Does no one else regard the whole premise of the main plot to be flawed? The three flatmates did not kill Hugo - he died naturally and any postmortem would have confirmed this. There was no need to dismember or even hide the body. They could have continued with the plan to call the police, kept the money, and pleaded total ignorance if (unlikely) they were asked Hugo had left anything valuable.
shareit wasn's so much the death, but the money that was the bone of contention in the movie. they could have just done what did best:
Juliet was a doctor, she could have fenagled something with the body at the hospital.
Alex was a reporter, he could have done something with the newspaper writing to angle the story
and David was an accountant. He could have worked that money somehow.
Alfred Hitchcock would have had a field day with this movie.
Swing away, Merrill....Merrill, swing away...share
lol at the last line..
shareThey could have, but they still would of had people coming after the money. That would only of gotten them off for one murder, not the other 2 they later would have to commit to keep the money.
And its not a massive plot flaw that the characters react differently then you would have.
It is when the premise is the characters being driven by circumstance they can't control. And who would have come after the money? The problem for the housemates was that "Hugo" has disappeared, causing suspicion and reaction from all sides. Had he instead been simply reported dead, and his possessions in the hands of the police, then what was there to come after exactly? There would have been no reason to suppose that the money, like everything else, was not also in the police's hands.
shareReporting his death would have highlighted that Hugo had died in that flat. Prior to that, they had no idea that anyone apart from them knew that they he had moved in.
There was a large amount of money in that suitcase that someone would have been looking for, whether that would have been the police or criminals or both.
In the end, the criminals ended up raiding the flat and assaulting the residents even though they had no police or press reports to prove that Hugo had lived there, yet alone that he had died.
Reporting the death of Hugo to the police wouldn't necessarily stop criminals from trying to get their hands on the money from the residents of the flat - if the police told you someone had found your wallet, would you assume they'd handed the wallet and everything in it to the police, or that they'd fished out the cash first?
To jamieandthemagictorch, Thats EXACTLY correct. Its not only about keeping the money and turning the body into the police because just because THEY didnt kill him. Its about the money that the bad guys would come for once it was reported that he died in their flat, which even without an official police report on record verifying that he died in their flat the bad guys still were able to figure out where he died. But HOW DID THE BAD GUYS TRACE THE MONEY BACK TO THE FLAT? Was there evidence in the car when they spotted the car in the shallow lake???
shareIt's never been clear to me how the bad guys turn up at the flat. The massive plot flaw in my view is the flatmates turning a natural death into a suspicious one. All they needed to do was pop him back in his car and leave it somewhere quiet.
share.. and then count and split the cash. Though wouldn't be much of a movie :)
Yeah dunno how the bad guys got to the lake and how that then pointed them to the flat.
I think you're not really meant to think too much about them finding the car, it's more just to indicate they are getting closer to finding them. After all it was still a tense and enjoyable film!
shareThe character 'Freezer Victim' tells the bad guys something before they lock him in. I think it is the street address. That was why they broke into the downstairs flat first. They didn't know the flat number.
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''But HOW DID THE BAD GUYS TRACE THE MONEY BACK TO THE FLAT? Was there evidence in the car when they spotted the car in the shallow lake???''
i assumed the bad guys got information from them people they were torturing about hugos new address,the bigger plot hole is how the bad guys traced hugos car in the lake,that seemed ricidulous.
This is exaclty why I didn't like this movie. Take the money, replace the suitcase (so the police would be seen leaving with it) and be done. Anyone that would come looking for the money would do so anyway so you might as well have the excuse that you found him dead, called the police and that was that. The police wouldn't advertise that they found the money and if they somehow found out they didn't have it who's to say the guy didn't stash it somewhere else?
sharewell if you had found a dead body next to a pile of cash how would you have reacted? lets be real here....it was a movie. and there wouldn't have been much of a plot there if they had called the cops and hid the cash. would homeboy had gone crazy if he wasnt scared to spend it? it was a great film and the ending was probably my favorite film-ending ever...when does the bad guy ever get to win????
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it was a movie. and there wouldn't have been much of a plot there if they had called the cops and hid the cash.
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I agree, even though the baddies would probably have come after them much sooner the tenants had no idea of this and it was not made clear in the film. they had no good reason to lie, what a bunch of twats anyway, all of them, no one was likable
share"The massive plot flaw in my view is the flatmates turning a natural death into a suspicious one. All they needed to do was pop him back in his car and leave it somewhere quiet".
Not at all. Having him found in his car, would make his death public knowledge, tip off anyone looking for him that he was indeed dead, and that someone else most likely had the money, or at least knew of its whereabouts.
Also, phoning the police to report the death while keeping the money, would have removed the criminal act of desecrating and disposing of a human body, but it would have also alerted anyone that might be looking for him (and the money), that he was indeed dead, and where he died.
Without a body, who's to say the dead guy had not left the country under a false passport, taking the money with him. No body no death, no death and no record of where he had been staying, and both he and the money could be anywhere. Crime 101.
Were the trio of flatmates careless? Yes. Did they act stupidly at times? Yes, but for the nit pick crowd, just because a charcter(s) act in a way that you or your friends would not, does not make it a plot flaw. Some people need to learn the definition of plot flaw.
The flatmates were blinded by greed, but even in real life, people are capable of doing some extremely strange (and careless) things when tempted by fast easy money. Watch real life crime documentaries. It is shocking how dumb some human beings can be (even educated and well paid professionals) when planning or covering up a crime. Perhaps these real life stories, are examples of "plot flaws" also.
THIS.
/thread.
Love your take while reading this thread. Your last line rings true with programs they have on the Investigation Discovery channel.
shareThis occurs to me every time I watch the film, but it's not hard to explain away. They didn't know how Hugo got the money, or who else knew he had it, or who else knew where he was. If he'd stolen the money (which would be my first guess if I found a suitcase full of cash hidden under my flatmate's bed) then it's likely someone would be looking for it, and looking for him. By reporting his death, they'd call attention to themselves as being the last ones who saw him alive. But by getting rid of the corpse and pretending they never met him, they minimized the risk of anyone showing up at the door asking where Hugo's suitcase was. Or so they thought.
I always thought the safest thing to do would be to take some of the money - enough to have a good time with for a while - then call the cops and hand the rest in. If anyone notices some of it's missing, well - Hugo could easily have spent it on drugs and whores before he died, for all anyone knows...
Exactly. Couldn't ge past this, so I couldn't enjoy the movie.
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