Does anyone else think that Jim Phelp's plan was kind of out there? Hoping that Tom Cruise would successfully come up with the plan to end up on that train after stealing the NOC list is very wishful thinking even with his aides guiding his thoughts and actions.
shareI'll go you one (or two better)... so many of the character motivations and plot devices along that line make zero sense.
1. Phelps and Claire obviously succeeded in selling Max the (unbeknownst to them) fake NOC list, and got $125k for it. Since Phelps went through the trouble of faking his own death, and Claire was MIA to the rest of the team, wouldn't the next part of the plan be to drop out of sight? Turning traitor meant they obviously were done working, time to call it a day with one last big payday. They are world class spies, they should have an easy time disappearing and living on that $125k. In other words, what was the motivation for them to even go back to the safe house and stick around? There wasn't any that movie/plot made clear as far as I could tell.
2. Even if you suspend disbelief on my first point, secondly... if Claire, Phelps and Krieger were all working together to get the NOC list and sell it... after Claire finds out the first one was fake, and they get the real one from Langley... wouldn't the obvious move then be to swipe the real one and re-contact and re-negotiate a sale with Max? Claire has Ethan's trust at that point... easily could have taken it with Krieger's help, whether by stealth or gunpoint. Even after the hokey "magic trick" scene with the disk, Krieger knows there are two disks. Take them both, meet up with Phelps and go. That just seems so much easier and less risky. I mean seriously... Ethan totally thought they were working with him, how easy it would have been to kill him and just take the disks at any point at he safe house. The point... they already had contact with Max through Phelps... there was ZERO need to let him make all the moves and use him to set the meet with Max on the train. In fact, that would just one more thing to STOP them. Makes ZERO sense.
I do enjoy this movie a lot for the eye candy... but the script is seriously one convoluted, hot mess with plot holes aplenty.
I don't know if you guys will ever see this or even still care, but here's my attempt at explaining these issues.
1.
Does anyone else think that Jim Phelp's plan was kind of out there? Hoping that Tom Cruise would successfully come up with the plan to end up on that train after stealing the NOC list is very wishful thinking even with his aides guiding his thoughts and actions.
They are world class spies, they should have an easy time disappearing and living on that $125k. In other words, what was the motivation for them to even go back to the safe house and stick around?
After Claire finds out the first one was fake, and they get the real one from Langley... wouldn't the obvious move then be to swipe the real one and re-contact and re-negotiate a sale with Max? There was ZERO need to let Ethan make all the moves and use him to set the meet with Max on the train.
That just seems so much easier and less risky. I mean seriously... Ethan totally thought they were working with him, how easy it would have been to kill him and just take the disks at any point at he safe house. The point... they already had contact with Max through Phelps... there was ZERO need to let him make all the moves and use him to set the meet with Max on the train. In fact, that would just one more thing to STOP them. Makes ZERO sense.Ummm... Phelps and Claire didn't want the disk. They were doing it for the money. Ten. Million. Dollars. Duh.