obvious gaping plot hole (spoilers)
I can see no logical reason for Sondra's kidnapping. She got a call from the owner of the suitcase and went down to meet him. Why didn't she bring the suitcase?!
shareYou dolt.
She didn't get a call "from the owner of the suitcase". She got a call from the Arab, pure and simple. Michelle was the owner of the suitcase in Mrs. Walker's room, the Arab was guy supposed to pick it up from the locker at the airport. But since Michelle mixed up the suitcases at the airport, he picked up Mrs. Walker's suitcase instead.
Of course, the Arab had no idea that the suitcase he opened was the wrong one. He presumed it was the right one, and that Mrs. Walker - who's name was on it - was the courier (bear in mind that he'd never met the courier, and didn't know her name). He also decided, rationally enough, that it'd be a good idea to kidnap her and ask her why the transponder wasn't inside. Naturally, he presumed someone was after cheating him.
Hence, he came to the hotel and simply asked for her, not for the "other" suitcase (hint: just because you know there was two suitcases doesn't mean every character in the film knows also). Given that fact, why do you think she'd go and jump to the conclusion that the call from the lobby had anything to do with the suitcase? She simply went down to see who it was who'd asked for her.
It was only later that the reality of the situation became apparant to both the Arab and Mrs. Walker. The Arab then realised that while he didn't have the right suitcase, he did have Mrs. Walker.
I will refrain from calling you a dolt since I'm Canadians and need to maintain the image that Canadians are rational and polite.
That out of the way, let me add some things that shoot holes in your theory.
Sondra obviously did not receive a threatening phone call from the Arab. If she had, she would have mentioned it to her husband and she most certainly would not have casually ordered toiletry supplies before meeting the caller.
The only conversation I could imagine having ensued between the Arab and Sondra is something along the lines of:
"Where is it?!"
"Where is what?"
"It wasn't in the suitcase...."
At which point she would realise this was about the wrong bag, told him this over the phone, and offered to bring the correct bag down. As I said, plot hole. There's no logical way he could get her downstairs unless she knew it was about the bag and if she knew it was about the bag, she would have brought it down.
Your explanation is good and probably what the writers intended, but it doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
I'm actually bewildered by how stupid your response is.
You refer to a "threatening" phone call from the Arab, yet I made no claim whatsoever that there was a "threatening" phone call. I didn't even suggest that he spoke to her on the phone at all. Rather, he walked into the hotel, and the guy on the desk phoned to summom her down, presumably telling her that there was a man there to see her. Nothing especially odd about that. So your contention that "there's no logical way he could get her downstairs unless she knew it was about the bag" is plainly *beep* At that point, he had no reason to suspect there was a mix-up with the bags, but then why am I repeating a point I made in my first post?
Second, your notion that the Arab would be willing to take Sondra up on any offer she made to bring the real bag down. She wasn't in a position to make this offer over the phone given the fact that they didn't actually *speak* on the phone. The Arab was too busy kidnapping her to have the conversation in the lobby, so by the time Sondra had a chance to add two and two together, her husband was already gone to the police.
Even when Sondra realised what must have happened, why do you assume that the Arab would simply have trotted her back to the hotel to get the real bag? He didn't. Instead, he held her captive, and sent a few of his goons to ransack the hotel room. Finding nothing, he phoned Walker to arrange a swap. By that time, he'd assumed that the law were involved, and was acting as cautiously as possible.
See? It does make perfect sense. You seem to be totally mixed up as regards what the Arab knew when he came to the hotel. He assumed she was his courier, and wisely decided it'd be prudent to take her away and interrogate her. When he realised who she really was, he used her as a bargaining chip. When you consider how he died at the end, his cautious approach was very much justified.
Just watched this for the first time last night and really enjoyed it up until the first attempted exchange of the transponder with Mrs. Walker. It just didn't sit right after the film excellently portrayed a frantic, flawed & desperate man trying to find his wife with no help from the authorities.
I can only assume that the transponder was used for a nuclear device or a powerful bomb - which means that the Middle Easterns were powerful terrorist/gangsters with no morals. If so, why didn't they just shoot Michelle & Walker in the parking lot. Or capture and interrogate them at the club that they went to. Or even just shoot them once they saw the transponder when they met them under the bridge at teh end. I suppose that wouldn't of made for a good ending - maybe I've been spoilt with series such as 24 & Sopranos where gangsters and terrorists aren't rational thinking humans and just shoot to kill.
Perhaps they were afraid of getting caught by the police. Clearly they assumed that Walker called the police when his wife went missing - like anybody in his position would do. Given that, they acted suitably cautiously. The fact that the police turned up at BOTH and-offs says it all. The great appeal of Frantic is that it's not some Sly Stallone film, it's a far more sedate, realistic, logical story.
Whie the Sopranos tend to shoot people a little more frequently, don't forget that such killings are planned meticulously, and the characters are also quite cautious in what they do and say. The Sopranos has a great realism to it.
24? Trash.