Worth a viewing for Cage, but the end part of the film makes no sense. In regards to the choices that Elijah Wood's character makes. It is incredibly dumb and made the movie totally fall apart. I understand his concern with realizing that they were dealing with a huge criminal element that would hunt them down. However, to let the girl use a phone, and then to turn on Cage was ridiculous. It ruined the movie.
I was already sketchy once he let her use the phone. But as soon as he found the weapons closet I knew that she was one of the sitters for the vault. Apparently his character wasn't supposed to have watched very many movies. Because if his reasoning for everything in the end was that he knew they'd come after them if they stole anything....then he should have also known they'd come after anyone who even tried. It's just how a business like that works. Third act definitely fell apart as far as rational thought process by the character went. Some solid plot holes too as far as Nic Cage's character and what he did and did not know. He knocked off the gun dealer in the very beginning of putting the job together. So did he know it was a criminal enterprise vault from the get or was he just unhinged and killed the guy with the hopes of a few hundred thousand. I honestly didn't expect alot out of this movie, but I was pleasantly surprised for 2/3 of it. That last act though, there were better ways to go with it.
I didn't get that? THe men in the evidence warehouse at the end were the men in the van? They never showed the men in the van or car. The guys at the end in the police warehouse were just guys storing away evidence. They were never shown in the movie up until then.
the movie is making some low level commentary about wealth allocation, "the american dream," etc.
elijah wood's character has a psychological objection to the whole situation. he cannot picture himself "winning," becoming rich, coming out ahead, getting away with the whole thing, etc. as a result of this, he sabotages the whole operation subconsciously and consciously.
as far as letting the woman use the phone, it's pretty clear that they decided she was a prostitute or a guest who had no connection to the vault.
Interesting idea. "The american dream is dead". Or at least not for the fainthearted lol. You have to be a psychopath and know that everyone besides you will betray you.
Yup, the ending of this movie blows. It was a stupid thing to do letting the girl use the phone. And after they found the guns, he still protected her. You were willing to go through with it the whole time and then had a change of heart, but you're ready to kill to protect some random girl. I already figured it out when she made the call that she was in on it. I said to myself that letting her use the phone was the stupidest thing. She spoke in code.
As Nick's character cleared boxes, he just sat there like a total bitch. Nick could of left when he said wait here with the girl, but he didn't. That should of showed some kind of trust.
This guy is suppose to be a detective, he passed the detective's exam but failed to piece that together. If is was that scared to steal, why wasn't he scared to kill? This movie took an epic fail towards the end. All this movie did was piss off the audience. Feeling bad stealing from criminals? Did he think they wouldn't come after him even because he had a change of heart? Either way they would of came after him but he never gave himself a chance to fight.
State champ in martial arts, trained with firearms, I eFF'n dare you!
I think that throughout the movie, Elijah's character has a soft spot for women, he looks at the chinese chick's ass when she picks up that rest of the payoff, the prostitute at the beginning, and how she looked at the hostage girl when she told him about wanting to score something and that she has a kid at home.
The flaws were obvious, but I think he fell for it because of this weakness.
It's euphemism about short man's insecurities. How always these short nice guys want to be these gentlemen subconsciously taking care of women, while tall and masculine guys (Cage) are arrogant, and women prefer these alpha male tall guys anyway. And sweet midget guys always lose the dating game (Elliah getting killed by the same woman notifying the clan members).
I agree, the betrayal was a cop out and all it meant is that they could save money not having a huge shoot out or extra actors. Most films these days tend to have some stupid moral decision at the end that wrecks the whole story. I think it's just a case of saving money rather than some artistic choice, I was into the film until all the crap at the end.
It's also strange that the owners of the vault would taken that long to respond to the phone call.
A nice alternative to the ending is that Cage knew Elijah would turn on him, played dead, and recollected all the goods after Elijah left. Cage used Elijah as a diversion, knowing the vault owners would follow the van and Cage could escape.
Wood/Waters goes through a two-step process. 1) He gets scared for himself when he sees the contents of the vault. That's pure self-preservation. 2) Then he becomes altruistic about the woman (who has a child) and decides it's more important to save her than participate in murdering an innocent person. Remember, he is not a murderer--yet. I think this movie is about casual corruption eating its way into our society. Almost every single character is corrupt in little or big ways. So it's not just about corrupt cops...it's about how we are becoming corrupt people. The ending shows a man realizing there are some lines that should not be crossed if we want to stay human. Not to judge the movie industry harshly, but it's too bad that its films seem to have trained a lot of film-goers to care more about getting away with murder than trying to redeem yourself.