DESERVES BIGGEST PLOT HOLE AWARD!!!!!!!
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Don't Say a Word
Missy6612 — 19 years ago(January 01, 2007 08:23 PM)
DON"T SAY A WORD
How do the kidnappers know the girl has hidden the diamond? How does the girl know what the kidnappers want (hence the famous line, "I'll never tell" and "You want what they want")? This number is a distant memory in the mind of a mentally ill girl, and there is no reason for her to associate this number with a hidden diamond she shouldn't even know exists.
How is Dr. Conrad able to completely diagnose her in about 30 minutes when 20 other psychiatrists never even came close? Why do the kidnappers give Dr. Conrad only until 5pm to pry the information out of this girl when she hasn't opened up to anyone, ever? They've waited ten years, why not just give him more time? Oh yeah, because they're just EVIL and dumb. It's probably the same reason why they took their masks off during a bank robbery and never put them back on so everyone could see them.
The timeline is really messed up. Dr. Sachs was already put in the same situation as Dr. Conrad and he was unable to deliver the goods, so they kill his girlfriend Sara. Sara was killed before Dr. Sachs got a chance to even work with the girl. That makes no sense of course. Well this absurdity makes it even more absurd that the criminals would hatch a new plot to do the same thing with Dr. Conrad, especially when it had failed with Dr. Sachs. But they do.
The original plan to get the number somehow involved an orderly who the girl had cut up. I assume (the movie doesn't really tell us) that this orderly was sent to kidnap the girl so the bad guys could torture the number out of her. Well this failed because the girl beat up the orderly, at which time she is promptly transferred to a new hospital under Dr. Sachs' care. How could they have come up with their new plot (to use Dr. Sachs to get the info from the girl) so quickly after their first plan with the orderly failed? It's impossible!
How in the world were they able to plant all of that surveillance in Dr. Conrad's apartment when he and his wife were there? And then why did these idiots choose to keep the kidnapped little girl in an apartment adjacent to her own, where her mother could easily hear her? How did they plant surveillance in the mental patient's room in a heavily secured psychiatric ward? And if they could get in, why didn't they just kidnap her right then and there and torture her to get the number?
Another plot hole is the identity of the girl's father. He is murdered on a subway and according to the newspaper headlines is a John Doe. How and why did this man erase all records of his identity and that of his then-eight year old daughter's, he's just a bank robber for goodness sakes! And he's not the only one, apparently the lead villain Patrick is a "ghost" as well. The homicide detectives say they know nothing about this guy prior to his armed robbery conviction. So that's two people who have chosen to erase their history, but why? There is no reason that is ever given for this. We never find out who these guys are.
These men were originally arrested immediately after throwing the girl's father onto the subway tracks in full view of everyone. So why were they only charged with the armed robbery they had committed earlier? Why only ten years in prison? Why wasn't murder on the rap sheets the detectives were reading? HELLO, they were arrested for killing someone, but never charged??? -
Alice_K — 19 years ago(February 18, 2007 07:14 AM)
I knew it was ridiculous but hadn't worked out why in detail - thanks for laying it all out! Even without the holes, just the basic premise doesn't hold up - that you can find out something from someone's "damaged" brain under a time constraint, and that a dumb criminal would even think of doing that or spend 10 years pursuing it. She's not even mentally ill at all as it turns out. If she was as smart and well-adjusted as she really does seem by the end of the movie, she could have surely sorted herself out and talked to someone years ago.
The big hole for me when Michael Douglas asks Patrick to explain stuff and help him with Elisabeth and he's basically told, "Figure it out yourself, I'm not telling you anything"well, why on earth not? Patrick WANTS him to figure it so why wouldn't he help him however he could? It would make sense only if Patrick had some weird thing about the Michael Douglas character and was trying to test his intellect or something but this is clearly not the case - he's not a deep guy, he just wants the number and the diamond.
Still, a lot of this logic stuff wouldn't matter too much if anything remotely interesting were going on. As it is, every opportunity is thrown away - she has no real illness, there is no real mystery, the characters are cardboard thin - even the villain isn't interesting or really that evil and is motivated by nothing more than a diamond. And if you're going to have a mysterious secret locked away in someone's subconcious, why not make it something slightly more exciting than a six digit number!?
The female characters are all the same. The wife is made actually impotent (classic movie code -broken leg), - she's the wife in a macho thriller I don't know why they bothered, it's not like she would have been allowed to do anything anyway. The little girl characters are basically the same - the sweet 8 year old, the damaged 18 year old. The cop is just competent and slightly tough, no more and no less. The psychiatrist is competent and a good husband/father. So what? Why should we care? Even the colleague psychiatrist didn't do anything at all wrong, he was just trying to protect his lovely blond girlfriend. Did these writers go to Boring School and graduate with a degree in Beige Screenwriting 101? The action scenes are competently handled but everything else is just nothing at all. -
little_daisie_chain — 19 years ago(February 22, 2007 12:09 AM)
lol.
i liked this movie. I thought it was clever and interesting. It may have had plot holes, but let's face it - it's just a movie. when it happens in real life then start talking about how badly made it is.
(im just gonna point out quickly that patrick wouldnt help him because no criminal would ever say "well i need the number because it leds to a grave where an expensive diamond is hidden")
thats all for now -
that_writer07 — 14 years ago(October 08, 2011 02:15 PM)
What also annoyed me was the fact that the wife was strapped into that contraption and was bedridden - so couldn't go to the toilet.
So she must have a super bladder which means she doesn't need to go for hours/days on end (remember the beginning when he was due home but was delayed for hours at the hospital with Elizabeth).
But in reality they'd have a full-time nurse with her.
It really annoyed me - just have her with a broke leg not that damn contraption! The scene with the baddie would work just as well with her fumbling to get out of bed and get her crutches. -
taina_39 — 19 years ago(April 01, 2007 05:32 AM)
Also,
I don't get how she could brutally murder that other guy in the mental prison when they say she hasn't eaten for 3 days (correctly me if I'm wrong) and also she's as skinny as a pole and has evident self-mutilation which would if not hinder her in attacking and killing a 6foot probably 170 pound man and completely pwn 5 POLICE OFFICERS.I surrender, Claire's 15. Happy?
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DeltaNu — 18 years ago(June 07, 2007 04:07 AM)
Well, yes, there were some plot holes in there BUT it was a very good, interesting movie after all. It entertained me and had my full attention during the whole time. What else can someone want???
They showed us several times that the girl saw her Dad put the diamond into that doll, so no mistake there. She also saw that two men put the doll into her Dad's grave and she sat close to the coffin for some time, touching the numbers. That's the last thing she did before he was really gone, so of course she remembered.
And sometimes things seem very clear to one person and just the opposite to many others
As I said, the mistakes didn't bother me at all. And that's not a stupid comment, by the way. One can over-analyze and stop being entertained