MovieChat Forums > Heist (2001) Discussion > More plot holes

More plot holes

posted 19 years ago by robschmidt
8 replies | jump to latest

What made the crooks so sure all four people would drink the drugged coffee at the same time? If the drug was fast-acting, it would knock out the first person who drank it before the second person even received his or her drink. Once people started dropping, the remaining people would get up and act rather than sip their coffees.

Were plastic masks the only disguise the crooks could think of? If Joe had dyed his hair or worn a moustache, he'd have had additional protection in case his mask came off.

Where was Joe's backup plan when Mickey stiffed him for his share of the jewelry heist? Joe knew Mickey was counting on him for the "Swiss thing," so he knew Mickey had an extra reason to withhold the payoff and thus retain his leverage. Yet Joe had no plan to retain some leverage of his own.

Where was Joe's backup plan to protect Pinky from harm? The guy had a niece living nearby. As Mickey demonstrated, the niece wasn't hard to find.

Where was Joe's backup plan at the boat? Sure, he hid the gold, but he got shot once and could've been killed several times over. Only Mickey's tendency to rant saved him.

Where was Joe's backup plan in the garage? You could hypothesize that Fran knew or surmised about the black bars, but what about Jimmy Silk? The crooks fooled him once with a fake cache of gold. Was he so dumb he wouldn't check the bars, even though he hadn't seen any proof they were gold underneath the paint?

The only thing preventing Jimmy from shooting Joe was his promise to Fran. Well, what if Jimmy never meant to keep his promise? Did Joe have a backup plan to protect himself from a final bullet?

[–] 19 years ago

[deleted]

[–] scalzmoney 19 years ago

Right! This is a movie about risk and danger. All those twists are what makes it entertaining. If Pinky or someone wasn't sacrificed you'd probably say that there was no risk and no one even died. I mean, DeVito and ALL his bad guys are killed. Hackman and Lindo's characters are shot. All seems lost, and then...

[–] scalzmoney 19 years ago

[–] RomaVictorrrr 19 years ago

As good as he was, Joe wasn't perfect. He had backup plans, sure, but they didn't always work. Plan A was for the four people to drink at the same time. I'm betting they had learned the habits of those four and figured that they would drink at the same time. But one of them woke up. It wasn't a perfect plan. Joe forgot to put on his mask! ANother slip. Plan B was the stun guns.

One thing I like about this movie is how they act tough and talk tough but in the end, they slip up like normal people would.

Some writers and directors forget that human element--that people do screw up. They have their leads doing things normal humans wouldn't know how to do, performing feats no one could do in real life. But there are screw-ups here. When DeVito's character takes the jewels and refuses to pay, Joe is up against a wall. There's nothing he can do and he's got no backup plan. It happens.

[–] junkiesxl 18 years ago

He doesn't have back up plans for back up plans, that's the point. He simply rolls with the punches.

Sure he makes sure he's got a back-up plan but that's where the planning ends and where experience counts. Example: When the cops show up when they're parked for setting the explosives. That wasn't planned.

The shootout at the end was planned but rather roughly hence the casualtys but that was the only way he could pull it off.

[–] gmoxie 8 years ago

I agree that Joe wasn't perfect.

But people typically drink coffee right away when it's still hot - especially first thing in the morning. This is not an unreasonable assumption. So I think the woman in the jewelry store must have been very distracted in that she didn't drink some coffee immediately, which would be unusual.

Joe had his mask (he didn't forget) and he took it off as a "plan B" when he saw that one person was conscious. He did not want to shoot her but instead could approach her without a mask and use trickery/persuasion to urge her to call 911 (a reasonable assumption that she would believe a total stranger and go to make that 911 call, not thinking he would stun her). The flaw was that he didn't know where the videos were or how to access them when he found them -- he didn't anticipate needing to know because they would be wearing masks. Given his age and experience, apparently this had never been an issue before.

[–] the_notorious_bid 8 years ago

Actually, she seemed groggy (as though she drank some of the coffee but not enough to pass out)... She seemed "out of it." You can hear the sirens and if you were alert, you would had heard the crash and all the hubbub. Instinctively, you would have gotten out of your chair and "shared" the event with your co-workers OR looked out of the window yourself (unless that's a normal event).

[–] Maximus256 (62) 7 years ago

Yes, she did seem groggy which was puzzling because her coffee was clearly shown sitting in the 4-cup carrier. Would she have drank some and then put it back in the carrier?