In the film, the Senators daughter had Secret Service protection. In real life, do Senators daughters, or Senators themselves who are not running for President, rate having Secret Service agents assigned to them?
Nope. The relevant law is 18 USC 3056. I’m not going to quote it here, but it clearly spells out who protection is limited to. It definitely doesn’t include Senators who aren’t Presidential candidates. You could argue it does cover that kid who was the son of the Russian President though (“Other distinguished foreign visitors to the United States”).
I assume that if a Senator feels threatened, he or she would have the FBI provide protection, rather than the Secret Service.
That whole movie is full of stuff that is either plain wrong, or just doesn’t make sense. Especially for a movie that is supposed to be set in modern day. You expect realism from a detective mystery movie like this.
*** SPOILER WARNING ***
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The car crash scene. Would the car really flip like that? I don’t think so. It probably would have crashed into the wall and stayed there. Maybe slid along the wall until it stopped. Plus that whole scene was out of place in the movie, since they never explore how it affected Alex. That one guy calls him “damaged” and that’s it. Whatever happened to making car crash scenes by crashing real cars? Sure the blues brothers crashes were unbelieveable, but at least they used real cars.
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Lindbergh webcam. They were looking at a 360 degree photo of the classroom apparently. Or was it a surveillance video? Where did that come from? Either way, they zoom in on the missing lindbergh picture, which takes them to a live webcam. Umm… ok.
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Super webcam. What is this webcam also known as the hubble telescope? It’s got super zoom and enhancement features. Originally they zoom in on a piece of hair, and do a remote DNA test to figure out who’s hair it is and where he lives, but it didn’t make final cut. (That’s a joke, didn’t really happen)
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Hidden messages in .gif files. I can see them passing notes this way during class, sure. But why use it at home? Wouldn’t they just chat over AOL? And what was Dmitri thinking? She’s kidnapped, but has access to a computer and email? Freakin idiot, they should have let him get kidnapped.
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Dmitri kidnapping. Why didn’t he use the exact same method to kidnap Dmitri from the school instead, since he was the target? It would have worked just as well, I’m sure.
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Nice login screen. It displays the password plain text like that so everyone can see. And of course, she keeps everything about her evil plots stored in the computer. Note to self: keep evil plots in head, not on hard drive. Granted, this is so that people understand how he figured out the password, but he could have just as easily said it out loud as he typed it for the same effect.
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The end. Why did the girl go with Alex (a complete stranger) so easily? She was kidnapped by her teacher that she trusted, kidnapped again, and her bodyguard that she trusted just tried to kill her. Yet he says “I’ll take you home” and she believes him? I don’t think so.
Not to mention the secret service protecting the senator. If anyone can explain any of the above, please do. It could be that I just didn’t understand the movie.
If Monica Potter wasn’t so hot, I wouldn’t have enjoyed the movie at all.
It’ll probably win an award for best picture.
Wow, that turned into a rant.
I know from a State Department seminar that they have agents that do protective detail similar to the Secret Service who are responsible, among other things, for the saftey and security of visiting dignitaries in the U.S… might they also pull security for Senators?
This movie was an absolute stinker… the only thing that stopped me from walking out was I had my girlfriend with me, and she’s a big fan of the book. Imagine my relief when after the movie she told me how horrible an adaptation of the book it was.
The Super-dooper image magnification, that was great. I (along with about 10 other people in the audience) laughed out loud when they showed that. Sometime around the early 80s when “computer” became a synonym for “magic stuff you can’t understand”, this little bit of shite started showing up in TV shows (I think I first saw it in Night Rider–a show that sucked so bad I used to record it just so I could erase the tape) They zoom in, and the image gets all blurry and pixelated, and then someone just says ‘enhance it’, and it magically becomes a high-res image again… apparently just by pushing a button you can create data in the image that isn’t there, hmm… Why don’t they just say ‘push the button that magically shows us his home address and phone number, favorite type of ice cream, and cures my painful genital sores’?
SPOILER
He was damaged because he lost his partner into the cascade. Personally, I didn’t mind the physics of the car crash. Even though it wasn’t believable in our world, it looked cool and that’s good enough for me. (I’m easily impressed, I guess. LOL).
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- Lindbergh webcam. They were looking at a 360 degree photo of the classroom apparently. Or was it a surveillance video? Where did that come from? Either way, they zoom in on the missing lindbergh picture, which takes them to a live webcam. Umm… ok.**
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I didn’t understand this but figured that it was purposely planted by the kidnapper to lead the investigators to his lair.
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- Dmitri kidnapping. Why didn’t he use the exact same method to kidnap Dmitri from the school instead, since he was the target? It would have worked just as well, I’m sure.**
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I assume you mean that he should have kidnapped Dmitri at the same time as the Senator’s daughter. Otherwise there is no way he could have gone back to the without being immediately arrested. I believe he planned to kidnap the boy after the agents kidnapped the girl from him and thereby took away his pawn from him in his game with the doctor. I’m trying to remember the exact order of the events to see if I’m correct in this regard, because my memory is a little sketchy. The doc’s female “partner” (I’m pretty bad with names), didn’t shoot the kidnapper because this would blow away her plan to receive ransom money, along with her “boyfriend.” I would assume that they already had the girl in their possession at this point.
Granted, I was not watching this movie too closely, but… I thought that the American security detail – Secret Service or whoever – was there to protect the Russian kid, not the Senator’s daughter, and they got caught up in the girl’s kidnapping just because they happened to be on the scene. Am I wrong?
"I assume you mean that he should have kidnapped Dmitri at the same time as the Senator’s daughter. Otherwise there is no way he could have gone back to the without being immediately arrested. I believe he planned to kidnap the boy after the agents kidnapped the girl from him and thereby took away his pawn from him in his game with the doctor. I’m trying to remember the exact order of the events to see if I’m correct in this regard, because my memory is a little sketchy. The doc’s female “partner” (I’m pretty bad with names), didn’t shoot the kidnapper because this would blow away her plan to receive ransom money, along with her “boyfriend.” I would assume that they already had the girl in their possession at this point. "
I think to remember he tried to kidnap Dmitri before the girl got kidnapped from him. It is when he goes back to the boat that he finds out the girl is not there. You are right about the partner not shooting the kidnapper.
I assume you mean that he should have kidnapped Dmitri at the same time as the Senator’s daughter. Otherwise there is no way he could have gone back to the without being immediately arrested. I believe he planned to kidnap the boy after the agents kidnapped the girl from him and thereby took away his pawn from him in his game with the doctor. I’m trying to remember the exact order of the events to see if I’m correct in this regard, because my memory is a little sketchy. The doc’s female “partner” (I’m pretty bad with names), didn’t shoot the kidnapper because this would blow away her plan to receive ransom money, along with her “boyfriend.” I would assume that they already had the girl in their possession at this point.
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No, the kidnapper used the girl to bring Dmitri out in the open. She was never the target, as kidnapping her wouldn’t have been ‘the Crime of the Century’.
Also, the SS agent was assigned to the girl, with other Secret Service agents assigned to general security for the school.
Thanks to SmackFu for the link. It proves the entire premise was full of ****. Senator’s daughters do not get SS protection if the Senator isn’t running for President or Vice-President.