MovieChat Forums > Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002) Discussion > I don't get it.

I don't get it.

posted 22 years ago by Dark Hellion
17 replies | jump to latest

No, it's not that I don't get the film, it's that I don't get it that people can't follow the plot. Be warned, this post contains major spoilers.

Agent Jeremiah Ecks is an ex-FBI agent whose wife was killed seven years ago. He is approached by FBI Assistant Director Julio Martine, his former boss, to come back to the fold and do one more job. As bait, Martine tells Ecks that they've discovered his wife, Vinn, is still alive--but won't tell him where she is or how they found her.

The latest thing in assassination is a microscopic machine which, once insinuated into a target's bloodstream, can cause heart failure, embolism, whatever the hell it wants to--and it just looks like a natural death. The most advanced research facility for this technology is in Berlin--but the Berlin labs have recently been hit by a team of professionals, and the prototype(s) stolen.

Martine and the FBI believe Robert Gant is responsible. Gant is a high-ranking DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) agent who, it is believed, is hoping to set up a shadow government. However, the only evidence they have is circumstantial (at best): one of Gant's lackeys was spotted in Berlin around the time of the raid. However, none of Gant's men, when they returned, were carrying the device. So where is it?

Added to that is the recent abduction of Gant's son by an unknown woman wearing a cloak and hood, captured on city security cameras. Michael has just returned from Europe. Martine believes there's something going on, and needs Ecks to investigate. Ecks, as a former profiler and with his unorthodox approach(es), is an excellent candidate for the job.

Cue shootout at the Vancouver Public Library. AJ Ross, Gant's lieutenant, is unable to capture the woman (who we learn is named Sever). Eventually, Sever escapes the clutches of the DIA, but not before shooting Martine (although not killing him), who tells Ecks that Sever knows where his wife is. Ecks pursues her to a rooftop, where he confronts her and demands to know where his wife is. A fight ensues and Sever escapes. Ecks goes back to temporary partner Harry Lee's place and does some research into Martine's files. He discovers Sever once had a family too--but that her infant and husband/partner were killed in an explosion at her house. We already know that Sever is an orphan-class operative--'bought' as a ward of the state from a Chinese family hoping for a boy under the one-child policy and then trained to become a lethal assassin. Ecks surmises that Gant had Sever's family liquidated as they presented a complication to Sever's work.

Ecks is subsequently arrested on suspicion of shooting Martine (no doubt influenced heavily by Ross and his DIA buddies). Ross interrogates him but learns little of value and so orders that Ecks be killed. Ecks is transported from the police station to...well, somewhere else...but a motorcycle-mounted Sever ambushes the prison bus with a grenade launcher. Ecks escapes and picks up a fallen motorcycle, pursuing Sever through Vancouver until he reaches a car wrecker's, where in a final confrontation Sever gains the upper hand, then reveals the location of Ecks' wife before letting him go.

Ecks follows his wife to the local aquarium/marine park thingy. She has been living the last seven years as Gant's wife. In a flashback, we see that, after a lunch together with Gant, Ecks was walking back to his car when it exploded. Vinn believed him killed. Gant hustled Vinn away, and then detonated his own car. Ecks believed Gant and Vinn had got into Gant's car, and so he believed both of them dead. So Vinn thought Ecks was dead, Ecks thought Vinn and Gant were dead. Now Vinn and Ecks have found each other again. They reunite and then decide to find Michael--who it turns out is actually Ecks' son, not Gant's. Upon leaving, Sever turns up. She is being pursued by DIA agents and ushers Ecks and Vinn into her car. Sever drives back to her hideout, shadowed by a DIA chopper all the way.

At Sever's silo hideout, Vinn and Michael reunite and Ecks is introduced to his son (although not as his father yet). Vinn and Michael hide at the top of the refitted silo in the service lift while Ecks and Sever prepare to meet the inevitable DIA assault head-on.

Cue firefight in the rail yard.

Ecks and Sever lay traps for Gant's men--and we discover that Gant was once FBI Agent Clark. Clark purportedly died when his car blew up, allowing Robert Gant to rise from the ashes and become one of the top-ranking DIA agents. The climax comes when Sever kills Ross, and then later kills Gant. She had taken the prototype from Michael's arm, where Gant had secreted it to get it back into the country, and placed it in a bullet. She fired the bullet at Gant's arm, the machines went into his bloodstream, and with the push of a button Sever activates them and ends Gant's life.

The end.

Now what the heck was so hard to follow about all of that? Really?

[–] Maleya 22 years ago

Hell I loved the movie! Thanks for the breakdown, though. There were a few parts I wasn't sure of.

[–] jar-jar-stinks 22 years ago

crumbs you put more effort into that post than the entire production team did for this dreadful turkey of a movie.

For explaining the plot to all those lobotomised souls who might have missed it's subtle nuances I salute you

[–] Maleya 22 years ago

No need for being an a**, jar-jar-stinks. (Could you not think of another user name)?

[–] jar-jar-stinks 22 years ago

I could think of plenty thank you - I was not being an rude, merely pointing out that the orginal post was actually better than the film that inspired it.

