ending?
Can someone explain why the Feds picked up the watch at the end and said nothing to his superior. Does it mean he knew ho to find Jennings?
shareI could be misunderstanding something, but my theory is that the boss of the guy who picked up the watch was bent on obtaining either the machine or Jennings. There were a one or two statements where he seemed to say that. If he had Jennings, he'd force him to make the machine and then kill him so there was no risk he could sell another machine to someone else. The guy who picked up the watch didn't seem to agree (I think there was some hesitation when the order was given to shoot Jennings [when the bullet actually hit Rethrick]), and he apparently trusted that Jennings wouldn't sell the machine to anyone, so he said Jennings was dead and hid the evidence to the contrary. I agree with someone else on the board here that it wouldn't be hard to prove that his body was in fact not anywhere on the premises, but perhaps the nice agent could lie to his superior about that, too. Or the delay before it was discovered would be enough to let Jennings get away safely (although Jennings and friends don't seem paranoid afterwards -- sequel with crazy FBI boss as the bad guy, anyone? :P).
Another half-baked theory is that the watch also had some sort of magical time powers (it caused the future to change), but there's not much evidence of that, it just occurred to me as another reason the guy would want it. I'd be interested in anyone else's theories. ;)
*SPOILER ALERT*
You're probably right. The FBI boss surely was conveyed as Corrupt and wanted the Machine for his own gain and the watch picker was shown as a nice guy. He understood the case, believed Ben Affleck was innocent and once he knew that the machine and the Rethrick were destroyed, he is willing to let Jennings go.
But what no one discussed was if the FBI boss wanted - he could disbelieve and keep looking for Jennings- which won't be hard to find since he would claim his 90M jackpot. Of course he could request the jackpot company to keep the winner anonymous and get away..