ah I'm pretty sure that the movie you're talking about is Spider Man 3. Brock says that bcz he thinks that Peter is pushing him too hard. He thought that even though his pictures are fake, Peter shouldn't told the truth to the boss, which made Brock lost his job. so I think that's the point of "Give him a break", don't push him too hard

Your explanation is very clear, Michael. Thank you very much!

I have to applaud your writing again. Really, really good :) Your explanation or suggestion of Brock intending "lighten up" is interesting, and possible. On balance, I feel he's being more self serving - but my opinion on that has no more value than yours :) The "little guy" - yes, it's based on the same usage of "guy" as your regular working stiff, your man of the people, your everyman. The "little" adds a whole extra "us against them" flavour, the people versus the power structure. I don't imagine our US president has ever felt himself to be "the little guy". I don't think that's really colouring Brock's speech here though - this is movie dialogue, not poetry. If Brock had added in the "little", to give "When are you going to give a little guy a break?" it would probably have felt like a clumsy mixture of two idioms, and generated an almost-comical effect I think :) But what do I know? Nothing, really. Have a good evening :) https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/17/us/politics/trump-working-class.html https://mixedidioms.co.uk/

And finally, there's just one more thing I wanted to know before we can call it a thread. Is the word "guy" in "when are you gonna give a guy a break?" close in meaning to the well-known "the little guy"? Would it have made much difference if he'd used it instead of the simple "a guy"?

First of all, I'd like to say a few words about the "fastidious" in my comment below. Yes, I was sort of groping for the right word. I had "fastidious", "pedantic", and "scrupulous" in mind. I didn't use "pedantic" because someone pedantic sounded to me like someone who could exercise a certain degree of authority if need be, and the thing is, I feel it is by no means my place to demand anything from anyone in places like italki. I didn't choose "scrupulous" because it would have sounded slightly self-praising. Well, at least, that was how the word sounded to me. "it may also come across as "fussy", or even "pedantic", with all of the negative associations that go with that." Well, in short, that's the meaning I wanted to embed in my fastidious: someone who is too hard to please, someone who keeps insistently asking questions when the subject seems to be exhausted, someone who goes too far in their quest for the precise meaning of the words in question. (But then again it's still for you to tell me if my choice was wise or not.) Second, based on your explanation (which is very good, I must say!), I think it's quite safe to say I messed up my main questions: "Is he saying that Parker acts the same way with other people, too? That is, he wants everyone around him to be as righteous as he is?" I wanted something like this: Parker appears to be the kind of man who always plays by the book ("such a boy scout"). He's righteous and expects everyone else to be the same way and if they are not, he will lecture them and then, if they fail to see the faults in their ways, he will punish them, harshly, until it finally happens. So Brock just wanted Parker to stop pestering people, nagging them about their wrong (from Parker's point of view) ways; in other words, he told him to "live and let live".