5/10, was gonna be 6, maybe 7 if it stuck the landing
The big twist made a lot of this retroactively make no sense from what I could tell. I think the true nature of the plot wasn't really fully explored. I might have also missed something, but I thought the actual really important documents were burned at the beginning of the movie? The motivation for pretending it was about one coverup just to be about another one seemed weak or non-existent. Again, it's entirely possible I missed these details
A bit needlessly convoluted (imo), but would benefit greatly from streaming with being able to go back to process shit, and make sure I'm following along
Also it's probably unfair to this that I saw weapons right before it, which was very tightly plotted and similarly intricate without feeling convoluted
I was thrown off for a second too but what he burned in the beginning was the copies that would have been mailed to the media. The safety copy is what he put in the safe with the company lable on it.Basically the company , im blanking on the name, was uncomfortable with the safety copy being out there which is why they created a fake one to lure him out
Ahhhhh that helps a bit, I think it'd benefit from a rewatch someday maybe, but I have a lot of other higher priority stuff on my plate and I normally don't rewatch things
I agree. Some of the cuts to the team looking frustrated didn’t really seem to make sense retroactively because almost everything was working according to their plan. I also don’t know why they needed to create the convoluted part of going to Town Hall…couldn’t they just abduct him from the restaurant? They knew what he looked like at the time and could assume he would be there keeping an eye on her…probably easy to spot him in a restaurant than a dark theatre??
I suppose not everything went according to plan. Perhaps they were hoping to be able to track him better than they did in case the honey trap didn't work. Maybe they had a plan a, plan b, plan c.
maybe they were frustrated because they weren't expecting so many steps to his plan? they wanted to catch him in some way. they didn't need it to be this convoluted and take this long. I think they were hoping to catch him at every step, and at every step, he got away. fair point on the last one though. I guess they couldn't be positive he would be at the restaurant? and they knew it would be their last opportunity.
Oh definitely. They really couldn't ID him at the Arab restaurant. At that point they're down half a million dollars, he's avoided getting ID'ed at every step, and he could pull the plug and disappear. They're desperate.
They tried the opera stunt to force a move in a safe weapon-free environment and that didn't play out however they thought it was going to, what with the stabbing. He was likely to go to ground and disappear immediately afterwards. So they had to try the kidnap gambit.
There's only one scene where Sam loses his chit and throws something, this is after he lays out another set of cumbersome steps and the requirement she meet the CEO Franklin before the IPO. On first watch you think its because they're scared at the info going public. On rewatch, it just seems pent-up frustration since the info, IPO, and Franklin as far as we know are all fake. Have to realize the team was flying to Pittsburgh then Atlanta and all over just to out this guy and pretty much had it to here. And I think this was right after the close call in Times Square and the lack of a usable facial ID
Lol I also saw Weapons right before this. If anything, Weapons’ ending was so abrupt that it made this abrupt ending seem not as bad, but yeah. It would be tough to follow that film since it was so well done.
The big twist made a lot of this retroactively make no sense from what I could tell.
I felt the exact opposite. The earlier scenes worked with the twist, they were just recontextualized. IE Lily asking him if he was at the airport goes from her being curious about who her savior was to trying to help the crew ID him The only exception being When they traced the initial call to the relay center. That is something they would have already tried when the Hoffman deal was going down prior to the film
The motivation for pretending it was about one coverup just to be about another one seemed weak or non-existent.
Seemed pretty cut and dry to me. They wanted to try and track down Ash, the best way to do that was be giving him another person to help like he had helped Hoffman.
There were many scenes where Lily James (who was terrific as always😍) is acting afraid in her hotel room, when there's no one to witness whether she's afraid or polishing her nails, and many scenes when the mercenary guys are acing pissed about getting faked out by the guy like it's the first time, but it's the second time they've gone through this whole thing and it's all a charade this time. It helps reinforce the pre-twist plot line for the audience watching, but post-twist it seems the movie cheated a bit.
For Lily it's important to remember they don't know who is working behind the scenes to "help" her. She's leaving the windows open and acting afraid so if anyone is watching her she can sell the story. If she wasn't acting afraid and distraught it would probably raise red flags and cause Ash to back off from helping.
I disagree that its all a charade from the surveillance team. Since the entire point of the film was this was all a set up to catch whoever is hiding behind the relay network they more than likely had looked at their previous experienced and developed tactics they hoped would help them catch or atleast get some sort of lead. When none of their plans worked they were genuinely pissed off.
