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Why were the five passengers so keen to leave Windhoek?

posted 17 years ago by Altho73
7 replies | jump to latest

What I find hard to believe in this movie is why were the five passengers so keen to leave Windhoek in the first place?
Look at it logically why would five perfectly sensible people whose connecting flight had been delayed until the morning decide to charter a private two engine boneshaker to fly them from Windhoek to Johannesburg in the middle of the night (and pay extra money for it) when they were scheduled to take off in the morning anyhow. It wasn't as if they had to hang around in a departure lounge all night they had been given overnight accommodation in a first class hotel. Susannah York was taking a shower for goodness sake! I would have been happy to spend a relaxing night in a hotel room and wait for the re-scheduled flight which was at 9.00 am!

I know it's a minor point but it is the only illogical event in an otherwise excellent and convincing movie. For me it would have made the film one 100 per cent perfect if those five people had a justifiable reason for taking a charter flight in the middle of the night.

[–] fit_ov_fury 13 years ago

What a great film that would've made .

[–] hobnob53 12 years ago

It is a weak plot point. The thing is it's made to seem as if they all have urgent reasons to get to Johannesburg as soon as possible. At the airport the doctor is seen on the phone, upset about the delay...yet nothing more is heard about his problem, or anyone else's. Taking that charter flight -- which would also have cost them more money, as they wouldn't have gotten a refund from the airline -- was a foolish and seemingly pointless thing to do, and they certainly paid for their decision.

The other question is, why was O'Brien so anxious to join them? He arrives in a hurry, and is carrying a suitcase we later see is filled with cash. Yet here too, nothing more is said about what he's up to -- or running away from.

Of course, all this comes under the heading of, "If they didn't take the plane, there wouldn't have been a movie." Even so, giving each of them a motive would have helped.

[–] solex10 12 years ago

And they say that today's films have weak plot points...

At least Spider-Man (2001 movie, which some people compared badly to this movie) didn't have such a crappy plot point.

[–] hobnob53 12 years ago

Movies from every era have had weak plot points. This has always been and always will be the case with many films.

What could possibly be the connection between Sands of the Kalahari and Spider Man?

[–] solex10 12 years ago

Sorry, somebody compared it to Spider-Man in a review and it irked me a little. The reviewer felt that Sands of the Kalahari didn't deserve to be forgotten compared to Spider-Man's popularity and that it's a better film than anything made today. As I said, that kind of comment irks me.

[–] hobnob53 12 years ago

Oh, I see. Yes, those kinds of comments are pretty silly. Not that I disagree that older films need to be seen, discussed and remembered. But that's got nothing to do with any newer film.

Although it's sadly true that there are many people who think "film" began in 2004 or something and that anything older is, for that reason, bad, poorly done and worthless. And if it was shot in black and white...forget it! Maybe the person you mention was only trying to express the fact that people need to look beyond movies made in just the last few years and realize there's a huge amount of great, if older, stuff out there.

I recently had a not unpleasant exchange with someone on the Rear Window board who said he simply can't get into older films because they're "outdated"...and he extended this even to movies made less than ten years ago! I pointed out that if you're going to dismiss as "dated" all movies more than a couple of years old, simply for their being more than a couple of years old, then the films he likes today would, under his definition, be considered dated within a few years. I don't think that had occurred to him.

[–] Altho73 11 years ago

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It is a weak plot point. The thing is it's made to seem as if they all have urgent reasons to get to Johannesburg as soon as possible. At the airport the doctor is seen on the phone, upset about the delay...yet nothing more is heard about his problem, or anyone else's. Taking that charter flight -- which would also have cost them more money, as they wouldn't have gotten a refund from the airline -- was a foolish and seemingly pointless thing to do, and they certainly paid for their decision.
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It certainly is a weak plot point as well as being a piece of sloppy scriptwriting which could easily have been avoided.

Why not have the aircraft landing at Windhoek airport with most of the passengers going their separate ways and having the German, the Doctor, Bain, O'Brien and Grace coming together to wait for a charter flight to take them to their home town a few hours away, which is what dozens of people do every day at International airports all over the world. That would have been far more believable and would have improved the story no end.