Are the rules realistic or cinematic?
They’re romantic. Beyond that, it’s another one of those “yes and no” issues. Fly From Evil characters given “civilian” stats will perform very, very differently from those given stats meant to represent a legendary-figure-living-his-legend (as opposed to a legendary-figure-as-he-probably-really-was). The Game Master can set the brakes at any point along that spectrum without digging under the hood. I built the rules to adhere closely to realism (comfortably abstracted for speed and sanity), because hardboiled crime drama is, by long tradition, nearly realistic. But I built the stat-curve with a high ceiling and wrote a menu of special abilities to allow that realism to be compromised as the GM permits, because hardboiled crime drama protagonists often manage to dance with the reaper more adeptly than they would in less romantic literature or the real world.
