superhero movie which doubled as a relevant political thriller. Several reviews have pointed out the libertarian theme that the film conveys. In all the analysis and commentary there is one aspect of the film which has received little attention – a brief scene which may contain the most powerful and effective message that the film has to offer.
The scene takes place in the last half of the film. Steve Rogers (a.k.a. Captain America) has been labeled an enemy and a threat by S.H.I.E.L.D., the secret do-good government agency that originally recruited Rogers to fight. It turns out that S.H.I.E.L.D has been infiltrated by Hydra, the insidious enemy faction from the first Captain America film. Hydra has been using the agency to secretly advance its plans to dominate. After barely escaping capture and execution, the Captain decides to go on the offensive and make a frontal assault on S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters. Outnumbered and out of time, Rogers makes a plea to all of the employees of the agency who have not been corrupted by Hydra.
As you can see, Captain America informs the various employees and contractors of the corruption of the leadership and mission of the agency and asks them to stop the launch of the helicarriers. These massive airships were thought to be guardians of peace, however were actually armed with tremendous firepower which would allow Hydra to execute a kill list on millions of innocent people who it identified as enemies.
It is with this turn of events that we meet the most unlikely hero of the film. Portrayed by actor Aaron Himelstein he is a character without a name but is listed simply as Launch Tech #1 in the film’s credits. From his brief scenes in the film we can gather that he is an employee or contractor with S.H.I.E.L.D.. He has no super strength or notable back story. He is simply a guy with a job to coordinate the launch of the helicarriers. He is just one of hundreds of menial worker bees at a classified government agency and probably just sees his job as a way to make ends meet, while doing work that he believes is keeping his fellow citizens safe.
Launch Tech #1 has, no doubt, gone through years of training in relatively mundane tasks such as project management, computer launch algorithms and information security. All of this pales in comparison to the awesome kick-butt stuff that the Captain, Black Widow and Falcon do in the film, but that doesn’t matter to Launch Tech #1. He is just a small cog in the machine, but he is a dependable one. He has a fulfilling job with good pay and a pension. For Launch Tech #1 life is good. Good, that is, until Captain Rogers makes his plea over the intercom and Launch Tech #1 is confronted with the reality that the mission that his mundane life has been devoted to is not one of national security and justice, but is instead one of atrocity and evil.
He is in the middle of processing the implications of this disclosure when he is confronted with a moral dilemma. You see Hydra needs the helicarrier to be launched so that it can carry out its plan of large scale targeted killings – and it needs the support staff and technologists working at S.H.I.E.L.D. to launch them. Just when they are about to achieve their goal, Captain America discloses their plan to everyone at the facility and Launch Tech #1 stops to consider the implications. To ensure their plan continues on course a Hydra agent points a gun to his head and demands that he continue to do his job and launch the carriers.
What he does is more heroic than all the punching and shooting and blowing things up that any costumed crusader is praised for – he says “no”.
