MovieChat Forums > Unbreakable (2000) Discussion > One thing that bothered me

One thing that bothered me

posted 16 years ago by poopyletter
69 replies | jump to latest

I love this movie, I give it a 9/10, but the one thing that bugged the crap outta me was that David killed the kidnapper. I dunno, I just always thought the thing that seperated a superhero from a supervillian was that they didn't just kill people. They have MERCY. I mean, I think David had the strength to maybe knock the guy unconscious or something without killing him. That just bugged me.

"She's dead!"
"She is? ...These are the moments that make life worth living..."

[–] jclifton-2 16 years ago

He was serving justice.

That man just killed those girls' parents. He was going to kill the girls. He deserved nothing less than immediate execution.

[–] debiler 16 years ago

He's just a human being. If you watch closely, that's not the only thing about David that isn't superhuman about him...

[–] Original_Castor_Troy 16 years ago

THANK YOU!! someone else that gets its..he is just a human being!

[–] ChunderY 15 years ago

What are the others?

[–] philoj 10 years ago

He has a very crappy memory - he had to ask if he'd taken any sick days. He doesn't seem to remember the car accident until he's reminded.

He's not brilliant - just an average guy doing an average job. I think this is important because it highlights that his insights into people who will do evil are really special, not just him doing a Sherlock Holmes deduction thing.

He's really the epitome of "He's just this guy, you know?"

[–] Ohzora 16 years ago

i don't support death penalty etc, but it wouldn't bother me if someone got killed after he raped some wife daily, killed his husband and was going to kill 2 little children too (or maybe rape them too) ...
and btw it doesn't bother me if a monster like him gets killed spontaneously by a other man due to his emotions and self-defense, but i wouldn't support the arranged killing by a state and their machinery of justice and law ... yea i know, my english is awful

[–] ashersam 16 years ago

like the name of the team he played for and now protects, he is a warrior......and warriors are not in the business of taking the bad guys in alive.

[–] rondine 16 years ago

You know what bugged me?

the incorrect grammar at the end:

"David Dunn led authorities to Limited Edition where evidence of 3 acts of terrorism was found."

was refers to the 3 acts (plural) of terrorism.

It should read "where 3 acts of terrorism were found."

shouldn't it????

[–] GorillazButter 16 years ago

That wasn't part of the script, it was added at the last moment which would explain the error.

---
I'd love to see you in the moonlight with your head thrown back and your body on fire.

[–] rondine 16 years ago

I would say what would explain the error is a lack of understanding about "agreement" when it comes to plural vs. singular.

I mean, come on! Don't tell me that just because it was added it at the last moment that no one at all could see/hear right away that it was wrong??!

[–] GorillazButter 16 years ago

Okay then. They noticed it was wrong but deliberately decided to not fix it.

Seriously man, what kind of answer are you looking for?

---
I'd love to see you in the moonlight with your head thrown back and your body on fire.

[–] rondine 16 years ago

well woman, (LOL!) I wasn't looking for an answer- you provided one.

I think it's just sad they didn't care enough to fix it. It's one thing to have colloquial dialog that's incorrect, it's another thing to have written print in your movie that is so obviously wrong.

No answer needed- just wanted to add what bothered me about this otherwise enjoyable film :)

[–] scorbongulous 16 years ago

hate to break it to you but the end title was grammatically correct...

"evidence of three acts of terrorism was found"

the evidence (of multiple acts of terrorism) was found... "was" refers to "evidence," which is a singular. evidence weren't found, it was found. now if you want to complain about the use of the passive voice ("evidence was found" as opposed to "the authorities found evidence"), i'm right there with you on that. otherwise, who really cares?

good movie, plus as other people said, i'm glad that david killed the kidnapper.

