If they had brought in a chemical toilet, it would have begun to smell after a week. He had to be able to stay in there undetected.
Saw this movie last night and really liked it…and I’m in no way a Spike Lee fan. But I have to give him credit for making a really entertaining flick.
But the movie does have some HUGE plotholes. Luckily, I didn’t really think about them until about five minutes after the movie ended. The first howler (and I’ll keep it vague to avoid spoilers…I’m afraid I’d screw up the hidden text and ruin the movie by accident!): how does the Clive Owen character know about what’s in that box? And why the hell is it still in there in the first place!!!
I just wanted to say that I totally agree with Polerius. He speaks for me on this one.
It was your typical-not-your-typical-heist movie, IMHO. I liked it, but it wasn’t quite as good as I’d hoped.I could have done without the whole Nazi subplot. That’s a bit overdone, IMHO. I did like the Bin Laden’s nephew bit, though.One thing that puzzled me, thoughThey kept giving out the address for the bank, which in movie terms means there’s something significant about it, but I couldn’t catch the ref to it. Is that the actual street address for the Flatiron building in NYC? I’m not a NYCer, obviously, but I’d think that saying “Flatiron building” would be how they’d refer to it, since that’s the way I’ve always heard it referred to.
[spoiler] I don’t understand what was so complicated about solving the crime. You have multiple security guards that saw 3 painters barricade the door, plus the one that zapped the security camera. So you know at least 4 robbers weren’t in the bank before the heist. All that means is that you go to the tape of the one enterance, see that a given person walked in the door, and cross them off of the list. At the end of the process you have 3 people whos enterance is unaccounted for, and therefore must be the robber.
That sort of ruined the movie for me, becuase it seems that the robbers would be trivially easy to identify. [/spoiler]
Also, wouldn’t it be ten times easier to hide the diamonds behind the fake wall instead of, you know an entire person?
Treis Yeah, but then you have to get access to the storage room without attracting attention, which is a lot harder than getting OUT of the storage room without attracting attention. Your other point is one that I hadn’t though of, and may be the undoing of this script. Anyone got a rejoinder to this point?
Loved this movie.
Treis, I don’t have a rejoinder at this time to your excellent point, but it doesn’t ruin the movie for me.
My question: My 14-year daughter loves crime/mystery stories. After much consideration I took her along with me to see it. (She loved it too). What amazed me is that for an “R” rated film it has much less violence, sex, bad language, etc. than many PG-13 movies we’ve seen! Do these ratings mean absolutely zilch?
Cardinal
[spoiler] If only there were a place where you could safely and privately deposit an item in a bank. Perhaps some sort of box in a locked room that would be safe for deposit. Hmmmm. Seriously though, why not just put it in one of your safe deposit boxes? If you are worried about them searching the boxes of those that were caught, then have another coconspirator.
With a guy behind a wall you run the risk of someone smelling him, noticing the room is 3 feet smaller, or hearing when he kicks through the wall. It just seems like the worst possible way to retrieve the loot after the act. [/spoiler]
I think the movie tried to address this by having Denzel Washington say that:
the cameras had been out for at least two minutes before the robbers announced themselves. So anyone whose presence was unaccounted for could argue that they walked in during those two minutes. Certainly that would make them worthy of closer scrutiny, but it wouldn’t be a smoking gun.
It’s just a quick line of dialogue, so I may be misremembering, but I believe that’s how they addressed that point.
Selkie-
Thats true, however you should be able to eliminate nearly everyone, although I know the Jewish guy was in there already. You know you have 4 robbers in painting suits that were not in the bank before the cameras went off. Therefore, you can eliminate everyone that was in the bank from being one of them. It just seems such an absurd thing to question people that were on camera for 30 minutes before the robbery.
Thanks RikWriter ,
I guess I skipped over the fact that a man creates a lot of waste in a week
Or hearing him talking to the audience. Saying his name and how he did it! Not a very smart criminal back there 
I like your idea, but his worked fine (for me)
They did discuss this in the film to a degree.Denzel Washington’s character says that they’d narrow it down to a couple of suspects and then several of the other hostages would say something that would eliminate that person. Despite what you see on shows like CSI: Cornhole, IA, security camera images are pretty damn bad and it’s difficult to get a positive ID using just a security camera pic, so unless one of the robbers had something about themselves that would have stuck out on the security video (like the word “guilty” tattooed in 2 inch high letters on their forehead) you’d be hard pressed to make a case that a jury would convict on. Given that the best you could hope for was an unlawful imprisonment conviction (which could be plea bargained down, since no one had any real priors), there’s not much point in making any arrests.
