MovieChat Forums > Burn After Reading (2008) Discussion > How Stupid Do the Coens Think We Are?

How Stupid Do the Coens Think We Are?

posted 12 years ago by giarmomatthew
47 replies | jump to latest

Let us count the plot holes in the film. I haven't seen plot holes this big since the premise of the film Double Jeopardy:

1. no one calls the local police

Osborne Cox in real life would have availed himself of the rather quick and easy way to put an end to that sociopathic Linda's stalking. There were witnesses to her hit-and-run on his diesel Benz. He also could have phoned in the extortion attempt and what he believed to be a break-in.

2. CIA would never pay Linda off in end

There was nothing for the CIA to cover up. The CIA director admitted not knowing what the CIA did wrong, so why would he pay this woman for her silence?

3. Linda would be tried for treason and either imprisoned for life or executed.

As far as Linda knew, she possessed classified government material and attempted to sell it to a foreign power. As far as the CIA knew, there may have been level 3 clearance data on that disc. So why did no one pursue her arrest and Federal prosecution?

4. Osborne Cox could have fought Katie's maneuver to take control of joint bank accounts. In fact, banks require two signatures on both accounts before they could be completely emptied and closed. Oops!

5. No dating web sites are set up to allow women to surf male photos without males being granted the same opportunity. No man would agree to join such a site. They would insist on being able to see the women they were considering dating. BeWithMeDC.com is absurd. Why the Coens felt they needed to stipulate this is beyond me.

6. How did Harry Pfarer clean up the mess in Katie's bedroom without her knowing someone was shot in her closet?

7. While there are men stupid enough to bring a concealed weapon to a first date, I don't know of many women who would let a gun-toting stranger into their home.

8. Do the Coens expect us to believe people as stupid as Linda and Chad really exist? These are not "morons," but morons. Linda is astounded her HMO will not pay for not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 cosmetic surgical procedures. She is also astounded her employer will not advance her salary. She also is under the impression Cox is obligated by some Good Samaritan Tax to offer her thousands of dollars in reward money for finding his disc. When he doesn't agree, she gets violent with him.

9. The disc itself is worthless. It's the info on the disc that WOULD be worth anything.

Why do Linda and Chad assume that even if the info were valuable that Cox would pay for the disc. It's not the disc that's valuable, it's the information on it. And he has it on his PC.

Some of the critics who reviewed the film praised the Coens attention to detail and realism. I agree I enjoyed the scenes where Cox was terminated and where Katie conspired with her attorney, but no one in their right mind could ignore the gaping plot holes above.

The Coens acknowledged writing this script at the same time they wrote the script for NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. And the lack of focus / discipline showed.

[–] tolarrattler-imdb 8 years ago

These are not plot holes. These are you not realizing how much range there are in what people are willing to do, what they believe, and what they expect.

1.Osborne Cox is a stubborn man. Very stubborn. He is going to deal with this situation himself. He had Linda followed by a fellow spy to find out more about her. He was going to handle this himself. Perhaps in the end turn them over to the police but first I bet he wanted to know how they got a hold of his memoir. So no police yet. Besides he probably wanted to get home and get drunk more than anything else. You have to remember in this film that you cannot look at each person and think they will act like you will act. Each have their own flaws.

2. CIA was just happy this headache was over. They did not want anyone in the world to ever know about it. If they tried to prosecute her for trying to peddle those memoirs and Cox's bank info then it would be public. The news would go crazy for the story of a woman trying to sell what she thought was top secret data but instead it was just some junk. The paid her off because the cost was low. Also, her being prosecuted would bring up questions they would not want asked. Where did Chad and Ted go? What happened to Osborne Cox? CIA would rather just pay her off and let it go. Besides they were rather baffled about what occurred. They did not know why any of this happened or even what really happened. Kind of hard to build charges around a situation where you do not know (or want to know) what happened.

3. See #2.

4. A wife can access a bank account held by the husband. Never heard of your second signature idea before and I have known both husbands and wives who discovered bank accounts were emptied by the the spouse. Heck, there are people who get their bank accounts emptied by complete strangers who were able to get hold of the banking information so the idea that a spouse would require the other's signature does not hold water.

5. The idea of this dating web site is not too crazy at all. The idea is to give the women more control in the process. Too many men judge by looks first and then maybe later by who the woman is. This site is designed to get past that. And the men who would use that site are the types who are ok with getting to know the woman first before they know what she looks like. You can find an arrangement like this on Craigslist today. Women will post with no picture but want a picture of the man.

6. He probably used Windex and paper towels. Would it be a perfect cleanup? No. There would always be stains. He would probably have to throw away a lot of clothes. She would probably find the stains but had not seen them yet.

7. Do you really think that no woman in the world would ever date and bring a law enforcement officer home? He worked for the U.S. Treasury and was an ex Secret Service agent. Lots of women would understand the gun.

8. I have known morons like these. I worked in HR for a company for a while and saw some pretty crazy requests that make you wonder what were they thinking. I have read stories of people demanding a reward before they return a lost wallet or pet or whatever. Just because you say you would not do it does not mean it is impossible for someone else to think that way. Linda is one of the crazy people. Chad was mostly stupid but his stupidity enabled Linda.

9. They believed he would pay because he would want to make sure the information on the disk was safe. They believed he was a high up government official who had accidentally lost a disk full of classified data. They believed he would get in trouble for it being loose in the public and that is why he would want to pay to get it back. His angered reaction to their demands bolstered their belief. They thought he was bluffing them to get it back.

[–] j-tussey 8 years ago

Well, on #2, I think it's pretty clear that for all his pretensions of being some Master Spy, Osbourne Cox has not advanced very far in his career in the CIA and doesn't really possess anything that would be considered truly vital information. I mean, Chad bases his belief that the disk contains "high-level spy [stuff]" comes from the fact that it's full of numbers, and we know the numbers are Osbourne's financials that Katie is gathering for her impending divorce. And the excerpt that Chad reads Ozzie over the phone sounds more like gossip than any true classified information. So I guess you could think that the CIA would conclude prosecuting Linda would only lead to embarassment for The Agency, and she didn't do anything, in the end that did cause any national security issues. So, yeah, it's just a mess to clean up as quickly as possible, which really isn't out of character when it comes to the CIA.

[–] lubin-freddy 8 years ago

Hitchcock, when asked "Why didn't they call the police?", would answer "because then it would become boring".

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.