[–] rondine 16 years ago

what was found? 3 acts of terrorism- which is plural, that is what is being referred to by the verb. Heck, even MS Word found this sentence wrong when I checked it just now (which is not to say Word is infallible, because we all know it is).
As for who really cares? come on, Jack... we ALL discuss things on this board that don't matter one whit in the real world. Little things that only movie lovers care about. Is this a big deal? does anyone besides me care? perhaps not, but it's always bugged me and what better place to let it out! :)

I already said I liked the movie- and I do.

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] rondine 16 years ago

You are the first person to bring up a good point- my only question would be (since like a good learner, certitude is never 100% for me), how do you separate the 3 acts of terrorism from the evidence? Technically, aren't they all part of the subject here? Isn't it possible to have a compound subject?

This is the way my twisted mind works:

what was found? evidence

what kind of evidence? evidence of terrorism

so I guess you could say the 3 acts is an adverb???

now I've opened a can of worms, LOL! :)

[–] done_holding_back 14 years ago

The subject is "evidence of three acts of terrorism". It just so happen that the subject is being referred to in a convoluted way, made more confusing by the fact that the subject comes first and the qualifiers second, so by the time you reach the verb the qualifiers feel more like the subject than the original subject.

[–] rondine 14 years ago

thanks for chiming in... I agree with you that part of it is the placement. :)

[–] qfal 8 years ago

No, what was found was "evidence", singular.

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] his__shyness 16 years ago

No, the grammar is correct.

the subject of the verb "was found" is "evidence", which is singular.

"of 3 acts of terrorism" is a prepositional phrase modifying the subject "evidence".

I'm quite sure that "3 acts of terrorism" were NOT found at Limited Edition. Evidence of same, however, was.

[–] bacon_226 16 years ago

Actually, I believe it is referring to the "evidence," sigular.

Though it did stand out to me too...

[–] rondine 16 years ago

I think I stand corrected by the more grammatically literate than I here- however, no matter how they explain it, it still sounds wrong to my ear. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one that thought it sounded weird.... :)

I think part of the reason it sounds wrong to my ear is that "evidence" is the same word whether it's singular or plural- like the word moose... (sorry I can't think of a better example, but I know there are more)... know what I mean? evidence is plural anyway... you never hear someone say, "an evidence" it is kinda plural all the time.... do I make ANY sense???? LOL! :)

[–] ljriffel 16 years ago

It sounded wrong to me to at first but...think of it this way:

A box of puppies was found / A box of puppies were found.

Sure many puppies 'were' found, but the subject of the sentence is a box.

And a singular box was found. What's in it is not the point, just like what the evidence was in the original sentence doesn't finally matter. It was evidence that WAS found.

Cheers.

You know your worth when your enemies praise your architecture of aggression.

[–] rondine 16 years ago

I see what you mean about box being the subject and puppies being a descriptor- but box is always singular.... boxes is the plural.

When is evidence singular?

In my mind, evidence is a plural noun- of course, that's just in MY mind... does anyone see what I mean about you don't find "an evidence" it's kinda implied that evidence includes more than one thing.... am I making ANY sense to anyone but me? LOL! :)

[–] BookieMD 16 years ago

Evidence ia a noun tht can mean a single item (Her smile was evidence of her pleasure) or a number of items, depending on the context in which it is used. In this case, the modifying prepositional phrase indicates that the evidence consists of more than one more than one item, but the subject of the sentence, 'evidence', is still singular.

The sentence is grammatically correct for the reason spelled out by his shyness. The reason it doesn't sound right to you is that proper grammer is not stressed in schools today the way it was years ago, and I agree that the passive voice makes this sound awkward.

How many of you readers under age 25 could diagram this sentence? Or even know what that means?

[–] rondine 16 years ago

Actually I just re-read the whole thread and the best explanation so far I think was the analogy to the box of puppies.

As for the subtle insult about how proper grammer (isn't it grammar? I'm just givin' ya a hard time, LOL!) not being stressed in schools today, I am 42 years old, so I don't know how many years you go back before you say it was better schooling.

