MovieChat Forums > Assault on Precinct 13 (2005) Discussion > Massive plot hole noone seems to have me...

Massive plot hole noone seems to have mentioned (SPOILERS)

posted 17 years ago by kestersmith
12 replies | jump to latest

Jasper was a corrupt cop out to kill Bishop, he spent a huge amount of time inside, armed with only a few people, in separate rooms.
Why didn't he just shoot everyone?

Also, I don't know if anyone else realised but I knew he was corrupt from the second the attacks started. He immediately knew exactly what was going on, knew the phones were dead, knew the mobiles were jammed etc.
The ONLY reason I thought he wasn't a bad guy was because he didn't shoot them all at the first chance.

Seems to me he had massive opportunity, right from the start, to finish it very quickly and easily but didn't.

[–] roo1 17 years ago

Er... not necessarily. I feel that, as the siege progressed, he became increasingly discontented with having to protect Bishop, risking his life for him and jeopardising the lives of the other police officers for a cop killer. He decided to do what he did for those reasons.

[–] Omega05 17 years ago

Roo1 is right....Jasper wasn't part of the corrupt cops.
I would know because I was there.

[–] kestersmith 17 years ago

The how did he get in touch with the people on the outside? It seemed to me like they were out to kill everyone so as soon as they saw him they would have shot him.

[–] Omega05 17 years ago

Do you remember the scene where the Black Guy saw the door open with handcuffs and he saw a shadow? And he thought it was the one white guy that had a crush on the secretary, and Ethan Hawke accused him of being a spy? It was really that fat old white guy.

I'm guessing the Fat Man didn't get shot by signalling to them that he was willing to co-operate....He probably stood outside the door unarmed with his hand in the air...signaling that he wanted to talk.

[–] HuskerScott 17 years ago

Actually, he had to be in on it from the beginning.

Remember when he toasts his retirement with Ethan Hawke and Adriana from the Sopranos at the beginning of the movie? They ask him why he didn't mention his retirement before and he responds that he just heard about it that night. This is because Gabriel Byrne's character had found out about the reroute to P-13 and had contacted Jasper to arrange for Bishop's death (such as cut the alarms on the backdoor.)

I think Jasper even mentions this at the end after they come up out of the sewers, but its been awhile since I've seen this movie so I could be wrong.

[–] calliekabrick 17 years ago

He was in on it from the beginning. Have you ever heard of a cop just all of a sudden saying "Today's my last day"? They never retire like that. There's always a big party, and they have to plan it early because no matter where you're a cop at, you've got tons of backlog to clean up and current cases to hand over before they let you leave. My husband actually figured out he was the bad guy as soon as he said "today's my last day." And the part where he knew everything about the phones and stuff was a tip off too. the reason he didn't just go around killing everyone was because that wasn't his part in the whole plot. He justified to himself what he was doing by the fact that he wasn't actually physically killing anyone, therefore it was okay.

[–] carloski2003 17 years ago

I truely believe Jasper didnt want any of his friends to die so kept the names secret wanting it all to be over.
however his own fear eventually over took that of keeping them alive.

Jasper believed Byrne was a very good police officer,
whether he knew the police were dirty or they just really wanted vengeance on a cop killer Marion is unknown.

The fate of Bishop was plotted right from the start and Jasper became part of the conspiracy before Marion left the City Precinct.
A summarized timeline of events

-Marion is bizarrely being sent for transfer from a highly secure city holding cell, on a dangerous stormy night.

-Jasper breaks sudden news he was retiring, to Roenick
"Claiming it only just became final"

-The prisoner transport was given a fictitious traffic accident report on the highway and redirected them to Jaspers precinct 13.

-Roenick tries to get rid of the prisoners, Jasper fights for them to stay.

-Jasper knew the alarm wasn't working on the back door.
Knowing Bishop is highly sort after why did he not warn Roenick?
This became the first point of entry. How did the enemy know the rear door alarm did not work?

-Jasper continuously builds up the fear and suspense in those around him in an effort to encourage them to surrender.

-Jasper abandons guarding what soon becomes the second point of entry

-Byrne was uncertain of what to do next that primarily plans failed, he moves to unknown environment assault techniques, Flash bangs full assault teams.

-Jasper went to the back door and discussed with someone that trusted him a plan.

-Jasper bizarrely realizes that there was a trapdoor in the basement (whether he knew all along or was spoon fed this from contacts blueprint at the door is unknown.)

-Jasper leads the escapees to an ambush.

My conclusion on the above.
Jasper was paid money to assist Bryne to get Bishop right at the commencement of the movie.
He provided Byrne with key details of Precinct 13, most notably a primary point of entry a Disabled door alarm in the holding cell.
Secondary point of entry non reinforced Front Door.

Jasper's complecency at guarding the second point of entry (front door)highlighted he didn't want to die and may have known of the outside plan,

The death of Alex point blank illustrated no remorse and the aim of NO survivors.
The trust the enemy showed in Jasper's meeting at the door was pre-existing as he was not shot dead on sight.

It is unknown whether the rear alarm was not working for months as jasper claims, Roenick does not corroborate this.
If the alarm was faulty for an extended period of time Roenick would have been aware of this. Did Jasper purposely disable the alarm for the night?

[–] shadow_2002 16 years ago

From what I saw, Jasper was dirty from the start but not to the point of wanting officers to die.

He wanted to give Bishop up in the first place, because he didn't mind letting him be killed but he didn't want the officers to be harmed if given the choice. He reiterated that at the end, when he said they should have let Bishop out in the first place so noone else would have been hurt.

And based on the comments Duvall made in the car after Roenick found out that police officers were involved (that they'd have to live with what they were about to do for the rest of their lives, but that he could live with that moreso than a cell-mate) he didn't plan for officers to die either but once Roenick knew police officers were involved he felt there was no choice.

But in my mind, from a pure movie-making point of view, there was never any doubt that Jasper was involved from the start of the movie, in large part because Brian Dennehy was cast in the role. Nothing against him, but movies like this pretty much always have that "twist" character and Dennehy seems to often play that character. Or at least, he plays the guy who is kinda bad due to his own beliefs, like he did in Rambo (sorry, first example I though of).

[–] Rick-34 16 years ago

Agree that Jasper was in the conspiracy from the start.

But the entire plot makes no sense. It makes no sense for the police to pretend to be thugs to grab somebody from custody, when they could just walk in and do the same thing by greasing a few palms.

And the notion that they had to kill all the witnesses was absurd. All they had to do was kill Bishop, while keeping their own identities secret. Say, for example, they had just given the Maria Bello character something that knocked her out for twelve hours. Unless she had direct knowledge of who the attackers were, what could she have down? Told the police "Bishop told me they were corrupt?" Hearsay isn't admissible.

Compare this story to the story of Sixteen Blocks, a film with pretty much exactly the same premise. Rather than making an assault on a precinct house, they simply arranged to snatch the guy while he was in transit.

[–] PalmTheatre 14 years ago

"But the entire plot makes no sense. It makes no sense for the police to pretend to be thugs to grab somebody from custody, when they could just walk in and do the same thing by greasing a few palms. "

To be fair they had no idea what happened would happen. Their plan was to just slip two people in, execute Bishop then slip out without anyone noticing and it almost worked. It was actually quite a good plan and if it worked would have been much better than sending police officers in which would have raised suspicions when they later find Bishop dead.

[–] donald-vanvliet 14 years ago

So did Jasper think they would let him live once the hit in the beginning failed and it became clear that they were gonna kill everybody ?

[–] 14 years ago

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