1) Regarding the start of the film:
First, Owen Wilson's character was, it seems, middle-management. Also, Wilson's character had previously owned his own business. While the movie is sparse on exposition at virtually every level, it's strongly implied by Wilson merely stating that his own business had gone under that Wilson took the job out of economic necessity after that business failed. I think we can and should infer from both Wilson's economic need and the fact that the country exploded into chaos that Wilson's company hid the full seriousness of the political situation from him simple because they wanted to get him over there, but keeping their fingers crossed (wrongly) that the rising tensions wouldn't boil over.
In short, his company played him. I would hazard a guess from the fact that they had to have known he was taking his family (including two young daughters) with him that they weren't setting him up to be a patsy -- they wouldn't have allowed his face to be plastered all over a welcome banner at the hotel, making him and those around him automatic targets -- if they had meant to have him take the fall for the unrest that his water company had caused with its manipulation of their water utility system.
Second, you don't buy that the CIA, MI6, etc., etc. would have put out advisories warning travelers and emigres to stay away? Yes, because intelligence agencies are NEVER wrong!
Third, we have a family here -- husband, wife, two young daughters, who have spent at the very least a day, possibly even upwards of 40 hours depending on where the connecting flights are and how long the layovers are -- flying from Austin, TX to Next-Door-To-Vietnam. Not only that, but they arrived in Next-Door-To-Vietnam seventeen hours before the country's prime minister was assassinated -- and Owen Wilson didn't go out to get a newspaper until several hours after they had checked into the hotel. And the copy of USA Today that he bought was three days old. By this time, the internet and phone service at the hotel were also out and Wilson's allegedly-international cell phone wasn't picking up any signals.
In short, the movie did establish that Wilson's character was cut off from, well, *every* source of information for upwards of three days. That's plenty of time for conditions in Next-Door-To-Vietnam to go from heightened concern but safe (whatever that might actually be called) to no-go.
2) Regarding the ending of the film:
While I do think that the Vietnamese would be more likely to bark their orders in French rather than English, I'm accepting the English dialogue as dramatic license. Perhaps the Vietnamese soldier on the bullhorn was barking the order in English for the benefit of this obviously American family to let them know that they were now safe -- after all, rescuing four Americans, two of them young children (and girls) would be a diplomatic coup for Vietnam, so, if you're a high ranking officer in the Vietnamese Army and you're closely monitoring the situation on the border and suddenly, you find out that these refugees are American, why not let the first thing the Americans hear be a friendly voice telling them exactly what they need to hear, especially since offering them safety and asylum is what Vietnam would and should be doing anyway in that situation? There's literally no downside to the Vietnamese person on the bullhorn to be playing to the Americans in his audience rather than to the rebels when it's the Americans who are going to make them look great to the western media.
Also, the rebels had large floodlights shining on them and, moreover, it's likely that Vietnamese military were already coming up behind them barking the same orders in French, Vietnamese and/or Cambodian. We don't need to see that because it would take us away from Owen Wilson's point of view.
Also, given the US's misadventure in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in the 60's and 70's, it wouldn't necessarily be unrealistic for at least some of the rebel bad guys to know English, either having picked it up from their parents or from having worked in businesses catering to western workers (hotels, etc.) Yes, it's more likely that more soldiers that knew a second language would know French, but the US has, in fact, left its mark over there, too.
So, no, IMO, neither the beginning nor the ending really present mistakes -- they're just less likely to happen than the basic circumstances would suggest. Less likely, but not UNlikely.
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essex9999
9 years ago
I wasn't referring to Wilson finding out about the rebellion after he arrived. My point was that, if political conditions in the country were unstable, our government would know about it (and so, probably, would Cardiff); there would be information for travelers to not-Cambodia warning them of potential difficulties. There are lots of travel warnings and alerts at state.gov, including many for countries probably not on the brink of revolution. It just seemed unlikely that this country would be about to blow up and no one would have posted travel warnings about it, or that a family about to relocate there wouldn't have done some research on the conditions they were likely to find.
Re the second point: OK, maybe the use of English by the VN border guards was just for simplicity, so we would know what they were saying, or maybe they recognized our family as Americans, or at least as foreigners. But my main point was the lack of other refugees, which seems really unlikely.
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