Loopholes in 'Loophole'

Let me say right at the outset that I thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie; it was excellent from the beginning to the end.

While I was watching, however, several thoughts crossed my mind as to the believability of the plot.

Although the narrator tells us at the start that “this story actually happened”, I am convinced that the events as presented in the movie could not possibly have happened.

As we are told, and shown, who the thief, Herman Tate, was – and actually see him committing the crime - there can be no spoilers here.

Plot hole # 1: Tate, as we came to know later, was a hard-working man and in his job could hardly have had the time or opportunity to plan the heist; and such an audacious crime had to have been thoroughly planned. He was not a customer of the bank, as we shall see later – and, if he was, he would have been recognized and later identified.

How, then, could he have been so familiar with the inside of the bank in which Mike Donovan worked? He first sneaks into the bank together with a ten-man bank inspection team and is somehow admitted without anyone from either the team or the bank security man noticing or questioning his presence. Masquerading as one of the examiners he goes directly into an unmarked, closed-door room which I think was a conference room, to wait for the opportune moment to commit his crime. How could he have known what the room was and how could he have been sure that no-one from the bank would have been inside this room when he entered? And later, he spots his accomplice and goes out of the room, commits the crime and then, once again, but this time with the stolen money, enters the same room, which is still empty but the door was closed so he couldn’t have known if, in the interim, anyone from the bank could have been inside.

Plot hole # 2: We are told by the narrator that the inspection was a random spot examination; no-one in the bank knew in advance that they would be arriving on that morning: “A bank manager never knows just when a crew of federal bank examiners will call on you,” we are told by the narrator. How then did Tate know who they were when he was waiting for them in his car and how did he know which bank they were going to when he followed them? Did he have psychic powers? Let’s not forget that he knew exactly which teller at the bank (Donovan) he was going to hit.

Finally, just how did Tate manage to leave his regular work to enable him to pull this heist? Was he on vacation? We are not told.

So we have a movie during which we have to suspend disbelief a little. I want to emphasize that his should not interfere much with our enjoyment of the movie.