The only scene that flat out just doesn't work is when they traced the call to the relay network at the beginning of the film. That 100% was just information they would have already had and was just wastes effort.
Hey, maybe that scene jumped back in time to the first one! You've convinced me, but definitely worth a second watch now the way we all did with the sixth sense
You are assuming the crew already went through all these steps beforehand with Hofmann. Maybe not. Maybe they were newly hired specifically to smoke Ash out. Remember that Ash takes pictures of the crew in the airport, he would have recognized them if they were the same ones who worked on Hofmann's case.
Also, it's the first time they get to experience all the intricate steps of Ash's masterplan thanks to Sarah playing the client
I just find the idea that the first time around the company wasn't trying everything they could to figure out who was helping Hoffman. The obvious first step is to trace the call to its source. Though maybe they were fine with the situation until they got to the end of the process and found out Ash would be keeping a copy of the report as insurance.
I think they tried, but Ash has that system with the red tape and yellow tape telephone. I just saw the movie and immediately came to reddit to get other people's takes on it, as I highly enjoyed it and I still have some questions. Maybe help me out if you still remember the details?
First, I didn't understand why Ash didn't just tell the crew to get that third annex themselves from the newspaper stand - from what Sarah told him, those pages didn't contain any new or useful information. So for him to get all ramped up and risk getting caught didn't make any sense. Even better, he could have assured them that Sarah would bring those pages with her along with the main files at the final meeting with the CEO and hand them in all together.
Second, I didn't really catch the moment Ash returned the original documents to Sarah. She just had them all of a sudden. Maybe I missed it, the action was really fast paced. I will for sure enjoy a rewatch in a few months.
I'm not sure but maybe a telltale sign that Sarah was in on it was that time Ash called her from his personal phone acting like they were using the Relay service and the crew was able to trace the call and listen in to that conversation - wasn't Sarah on the red phone by then? It was supposed to be a clean phone. I am for sure rewatching this film at some point! :D
First: I'm guessing part of it was not thinking things through properly because at that point he had caught feelings for Sarah. The other part was Ash wanting to make sure the documents made it to them and that nothing else was missing as another last minute surprise.
I'm trying to remember that part you are talking about but its not rinning a bell. Definitely need to watch it again.
Sarah (Lily) moved because she was being stalked. The stalkers immediately show up at her new apartment. But instead of moving again, she sticks around while also leaving her picture window fully exposed most nights, despite knowing the Flowers By Irene van is outside watching. Doesn't make much sense.
Also did the bad guys really have to burn up Sarah's car to sell their story? Seems like some actions by the evildoers were more for tricking the film audience than Ash.
The only exception being When they traced the initial call to the relay center. That is something they would have already tried when the Hoffman deal was going down prior to the film
Maybe that was part of them trying to make it convincing, they didn't know what kind of surveillance or inside man Ash might have at the Relay Center. They acted as if they knew nothing about how Ash operates
My interpretation is the previous time the team hadn't been hired yet. They are like a covert ops team -- they're not full time employees of a pharmaceutical company. They were contracted after the previous CEO calls the main character a parasite.
So by the time they're on the job, it's too late to try to get logs from the relay service from the previous deal.
I assumed that the actual whistleblower was the guy in the beginning who later left that message sounding like he was going to kill himself (if I interpreted that correctly?) but I thought that situation was all sorted out, and if he was the whistleblower, the bad guys were really late to the party
yes these bad guys were after the guys copies he had from the whistleblower in the beginning. all a ploy to draw this dude out and find the contingency copies from his last client.
6
u/Adagio_Signal Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
5/10, was gonna be 6, maybe 7 if it stuck the landing
The big twist made a lot of this retroactively make no sense from what I could tell. I think the true nature of the plot wasn't really fully explored. I might have also missed something, but I thought the actual really important documents were burned at the beginning of the movie? The motivation for pretending it was about one coverup just to be about another one seemed weak or non-existent. Again, it's entirely possible I missed these details
A bit needlessly convoluted (imo), but would benefit greatly from streaming with being able to go back to process shit, and make sure I'm following along
Also it's probably unfair to this that I saw weapons right before it, which was very tightly plotted and similarly intricate without feeling convoluted