People can go catatonic when faced with terror. But that is not what happened with the doctor. He had full control of his body, he could move normally and with purpose, and he was fully awake.

He simply acted cowardly. If his reaction is typical of most people today then the culture has certainly changed for the worse.

@mechajutaro said:

He simply acted cowardly. If his reaction is typical of most people today then the culture has certainly changed for the worse.

One accepts the p--sups alongside the proceeds. There's less carnage on our planet today than any century prior, which makes for a more pleasant, comfortable, and enriching life overall. That said, the fact that we engage in violence less often than at anytime in our past doesn't serve us well on those few occasions where we must protect our own lives or the lives of the most vulnerable

I suspect I might be a bit older than you (just a guess) and have a slightly different perspective.
When measuring violence it would be useful to separate military violence from civilian violence. The 20th century advancements in artillery and mechanized war machines allowed for much more bloodshed. I would venture that the 20th century saw more military killings than any previous century, even if one accounts for population differences.

Looking back a little further, the advent of the hand carried firearms, the handgun in particular, changed the civilian violence situation dramatically. Prior to the advent of handguns which could be concealed on one's person, the biggest man with a knife was generally the victor in altercations. The elderly, women, and others who were weaker stood little chance of surviving a fight, and were often victims. Once the weaker members of society began arming themselves, the situation was dramatically altered. Now the criminal knew that the weaker members who were previously easy marks could effectively fight back. After the adjustment period, which didn't take too long, society became more polite, and more safe. So in the civilian sector, as you indicated, the strong-arming and violence has decreased (except for some more recent, alarming trends I will mention later).

This trend has continued where citizens are legally allowed to be armed, not just in America but in other countries around the world. Harvard put out a landmark study which examined the relationship between legal access to firearms vs. suicides and murders. In jurisdictions where citizens may legally own firearms the incidence of violent crime, and suicide, is significantly lower. The authors of the study were surprised by their findings.

Within the United States, the country with by far the most firearms, and the most firearms per capita, in those jurisdictions where citizens may be legally armed the rates of violent crimes are much lower than in those where citizens are prohibited from owning handguns. The areas with the highest murders per capita all have strict gun control laws in place. But in jurisdictions which pass laws allowing citizens to legally own and carry handguns, the violent crime rates always decrease. There have been many studies by criminologists which confirm these trends. In the first half of the 20th century in America, there were more homes with firearms in them than there are today. You could walk into a hardware store and buy a handgun without a permit, without a waiting period. And the incidence of violent crime during that period of time was remarkably low. School shootings were unheard of. Mass shootings were almost unheard of. (The exceptions, like the Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago, were generally related to organized crime activities, often with one gang fighting against members of another gang. ) In spite of all the firearms Americans own, this is still one of the safest countries in the world. We are not even in the top 100 countries in murders per capita, even with the data from the high murder rate gun controlled big cities like Detroit, New Orleans, St. Louis, and many, many more. In fact, if we exclude the data from those cities, we have one of the lowest murder per capita rates in the world. (The numbers change a little from year to year, but we would be in the lowest 15).
My point on all this is, the safety we enjoy is correlated to our preparedness and ability to defend ourselves.

It was not until the country began passing gun control laws, creating large geographical areas in which citizens were prohibited from owning firearms that the incidence of violent crimes began to increase again. Society has become much more impolite as it became disarmed. Whether there is a direct connection or not, I will leave to others to say. But it is clear that the culture has degenerated over the past decade in particular into a much more violent one. For example, following the most recent Presidential election in my country, there were gangs of people rioting, destroying shops, setting cars ablaze, and so on. But much worse than this, some of them physically assaulted people they believed had voted for the winner of the election. Unfortunately, these incidents of vandalism and assault have continued for the past couple of years and show no signs of ending. In over six decades I have never witnessed this sort of behavior.
What is more alarming is the apparent approval of large numbers of people who express support for this politically inspired violence. Even one politician publicly urges her supporters to engage in harassment of those who support the current President.

My best friend for over 30 years was a low level quadriplegic (C-5) who worked hard to get as much return as possible. He never could use his fingers, but could move his wrists, elbows, and shoulders. Many people mistook him for a paraplegic.
When I was growing up, no criminal would consider assaulting a person in a wheelchair. Even among the criminals, that was seen as dishonorable. But my friend was assaulted on several occasions. It was only his training as a marine which allowed him to come through those assaults relatively unharmed.

I am alarmed at the trends I see in my country, America. Despite all the facts, all the criminology studies, and the years of experience dealing with firearms in public hands, our politicians seem determined to disarm the public. Where do over 95% of the school shootings occur? They happen in "gun free zones" where nobody is able to effectively defend the children. Where do most of the murders occur? They happen in jurisdictions with gun control laws, otherwise known as defenseless victim killing zones.

It is the people who have learned how to defend themselves which make society safe. I support our police departments, but they can only try to solve cases after they happen, in most instances. If the violent criminal is to be stopped, it must be his intended victim who stops him (just as the girl in this movie finally was able to do).

I have a tendency to talk on and on about subjects which interest me. I also have to proofread what I write because I sometimes skip over or don't effectively express points I want to make. That has led to misunderstandings in the past. That might be why I try to give examples, background, etc., and why I sometimes make the same point in different ways. I don't really intend to write a long comment when I start out, and when I reach an endpoint I am often surprised to look up the page and see how much I have written. LOL. Text is a bit inadequate to communicate effectively compared with speaking to someone. Text doesn't show the tone of voice, inflections, facial expressions, and there isn't any feedback. You can't see if the other person fails to grasp the point you intended to make, if clarification is needed, etc. I have had some major misunderstandings before, especially if I attempted to be humorous and the other person didn't read it that way. So I am sometimes far too wordy.

I did sense that we were probably in agreement on a great deal, and that our perspectives might not be too far apart, though probably a little bit. Everyone has their own perspective, and that is absolutely fine. I don't like the trend in our cultural current where so many people act as though they are injured if others don't share their position, opinion, viewpoint, whatever. You don't seem bothered about any potential differences of opinion, and I am glad for that.

I agree with the fellow in point number 4. I have had to face down bullies many times. Once I was working in a retail store and a young male, probably late teens or early 20s, was upset that his prescription was not going to be ready for about 20 minutes as there were others ahead of his. This fellow became angry and threatened to kick my ass. I could see that he thought that was going to scare me. It really only amused me. I just stood there looking at him until he looked back at my face. He was a bit shocked, and he said "you're not scared!" I had to chuckle. He started huffing and puffing, trying to save face in front of the couple of other people watching this happen. Point number 4 is quite valid. I answered "of you? No, not at all." And I wasn't. I am no Bruce Lee, but I have generally handled myself well when I had to fight, and I could see this guy was all bluster.

I understand that there are people who have seldom had to fight, or face down bullies in any serious sense. The doctor in this film was such a person, we are led to assume.
Still, he had a clear and relatively safe opportunity to advance without being seen and grab that rifle. His facial expressions revealed his internal debate. Seeing him weight the options, and decide to avoid the danger associated with having to shoot the murderer, to give in to fear rather than find that determination to save his girl, watching all that play out on his face caused a visceral reaction in me. I was just disgusted.

But I get your point that taking that risk in a life or death situation was just way outside this guy's wheelhouse. He had very little time to decide which course to take, and he was terrified after having seen those murder victims, and having been hunted by that sociopathic murderer.

I spoke out about it because I hate films which seem to show such cowardice without at least showing some negative consequences. The cowardly doctor wasn't hurt, and did not lose his girlfriend over this. He is not a real person, I mean he was just an actor playing a part, and I wish they would have had it play out differently.