[–] Maleya 22 years ago

That part was fine. It was the part where you insulted people.

[–] jar-jar-stinks 22 years ago

well if that offended you then I apologise - did you need the movie explained to you?

[–] Maleya 22 years ago

It's ok.
No, not the whole movie, however there were a couple of things I missed due to God knows what. I was trying to watch it with a bunch of people in the room not watching it.

[–] nil_e_coyote 22 years ago

> it's that I don't get it that people can't follow the plot.

You mean you understood how the FBI had jurisdiction in Canada, and the authority to shoot up the city streets?

I had trouble understanding who the big bads were supposed to be. I originally thought they were rogue federal RCMP.

[–] ltzguy1 22 years ago

It's not that people can't _follow_ the plot, its that the plot doesn't make sense.

Let's put aside for a minute the (very serious) pacing and structure problems with the movie, and just concentrate on the screenplay.

First of all, Ecks and his boss work for the FBI, Sever and Gant work for the DIA - so what are all of them (or any of them) doing in CANADA? It's not like something happened up in Canada, and the rest of them flew in because of it - the whole thing takes place in like 48 hours. And its not like they're acting without government help, Gant seems to control the Vancouver police and an entire paramilitary organization, apparently based someplace very close to Vancouver, Canada.

Your plot description makes it sound like Gant is trying to set up a shadow government. The movie says that he already _has_ set up a shadow government. (And he'd have had to, to be able to call up the number of personnel he does.) The fundamental problem with this is that Gant is, at most, in his mid-40s. The shadow government is only seven years old. So how did it have time to raise Sever from birth?

If Gant has lots of these orphan-assassins (Ecks says so), and they're so well trained they can take on Gant's entire paramilitary organization, why doesn't he bother to call up even a single one to take on Sever? Instead, he sends an entire army of interchangeable armored SWAT cops. (Who, again, don't belong in Canada. If he'd called up an army of heavily armed mounties, well, that might have at least demonstrated some self-awareness.)

How does Sever know that the child has the nano-assassin? How does she know how to take it out?

How is it that Ecks and Vinn are married, and each thinks the other is dead, and no-one bothers to check for an obit? I mean, seriously. Neither of them disappeared, both were living out in the open. Didn't anyone try to cash a life insurance policy? Wouldn't they have bumped into each other removing their things from their marital home?

What's Gant's motivation with Vinn? I understand she's hot, but not that hot. She's also rude to him. You'd think that after seven years this big powerful rich guy could have found somebody attractive to date without having to force someone unpleasant to him to stay married to him.

So, Gant decides to kill Sever's family so she can be a better assassin. I would understand if he'd had all of them killed, that would at least make some sense. But his apparent logic in this movie is "Gee, if I kill her husband and kid, she'll be much better at being my highly trained assassin."

Ecks and Sever have enough explosives to rig the entire rail yard up. So why don't they make them powerful enough to hurt anybody? In one scene, six or seven of Gant's mounties are surrounded by explosives going off on either side of them, a yard away - and then they all get up and keep walking! No-one's even wounded. If Ecks and Sever are so smart with the explosives, they couldn't figure out that they needed to make them stronger?

Finally, with all of the people involved in approving and making a big-budget picture, didn't anybody figure out what an absolute disaster this was?

[–] thunda2 22 years ago

You're right,many things in the plot just didn't make sense.I watched this DVD 20 times and I still can't figure out what's going on.Even though I enjoyed it because I got to see plenty of Lucy Liu (she and Antonio did their own stunts),I'm not going to defend it and say it was a good flick.I will however give you some theories I came up with concerning certain parts of the plot.
1)According to the movie,Echs was to join a "trans-national special taskforce" to investigate(or find,I'm not sure)Gant.so the FBI and Canadian Intellegence teamed up.I'm assuming that Gant was an American living in Canada and DIA is a Canadian agency(no offense to Canadians but I'd hate to think that America had an intell agency that incompetent).

2)I assume that this DIA was some sort of cold war or anti-terrorist network that existed long before Gant took it over.

3)That whole "Chinese orphan class" statement bothered me,I got into it in another thread but let's just say it might have made more sense if like you said Sever and Echs fought a couple at the end.I think those masked armored guys were tactical DIA agents.

4)I think after she lost her family,Sever devoted all her skills to tracking Gant and finding a weakness she could exploit to get revenge.Taking out that micro-assassin seemed too easy,I could've done it.

5)Gant probably convinced Vinn her life and her baby's life was still in danger from the people who killed her husband.He also probably used his connections to set up a new identity for her and told her not to contact any old friends.Echs must have blamed himself for her death and decided to stay drunk instead of looking for clues.

6)I don't know why he wanted Vinn,maybe one of those 'I want what he has' things.

7)Gant wasn't trying to kill Sever's family "they were'nt supposed to be there",he was trying to kill her because "you broke profile".I've seen something similar in the La Femme Nikita series.

8)I think the director wanted as many explosions as possible without blood or making the main characters appear as killers.

A viewer really shouln't have to fill in so many plotholes,I'm not sure if this film suffered from bad writing or bad editing.At first I thought this was an okay low budget film but when I found out they spent $70,000,000 making it,I'm not sure what to think or what they were thinking.