But, I think I am at last satisfied that this is a correct sentence grammatically, I stand corrected AND I thank all of you for your help in schooling this movie fan. I think if nothing else, we had a fun discussion of a possibly inane topic, ¿qué no? :)

thank you EVERYONE!!!!

[–] CromeRose 14 years ago

I think evidence is singular when it is evidi... just kidding! What was found? Evidence - so it's "was found." If three acts of terrorism were found - i.e. if the cops arrived and they saw a building being set on fire, a plane being blown up, and a train being derailed, well then, apart from getting killed by all those acts of terrorism being perpetrated in such a small place as Limited Edition, they would also have found three acts of terrorism and not just the evidence of those acts - so then it would be three acts of terrorism "were found."

Oh, and about the original topic of this post, I am not sure if David did kill the rapist/murderer. I mean, he put one long choke hold on the guy but he might only have rendered him unconscious. That'll happen to a person if you manage to keep them in a choke hold long enough. And of course if you keep the choke hold in place after they lose consciousness then yes, you will kill them. Personally I like to think he killed the guy. Who cares if some dirty filthy rapist and killer of innocent families got the life choked out of him? I applaud it! I loved this scene and the fact that no matter what the guy did to fight back, there was no way he was gonna get out of the choke hold of a guy who apparently had limitless strength and was... unbreakable. This was no helpless husband or wife victim that had him in their grip. It was a superhero.

Watch "Bedbug" on YouTube at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QI_1YSXt8Y

[–] rondine 14 years ago

omg! I can't believe people are still writing about this even after I said, "I get it"!

I still stand by the point that the word evidence which is both singular and plural is what caused the confusion for me in the first place.

Thank you to all who participated... albeit somewhat later, lol!

I don't believe in killing, but I am willing to say that I was OK with the idea that he might have had to do that to stop him.

[–] bladou20 15 years ago

I also thought it sounded weird.

[–] rondine 15 years ago

Thank you!
I think part of the reason it sounded weird is that "acts of terrorism" is kind of like a compound noun. In this case, each word is dependent upon the other to complete the noun's meaning (see how I am still lobbying for my original point? lol!) and because of that, the "s" on acts makes the entire noun sound plural to me. After all, it wasn't "an act of terrorism."

Anyway, I'm glad someone else thought it sounded weird too!

[–] site_man 15 years ago

Evidences is singular so "Evidence was found" is correct.

[–] darknobility759 15 years ago

"You know what bugged me?

the incorrect grammar at the end:

"David Dunn led authorities to Limited Edition where evidence of 3 acts of terrorism was found."

was refers to the 3 acts (plural) of terrorism.

It should read "where 3 acts of terrorism were found."

shouldn't it????"

No, rondine. It's an easy mistake, but read the sentence again.

"David Dunn led authorities to Limited Edition where evidence of 3 acts of terrorism was found."

The verb is agreeing with evidence, not acts. Singular. And thus correct. Acts is part of a genitive phrase describing the evidence. It's just that most English-speakers speak English badly, and thus expect it to be written badly. English just doesn't sound right to us when it's written correctly.

=EDIT=

I just saw that the grammatical issue was handled. As for David Dunn killing the kidnapper, he was sort of forced into it...the kidnapper didn't leave him much choice as I recall. That said, he's only human, and not every superhero is a Superman, with a die-hard code against killing. In many instances, actually, superheroes are quite utilitarian, and the punishment fits the crime.

"I don't know what pregnant is, but I don't want to catch it."

[–] rondine 15 years ago

I can't believe any one is still replying to this thread! :)

Yes, I got it. Yes I know it's my fault for being a dumb American that doesn't write or speak English well.
I'm so glad that I was able to get an answer here that made sense to my ears as well as my mind.

[–] Bosch_Fan 15 years ago

I've only seen this movie twice, but I really like it. I also wondered at first at the fact that David killed the intruder, but as previous posters have pointed out:

1) He had already killed the father,
2) He had possibly severely mistreated the mother, who ended up dead,
3) The children were possibly next on his list (for who knows what?), and
4) The man had just intentionally pushed him off a balcony, intending to kill him.

