MovieChat Forums > The Bank (2001) Discussion > Plot Holes *spoilers*

Plot Holes *spoilers*


Yeah I know this wasn't exactly a classic to begin with but I thought it was a cool move with a few extremely glaring plot holes...

1. The biggest thing is that there is no way any company could just lose all it's money and have it be inserted into personal bank accounts because of a piece of stock trading software. Anybody with even a SIMPLE knowledge of finance knows this. There are so many failsafes, policies and what not that would protect the bank from losing all it's money just like that. (The only way it could is if EVERY other company in the market lost the same type of money)

2. Ok, so Jim wants to get back at the bank that killed his father. Did he not think about what destroying the bank would do to all the people who had loans, mortgages and what not through that bank? Not to mention all the folks who had jobs through the bank and it's holdings. Really really stupid plot hole here.

3. The economic fallout from a 50 billion dollar company suddenly going under wouldn't simply be "the market soaking up the money" it would be market chaos. Again, a really really stupid plot hole.

Cool movie though and I guess it's a nice "little guy takes down the big guy" plot if you just suspend disbelief.

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Yeh, I was thinking very much about plot hole number two there. Even through his grief he'd be a good enough person to think about the livelihoods of the millions of people his little plan would affect. Still. Sorta good. Runaway Jury did the long-term revenge thing better though.

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i really liked this film, although some parts didn't add up, i agree. in repsonse:

1. i think the writers tried to cover this by having the board sign the papers (scene 14 on the dvd where one of the board members resigns) allowing the company to do it.

2. the writers try and cover this by having michelle say that the bank now only caters to big business and the types of companies that jim would feel comfortable screwing over, so that it doesn't ruin the lives of ordinary people (like it did with jim). eg her saying that the bank was telling average people to take their savings to the smaller banks down the road.

3. didn't the program jim wrote predict a market crash? whether or not that was just jim lying to screw the bank, who knows.

just some possible answers. i want to think the best of this movie because i really enjoyed it as it is quite different to most of the other australian films (and all other films) on offer today. its a simple story that works extremely well.

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I thought it was a pretty terrible movie, huge plot holes.

Also there is nothing illegal about shorting the market, black box programs are not considered inside information, every single bank would do the same thing

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"3. The economic fallout from a 50 billion dollar company suddenly going under wouldn't simply be "the market soaking up the money" it would be market chaos. Again, a really really stupid plot hole."

As has unfortunately been subsequently proven in the recent years...

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Yeah, this movie has so many plot holes that I didn't even bother starting to count them. But, except for some of the cheesy "maths" scenes, I kinda liked it. :-)

One of the things that annoyed me the most was how they presented Jim's work. So, he uses historical data, churns it through a program he has built based on fractal geometry, and predicts the future. Nowhere is it mentioned that the predictions are based on probability, and the farther into the future you're trying to predict, the less reliable your prediction becomes. I also liked the way his predictions are presented as "tick-by-tick" plots on a chart. He knows exactly how that market is going to trade through the day, several days in advance. :-D Well, looking past the logical "failures", this movie is probably meant to entertain (or put gasoline on the "kill the bankers" fire), not for people to think about the details of it. And yeah, there's another problem with "front-running" the predictions and liquidity problems in the market. The whole plot is simply ridiculous (although I think they tried to "explain" some of these away somewhere in the movie). :-D

Ah, and another thing, the kid of the two irresponsible parents dies. They don't go after the guy who illegally "served" their son and most likely had "something" to do with the kids death. No, they go after the "big bad bank". If they made a bad business decision, or the bank didn't disclose all the risk involved in their currency loan is not my point here. What surprised me was that only AFTER their son died they decided to sue the bank. Shouldn't that ring a bell for the judge? Why didn't they sue as soon as they understood that they had been "tricked" by the bank? Why wait until now? Wasn't it just to revenge the death of their son? Maybe those two should take a good look in the mirror. If it wasn't for their irresponsible actions as business owners, their son may not have ended up dead.

There are several other points about this film that annoy me, but I'll leave it at that for now...

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Extremely counter intuitive - looking for plot holes - why watch any goddarned. fictional film then?
I thought it was fantastic - funny how everywhere but Hollywood does the "hollywood equivalent" far better.

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