[–] ltzguy1 22 years ago

The DIA is the Defense Intelligence Agency, which is the intelligence analytics arms of America's Department of Defense, i.e, the Pentagon. So lets just put that one aside for a minute.

Ecks was supposed to join a "trans-national force" looking into Gant? OK - I can accept that. But, why didn't anyone in the transnational force investigating Gant bother to look at Gant's photo? HE NEVER CHANGED HIS APPERANCE FROM WHEN HE WAS IN THE FBI!!!

And this leads me back to the biggest hole in the plot (other than the recurring Canada problem) which is that most of the major players (Ecks, Gant, Vinn) think that at least one of the others is either dead or not who they claim to be. BUT - they're all living out in the open under their own names! No-one is hiding.

Someone please explain this to me: Ecks and Vinn are married, each thinks the other is dead, so they're both living in the open. How come they don't bump into each other at the martical domicile, or when they go to collect the others' life insurance?

[–] thunda2 22 years ago

Okay,let me just say I am not defending this film,I am only attempting to answer questions based on my own assumptions(and the fact that it's pretty much my only DVD,so I've watched it over 50 times).

1)If DIA is American,then 90% of this movie makes no sense.

2)They didn't know what Gant looked like,"Intel is purposely limited."

3)"Staying with Gant was the only way to protect Michael","You promised me this would never happen".I'm assuming that Gant convinced Vinn that the same people who killed her husband would be after her and her child so he probably set up a new identity for her(and him).They neglected to mention it but she changed her name from Vinn to Rayne when she married Gant/Clark(Talisa Soto is listed as Vinn/Rayne in the credits at the end).If this was a grade A movie(like a James Bond movie),they would have made more of that "shadow government" statement and the trail would have led to the White House(or Canadian Parliament)or head of the FBI or something because it doesn't seem logical he could remain hidden without help.

4)I can only assume that when Vinn/Rayne moved to Canada she was in something akin to a witness protection program and Gant/Clark convinced her to stay in seclusion and not to have anything to do with her former life.
I guess Echs was convinced his wife was really dead and started drinking and gave up on life.It does seem strange that he never questioned the lack of a body or never tried to find out who planted the bombs.

[–] ltzguy1 22 years ago

OK, you're totally making up entirely new subplots to have the movie make any sense.

Even when you go into the witness protection program, or take up drinking, YOU GO BACK TO YOUR HOME TO PICK UP YOUR THINGS! At least your toothbrush.

Didn't one of them try to call the others' parents to cry over their loss?

Plus, if Vinn/Rayne moved after the bombing, the plot makes less sense, since then how does everyone get to the same city instantaneously? I assumed the bombing was in Vancouver.

DIA is American; if it were Canadian the movie would make even less sense, since its hard to picture a country that hardly has a real government, whose police ride horses, as having a paramilitary shadow government. I mean, nobody was even saying "eh" or "aboot."

My theory: The foreign director thought Vancouver was in the United States, and no-one bothered to point it out to him.

Theory 2: Somewhere on the cutting room floor is an introductory sequence explaining that this takes place is a dystopian future in which Canada finally admitted its just our 51st state.

But you aren't defending the film, and I'm not attacking you. Its just that since I saw it on cable, I can't get my money back, and the only way to get even with the fascist criminals who wrote that screenplay is to spend as much time ripping the movie up as I spent watching it.

[–] thunda2 22 years ago

1)I wouldn't say I was making stuff up,I'm making assumptions based on lines from the movie,interviews with the writer,actors,director,producer(on the DVD) and information I got from their official website.This movie has so many plotholes though there's no way I can make sense of it.

2)Echs took to drinking but never left his home(which I believe was in america) or changed identities,it was Vinn/Rayne who moved to Canada with a new identity.I can only assume that Gant talked her into leaving right after the explosion without saying goodbye.

3)Parents or family members were never mentioned so for the sake of the plot let's assume they don't have any.

4)I'm assuming the bombing was in America and they fled to Vancouver because no outside of Canada heard of it(just kidding).

5)The director only says he "heard" the DIA really exists,no one ever says if its USA or Canadian.I picked Canada because I can't believe a USA agency could shoot up a whole Canadian city block like they owned the country.

6)I already used up my quota of Canadian jokes.

7)I think you hit the nail on the head kind of.I think 4 or 5 hours of film footage was left on the cutting room floor.The fight scene between Sever and Echs which everyone wanted to see was longer but they cut it,along with most of the plot.

8)You're lucky.Most people on this board either paid to see the movie or bought(me) or rented the tape/dvd.

[–] pieter_rossouw 22 years ago

I thought it's just me, but this film really sucks. You tell them.

[–] ChrisKattanFreak 22 years ago

I understood the plot completely. I thought some parts were a little slow but generally it was a good movie with a semi-strong plot. THere was barely any cursing which I suppose is a good thing. There was no sexuality which was definately a good thing and though Severs was an assassin she had a good heart. I just hope my parents enjoy the movie as much as I!

[–] troodon 22 years ago

The fact that it takes so long of a post to explain the plot of a so-called action film says it all, doesn't it?