I think his actions now must be regarded as similar to any law enforcement professional responding to a known murderer holding people captive (who has just attempted to kill them). It isn't perfect, but it is just in some ways.

Also, posters are right in saying the phrase regarding "evidence of 3 acts of terrorism was found" is correct. The subject is the term "evidence." If you remove the details and check it (always a useful exercise to check that the grammar is correct), it becomes "David Dunn led authorities to Limited Edition where EVIDENCE...was found."

[–] rondine 15 years ago

I agree that David was justified in taking this man's life. It was defense and it was justice. He killed at LEAST 2 people.

As for the grammar thing... thank you for the ____ th confirmation, lol! :)

[–] jlittlebass 12 years ago

Letting aside the question of 'should he or should he not have shown mercy,' I think it's important to consider the circumstances of the scene. Bruce Willis was totally unarmed. He had to take that guy out somehow because obviously letting him get away was out of the question. How many options did he really have at that point? If he had had some convenient way of neutralizing him and leaving him for the authorities to find, Batman or Spiderman-style, maybe he would have, but did he have any way of doing that? He didn't have any webbing or ropes tied to boomerangs or whatever, all he had was his bare hands and a psychotic murderer that had to be taken down one way or another. What could he have done besides sneak up on the dude and choke him out?

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Alexej 14 years ago

the incorrect grammar at the end:

"David Dunn led authorities to Limited Edition where evidence of 3 acts of terrorism was found."

You're kidding, right? Evidence was found. Evidnce is singular.

My name is Colin Creevey
and I'm a photoholic.

[–] rondine 14 years ago

Are YOU kidding?!

First, didn't you read ANYthing on this thread besides the initial post?
Second, before throwing stones, do your spell check for typos. :)

[–] SpecialAgentScully 12 years ago

No, "was" refers to the word "evidence."

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. -Edison

[–] rondine 12 years ago

Yes, but my initial point was that in my twisted mind, evidence can be either singular or plural and I think that is what sounded weird to my ear.
Anyway... this has been hashed & re-hashed since like 3 years ago...

[–] SpecialAgentScully 12 years ago

I don't think there IS a plural form of "evidence"! It's a collective noun, but it's always singular.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. -Edison

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

[–] John-Wick 8 years ago

It's grammatically correct. Using "were" would only work if it was the acts of terrorism themselves that the police found there, and that's impossible/nonsensical. When the text says "was", it's referring to the evidence which is singular. So it's grammatically correct as is.

[–] MtnMan13 8 years ago

You know what bugged me?

the incorrect grammar at the end:

"David Dunn led authorities to Limited Edition where evidence of 3 acts of terrorism was found."

was refers to the 3 acts (plural) of terrorism.

It should read "where 3 acts of terrorism were found."

shouldn't it????

Actually, the grammar is correct. "Was" refers to "evidence" which is singular. Take out the prepositional phrase and it becomes obvious: "David Dunn led authorities to Limited Edition where evidence ... was found.

It's an awkwardly worded sentence, but it is grammatically correct.

[–] Pete314 (3001) 4 years ago

Not a native speaker, but...

"where evidence WAS found that 3 acts of terrorism WERE committed."

This way?

[–] vincevega918 15 years ago

You know what Mr. Glass would say about that individual (even though Glass turned out to be somewhat of a mentally insane villain)? -"YES HE DESERVED TO DIE AN I HOPE HE BURNS IN HELL!" :P

[–] PhantomPhan222 15 years ago

Either David DIDN'T kill the kidnapper, or you can add an anachronism to the Goofs list.

David holds him in a tight headlock, clearly putting pressure on his carotid artery. This cuts of the flow of oxygen to the brain and induces unconciousness in under a minute (as we see in the film), but once you take away pressure from the carotid the flow of oxygen to the brain resumes and, if the windpipe had been obstructed through such action, the body would automatically begin to start breathing again on reflex.

