You said 3 years, was that mentioned in the movie? I think it might be longer than that, one crime scene photo looks like when Richard Gere was in his American Gigolo/Officer and a Gentleman days(late 70's,early 80's)
I think after his wife got killed and he decided to turn rogue, he had to eliminate alot of russian agents and others that could expose him, then he went to Highland(martin sheen) say he had a "breakthrough". You said: "In which case that would have been a harder thing for Cassius to eradicate the records" Do you mean to eradicate his records held by the russians? If so, I agree with you that it seems highly implausible that he tied up all the lose ends unless he was very very careful from inception regarding his true identity even to the russians.
As far as your question regarding no one questioned why he was at the scene of early Cassius murders, my understanding of the movie is that he has been working as a mole for the russians in the CIA(branch? division? subsidiary?)in Paris for a while(my guess around 10 years since the late 70's) before him turning rogue. So he's been investigating at his own crime scenes.
As far as the watch goes, here are my thoughts: I don't think there's much to it. He's gone this far, this deep into the game, I don't think he's gonna let a watch bring him down. You speculate he might be seen by americans or at the crime scene photo with the same watch, but if you or I were him, would we wear the same watch? of course not, we'd wear a different one. Here are some possibilities:
1. The watch in question is the only lethal watch he has, and he's been carefully using it on secret assasin missions in which case Highland or any other Cia members would not know about it.
2. He might have several kinds of watches, lethal and non lethal.
3. I mean when Geary told Highland at the end Shepherdson used Blovsky's watch to cut blovsky, there's no way for Highland to know it's not Blovsky's watch. I think Highland's puzzled face was that he found the described scenario a little hard to believe.
no thought, no reflection, no analysis, no control, no intention, let it settle itself.
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padzok
12 years ago
You said 3 years, was that mentioned in the movie?
Yeah, about 20 mins in. The 1988 scene in the embassy in Paris.
Sheen's character walks in and says. "So. Paul Shepherdson. Been an analyst for the Company here in Paris for about 3 years. What do you want to see me about."
As far as your question regarding no one questioned why he was at the scene of early Cassius murders, my understanding of the movie is that he has been working as a mole for the russians in the CIA(branch? division? subsidiary?)in Paris for a while(my guess around 10 years since the late 70's) before him turning rogue. So he's been investigating at his own crime scenes.
That same 1988 scene seems to be the start of his formal investigation into the "Cassius 7". If he had already been officially working on it, then he would have had - I assume - a chain of command.
It was because he was such a low level grunt that he did not even have a proper contact, and was obliged to go to the embassy and ask to see the CIA guy (who was a stranger to him up to that point - as far as his US cover persona is concerned).
So he only had an excuse to be at the scenes from 1988 onwards.
I think Highland's puzzled face was that he found the described scenario a little hard to believe.
Yeah, I think so too.
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