Does that mysterious detail then add credence to Dave's theory that Jim had the whole caper planned out very well in advance (and was indeed setting him up)?
No man lies so boldly as the man who is indignant.
It's basically a weird cold call. There is good engineering in Germany but he mainly ordered there so it wouldn't be traced back easily. Just deliver to some other address.
It was actually the little German language primer that Jim used that led me off on this particular little tangent. (Was it a real clue or was it just a red herring?) As in: How long had he been interacting with different metallurgy guys, and by extension, just how long had he really been planning this whole heist without Dave.
No man lies so boldly as the man who is indignant.
I don't think it's a red herring: He simply orders awkwardly and overpriced which forces him to rely on his partner to get the money. That strategy would make no sense really. If he had a connection they would know him but they didn't. And if he had been calling Germany he would have known that like 90% of Germans speak English.
I thought it was just a funny scene that meant to show that he's not afraid to appear stupid so that people will underestimate him. But a red herring is something that leads the viewer in the wrong direction while this just ties into the plot.
You're kinda missing my point. What if the German guy isn't the first, second, third or fourth person he's been interacting with? Just how long and how much HAS Jim been single-mindedly doing behind-the-scenes legwork for this crime before he ever brought Dave in? Like the other guy here said, the homeless guy, the casino job, all the duffel bags...etc. Clearly he's been a busy little beaver long before Dave entered the picture. My tangent is: just how busy has this guy been?
No man lies so boldly as the man who is indignant.
Well it's a theory: To test it you can try to find one instance where the theory isn't true. Lets assume what we see on screen actually happens and isn't something just happening in his mind in the last seconds of his death or something lol.
Why did he have to take a job at the casino if he knew where the vault was? If we assume he is as clever as we think he is it only exposes him to the mobsters. It's not worth the hassle to pull David into the scheme.
That means he didn't know where it was before. Else he could just have shown the pictures to his patsy. Of course David wouldn't have known that but we as viewers know that Jim at most knew that there might be some big vault out there somewhere. That is hardly a plan. He found the trail by looking at the bail money.
So what would the "german connection" prove really? That he always was dreaming about and planning to become a bank robber? :D
What does it do to the entire picture we think we have if Jim was a bonafide, world-class, psycho-nutcase? And therefore, completely single-minded in his pursuit of this for possible years?
No man lies so boldly as the man who is indignant.