Not if Clive Owens character had a criminal record that included bank robbery. You couldn’t afford to risk him being in the hostages, since the police would naturally start investigating things heavily and seeing who he associated with. Of course, you’d also want to make sure that everyone of the bank robbers could prove that they had legitimate business in the bank, so that the police wouldn’t focus on them unduly.
[spoiler]If Clive Owen’s character had come out and been questioned, they would have known for sure that he was the main robber. They talked to him on the phone several times, and both Denzel Washington and Jodie Foster talked to him face to face. Washington didn’t see Owen’s face, but he says his height, build, and hair, and was going around looking at the hostages on the ground, looking for the guy that he’d talked to.
So it seemed easier to me that they have one person do all the interaction with the cops and then hide for a week, then to have all four robbers constantly switch between being robbers and hostages, switch talking to the police, hide the diamonds in the storage room (or somewhere in the bank to be retrieved later), blend in with the hostages at the end and not be discovered, and retrieve the diamonds later.
I hope I’m making sense. These are just my conclusions after watching the movie and discussing it with friends
[/spoiler]
Sam Lowry - what you said in your spoiler box makes sense to me.
And then, what, stage another robbery to get them out again? Break in, just MOVE the loot, then leave? That makes no sense.
I was pretty happy with the plot, logic-wise (and was shocked when Ebert tore into it while he forgave Flightplan for plotholes you could, uh, fly a plane through). Personally, I think
Clive Owen’s character had no previous bank robbing experience and that this was instead a one-time thing that took years of preparation. I liked the fact that the audience was allowed to fill in some of the blanks, as we are doing now, rather than seeing the robbers setting things up a la Ocean’s 11.
Hmm, perhaps I should have added an ‘open spoilers’ tag at the beginning.
Yeah enough of this, the whole thread is just black:
SPOILERS AHEAD
Ok,
Sure, it would be hard for someone to identify people in the security camera, but it should be trivially easy to identify yourself. Each person knows about when they came in, what clothes they were wearing, what they were doing in the bank, and should be able to spot themselves. Either way, you should be able to narrow it down to a few people who could be the robber. Concentrate your investigation on them. The robbers had to have known each other somehow. That gives you at least something to look for.
He could be the guy that picks up the loot later, or just not have him participate in the robbery.
Well, that is something easily solved by disguising your voice, keeping your distance when you talk to them, wear heavy clothes, etc. etc. For such brilliant bank robbers that ought to be an easy problem to solve. Certainly a much easier problem than figuring out how to hide a person inside a freaking bank for a week.
Stick it in a safe deposit box that one of the robbers rented, or have a 6th co-conspirator rent one. Walk in a month latter and retrieve the loot.
But what if you had multiple people identifying the same person as themselves? Having worked in enough Stop-N-Robs over the years, I can tell you that I’d be hard pressed to identify myself on the tapes.
Yeah, but if I had the stones necessary to plan and pull off that kind of heist, I’d want to be in the center of the action. Plus, it’d give you more cred with your accomplices if you’re the one taking the biggest risks.
Good cops like hostage negotiators would be able to spot that a mile away. Notice that when Owens talked to the uniform cop he used an accent, but when he talked with Washington it was his normal speaking voice. Also, you have dispose of all of that in such a way that the cops can’t find it, and if they found that stuff, it’d be a simple matter of using a dog to play “match up.”
No honor among thieves, remember? You’re also relying on the bank president to not search all the boxes, something that he’d be inclined to do quietly in order to verify that his secret stash hadn’t gone too far. The brilliance of Owen’s character leaving the ring behind with the note for Washington’s character to find is that he knew Washington was an honest cop and would see to it that the old geezer was brought to justice. Once that happens, the whole bank implodes, and everyone forgets about the “robbery”, since the bank now becomes known as “First Nazi Bank and Trust.”