"People always sing 'Part of Your World' at auditions... that's why I only know one lyric."

[–] Burklayton 15 years ago

The guy's definitely dead. The paper states that he was found dead in the home, and to the goof -- we do hear David struggling and a popping sound from his neck even after he's unconscious.

[–] mixj444-1 12 years ago

EVIDENCE WAS found.

3 acts of terrorism WERE not found.
EVIDENCE WAS.

Just like Jim and I went to the store---I went to the store, not Jim and Me, me went to the store, you get it.

And my impression was he choked the guy out. You pass out before you die.

[–] kalron27 15 years ago

It does not bother me one bit...as others have said, he is human. Being that this is his first endeavor into heroism, and not fully aware of the possibilities, it makes perfect sense that he would kill the Orange Man. Either by not knowing his own strength or through pure emotion, the end would be the same. This was a much harsher view of Comic Heroes, in this circumstance death in inevitable.

[–] wondercraftcomics 15 years ago

This guy nails it.

Imagine yourself, going inside the home, taking Dave's place. Not truly sure of your self, your abilities, or even why you are there in the first place. You have seen what heartlessness this guy is capable of. Now you sneak up behind him. What do you do? Grab him. Headlock. Hold on for dear life.

Now this guy is big. Real big. Strong and very ill-tempered. As you hold on to him, he is slamming you against the wall. Hard. Elbowing you in your kidneys. Your adrenaline is rushing. Your heart is thumping in your chest. Now you are starting to fear for your own life, so your grip tightens. Then...POP.

There goes his neck.

That scene was just... perfect. So powerful. So chilling. So real.

Now that you have felt yourself there, does the killer dying really seem that implausible?

[–] ShakespearesSister 15 years ago

I'm glad David killed him; he deserved to die. But I also believe the terrorists deserved to be water tortured by the Bush Administration in order to give us information we needed to save innocent lives; but most people don't agree with me.

Killing a bad guy without giving him a chance to surrender seems to be supported by everyone here, but how many of you support dunking a bad guy's head in water to get him to spill information? You probably find that morally repugnant.

So it seems...

Killing bad guys=okay
Lightly torturing bad guys=not okay

I don't get the inconsistencies of what we consider justice.

I have my own mind. And as a reward, I get to use it.

[–] hyf2112 14 years ago

Ok I don't see where politics come into the discussion but there you go.

IMO, this was not a "super-hero" movie. David Dunn was an ordinary man with an extraordinary gift. He had just come to realize this gift. His vision had shown him something horrible, and he decided to investigate it. He could have left with the kids after they saved him from the pool, but who's to say the villian would still be there if the police were sent after he got them to safety. No, this guy had to be taken care of immediately. Maybe he didn't intend to kill him, but once he started there was no going back. He served justice and as such had no cause for remorse. It was a human thing, not a super-human thing. He sent the police after Elijah without killing him. It's not like he now has a need to kill evil-doers.

[–] manofsteel4455 10 years ago

I can't believe self-rightous idiots are actually trying to turn this into a moral debate.

[–] ipacac22 14 years ago

the one thing that bugged the crap outta me was that David killed the kidnapper. I dunno, I just always thought the thing that seperated a superhero from a supervillian was that they didn't just kill people. They have MERCY. I mean, I think David had the strength to maybe knock the guy unconscious or something without killing him. That just bugged me.

I realize this post I'm quoting is over 2 years old but I feel I must comment on this. Sure in the comic book world some superheros show "mercy" but this is set in the real world and David is a human being with some superhuman abilities such as great strength. Secondly, why the hell should the orange jump suit man be given mercy? You did see this movie right? So you know what he did to those people. How would you react if that was your family? People like you bother me with your leniency on those who are obviously guilty of horrible crimes. I hope you're not in the justice department.

Utah! Get me two.