I saw it in the cinema but there is a major plot hole in there somewhere that I must be missing ( I noted it while watching the movie and now I can’t remember…slightly ironic). Anyone help me out?
Here’s all the help you need:
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Couldn’t you be a little more specific than “a big plot hole in the middle”? After my 6 or so viewings, I can report no plot hole that I’ve noticed.
Well, I’m not sure it’s exactly a “plot hole”, but there is the question of whether the character of Sammy Jankis was as Lenny remembers him, or whether he’s an imaginary character Lenny uses as a scapegoat for things he did himself. Sammy is supposed to have gotten anterograde amnesia, like Lenny, and been tricked into overdosing his wife on insulin as part of a test of his mental illness. It’s been suggested by the film’s website and DVD extras, among other sources, that in fact Lenny’s wife survived the assault and died of an insulin overdose he administered, and that Lenny was institutionalized (and later escaped) as a result.
That’s the problem with stories told by an unreliable narrator: the story may be a figment of the character’s imagination. It’s why I had a hard time liking The Usual Suspects, since most of the story ends up being told by an unreliable narrator who may just be making it all up.
The “plot hole” usually brought up is that Lenny somehow remembers why he has amnesia, and the explanation given is that he’s trained himself Pavlov-style to look at the “Remember Sammy Jankis” tattoo on his hand, which reminds him. Personally I found this a bit hard to swallow which is one of the reasons I wasn’t terribly impressed by the film.