what if the guy killed him in the bathroom
Why exactly didnt he use his powers when his life pretty much depended on it? And why did the guy not kill him I mean he beat him half to death did he think his victim wouldn't go to the cops?
shareWell firstly I think he simply wasn't aware of his own powers up until after he got beat up (hence the calm reaction to the theater being destroyed as opposed to the first lecture by Silver when he crouches down and is visibly scared, completely unaware that he himself is causing it) so he wasn't aware yet that he could actually do something about it, defend himself better or pull some trick to scare the *beep* out of the guy. And as for why he didn't kill him, I think they didn't give him that much credit, and thought he only needed a good beating to be scared off and leave them alone. And if you think about it, had he gone to he police, he couldnt have related the bathroom guy to Silver in any way, could He?
shareIt was entirely stupid, because let's say he died in the bathroom. A witness calls the cops, and they find out it's this guy whose dedicated his life to debunking fraudsters, and he happens to die during Silver's show. How's that good publicity, if not grounds for suspicion, against Silver? Silver's has bodyguards and henchmen, so the police could check them out. Anyone willing to do that for him must be on a steady payroll. Also, what was the POINT of doing it? Tom wasn't up there with his electronic box trying to expose him. He was in the AUDIENCE watching. Most con men would like to see that; their enemies buying tickets and seeing their shows.
Plus, some guys just got done using the john, and probably saw this guy come in "whistling", and it's not hard to see someone dripping wet with blood walking out.
How clumsy and bloody that whole scene was. Totally unnecessary.
He may have simply been told to threaten Tom but got carried away.
"Passion is just insanity in a cashmere sweater!"
It's somewhat ambiguous as, at the end as he walks bleeding through the rain he says (via voice-over) to Margaret, "Dear Margaret, even today I'm not exactly sure when everything ended... A whole life spent denying myself; searching in silence for someone like me. A whole life looking for an answer, without finding it... You can't deny yourself forever... I did what you'd have wanted, but I'll never forgive myself for not revealing myself, for not at least giving you the consolation of knowing that there is something else." That last part is especially significant as he says it as they pull the plug on her son; "knowing" could be interpreted to meaning knowing that there is something beyond death, so that she would have been able to take her son off of life-support so that they could both move on.
The voice-over is interspersed with scenes from the film: Tom looking at Margaret during the "seance", a shot of Silver looking over his shoulder in a hotel room, when Monica asks him "how did [he] know that" he answers (perhaps half-jokingly), "Because I'm psychic." While in the diner, he says to Monica (regarding his magic trick with the coin) that, "You did most of the magic by looking in the wrong place." Then, as he leaves the hospital after he and Monica turn off Margaret's son's life-support (which is odd, did Margaret give him power of attorney or something?) he says "You can't deny yourself forever" and then he (seemingly) stops the rain.
So did he know all along? Did he only know to some small extent that he had some vague notion of power? If he did, why was he so afraid at Silver's show when all hell broke loose? Why bend the spoon in Margaret's tea? Why allow Silver (a red herring all along) and his people to give Margaret such hell? Why allow her to suffer through that memory of Silver saying he saw her "dead son" standing behind her? Many questions left unanswered, and likely to remain so.
It was a descent film, but I believe that many people are tired of the Shamalan-esque twists in film; even Shamalan is having one helluva hard time pulling them off. M Night (we're close, I can call him that) is a one trick pony, Bryan Singer isn't out there pulling a "Keyser Soze" at the end of each of his films. Shamalan doesn't need to try to out WOW The Sixth Sense in every film, he could just, ya know, make a movie every now and again...
something terribly clever.
I think you and everyone else are jumping to the conclusion that every event connected to Silver was actually Tom.
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"If I don't understand it, it's a plot-hole!"
-Typical Reviewer
There is no evidence that Silver was the real deal; all the evidence shown in the film points to Silver being the fraud he was accused of being the entire time and Tom was the one with these "powers".
Why is it that you believe that coming to the conclusion that it was all Tom (as was made clear by the denouement, his voiceover, the flashbacks, and all that I've enumerated above; it really wasn't all that ambiguous) is incorrect and a flawed assumption? What makes you believe that Silver actually had powers when he was clearly shown to be a seeing fraud?
I'm interested in knowing what your opinion of the matter is....
something terribly clever.