Throughout the play The Duchess of Malfi presents revenge, nobility, strength, gender roles, power, social order, death, family, friendship, betrayal, corruption, cruelty, jealousy, murder, class, ethics, norms, desire, obsession, and torture. These various characteristics represent the characters in the play or they are mechanism that is used by the characters to fulfill their desires which eventually bought corruption in the land at the end of the play.
One particular 21st century movie that I thought is related to the play is the movie called Taken. The movie is about a Bryan Mills who is a CIA and a father to a seventeen year old daughter Kim who lives with a wealthy stepfather and her mother Lenore. The second and Third parts of the movie are best related to the Duchess. In the second part of the movie Kim and her mother join Bryan to Turkey. The second day while the two couples were taking a walk without Kim they got kidnapped by the Albanian Gangsters from the first movie seeking revenge to kill him and his family. The father eventually tells Kim to seek help from US Embassy. Meanwhile, the Mobsters are torturing his wife and told Bryan to watch while she bleeds. After much Torture, Bryan finally fights and kill the Mobsters and went back to save his wife. At the end the movie Bryan confronts Murad (killer) who tells him that if he kills him his two sons will revenge. Therefore, Bryan decided not to kill him and when he walked away Murad tried to kill him which shows that he cannot be trusted. In Taken three, Lenore who divorced Bryan asked him to meet her which he eventually found her dead in his own house. Therefore, the FBI thought that he is the one who killed his own wife. Towards the end Bryan and FBI found that Stuart who is Lenore husband was the one behind the her murder.
This movie is a great comparison because it shows the family being tortured which also happen in Duchess of Malfi and It presents a non-stop revenge to the family. Furthermore, it shows betrayal, jealousy and violence from Lenore husband which happened with Duchess and her brothers.
That is a great comparison and I definitely see the similarities between the play and movie.