Holes in Plot

The movie had some big holes in the plot although they are not very evident until the end when the viewer is provided the full account from Margot's father before he kills himself. There are also some smaller holes that begin to raise questions as the plot unfolds from the beginning. Although some of the holes exist in combination with others, to list them I described them somewhat individually below.

The Murder of Philippe Neuville

Probably the biggest holes in the plot are related to the murder of Philippe Neuville. According to the plot, Philippe had been molesting children who lived at the home of the children's trust and who sometimes worked at the horse stables. Specifically, two months before Margot's murder at Lake Charmaine, a boy came to Margot distressed and told her he had been molested by Philippe. This prompted Margot in what proved to be poor judgement to invite Philippe to her home in the country where she confronted him, he beat her, and she then shot him with both barrels of a double-barrel shotgun. In the true account provided by Margot's father only to Alex (as opposed to the account recorded on the wire), Margot's father, Jacques Laurentin, arrived after the shooting had taken place. He then disposed of the body such that a kid, Helio Gonzales, at the home of the children's trust would be blamed.

It is also apparent that Philippe's body must have been found the next morning because it was also revealed that the time of death was 11 p.m. Accordingly, the time of death would have been less precise on a body discovered much later in time. Also, Margot's father would have seemingly had a busy night as he would have had to both dump the body and return Philippe's car from Margot's residence to its rightful place without being noticed. Thereafter he would have had to return to Margot's residence for his own car. And, presumably, he did all of this alone.

This scenario raises a number of questions despite the fact that Philippe's father was a wealthy, well-known man of influence and despite that Margot's father was a captain in the police force. It certainly appears questionable that Helio would have been implicated yet convicted with such circumstantial evidence. The police did not have a murder weapon and it was highly unlikely that a kid living at a children's home would have had access to a shotgun. Obviously, there could not have been very much planted evidence as he was later released from suspicion after providing only the alibi of being with Margot.

The Implication of Margot to Philippe's Murder

According to the plot, Alex's sister, Anne, eventually tells her friend and lover, Helene, that she was the one who made the photographs of Margot after Margot had been beaten eight years ago. She further acknowledged that it was Phillipe Neuville who had beaten Margot. So then, going back eight years, because Margot had told Anne that she had been beaten by Philippe and because Philippe was either missing or already found dead by that time, Anne had to suspect that Margot might have somehow been involved in Philippe's murder (because he beat her and now he's dead).

It is also questionable why no one else might have been suspicious of Margot being involved in the murder. Did everyone including the police investigators consider it merely a minor coincidence that Margot was all bruised and without proof for her physically bruised condition at the time of the murder, when she worked with the victim in her job? Accordingly, did the police not even routinely question Margot after Philippe's murder? Then, on top of this coincidence, she later happens to be the alibi for Helio, the number-one suspect. Apparently, the coincidence was more obvious to Gilbert Neuville, who then hired the two thugs to due her in.

Gilbert Neuville's Revenge

According to the plot, Gilbert Neuville decided to take revenge against Margot and despite her warning that she had evidence against his son, he hired two thugs to find the evidence and kill her. According to the plan, Gilbert Neuville and his two hired thugs had to be confident that they would obtain all of the evidence. Presumably, there could have been more evidence than just the photos and the shotgun. It would also have been possible that she had photos and documents in more than one place including a possible statement filed with an attorney. It is also possible that she may not have had the key in her purse, which she stupidly left unguarded in the car. This all appears too coincidental.

The Two Missing Thugs

In agreement with the plot it is predictable that Gilbert Neuville would have become suspicious of the fact that his two hired killers simply disappeared. In the plot the hired killers proceed with a plan to kill Margot and set it up to look like it was done by a wanted serial killer. The killing is staged as planned, but Neuville's two hired killers then just disappear. Although it may have been part of the plan for the killers to not raise suspicions after killing Margot, the killers were known by Margot's father (in his account to Alex he had referred to them by name), and if they were known by others, their disappearance would have unlikely raised unwanted suspicions. They had also not completed the job that they were hired to do, which was to retrieve the evidence against Neuville's son.

With respect to Margot's father's plan, it may have perhaps been better had they been beaten, disfigured, and left at the scene by Margot's father thereby making it look like the two killers had mistakenly walked into the serial-killer's killing scene and became added victims of the actual serial killer, Serton. As remote as this coincidence might have appeared to Neuville, it would not have been as obvious as Neuville's hired killers just simply disappearing. However, such a revised plot would have preempted the essential element in the plot for the bodies of the two hired killers to become unearthed eight years later.

The Corpse of the Heroin Addict

In the plot Margot's father uses the body of a woman heroin addict that had been knifed to substitute for Margot's body in faking her death. Although it may be believable that there may be a constant supply of unidentified bodies in the morgues around a city the size of Paris, it is difficult to believe that it would be possible either to sneak a fresh warm body out of a morgue or to obtain one before it was admitted to the morgue without advanced planning. Even if a body were coincidentally obtained, there remains only a small probability that it would be close to the correct height, weight, hair color, etc.

Also, despite Margot's father mutilating the face, an autopsy would undoubtedly distinguish wounds obtained while living or in dying and those administered post mortem. Also, in the account provided by Margot's father, he stated that he had also considered exhuming a body if needed. Such a statement provides even less credibility to his plan to alter the plan by Neuville and his hired killers. It simply doesn't make sense that Margot's father would proceed with a plan that posed risk of death and injury to both Margot and Alex and that would have depended on him producing a substitute body he had not yet obtained.

The only real merit in Margot's father's plan was that if Margot thought that Alex was dead, she would more likely leave the country. However, if the substitute body was not convincing to the police and coroner, it would have become known to Alex (along with everyone else) that Margot was not dead. There was also risk that wherever Margot went, she might follow up on obtaining news information about Alex and discover that he really hadn't been killed either. In brief, it doesn't make sense that Margot's father would proceed without a better plan. The events at Lake Charmaine were simply unpredictable. It could have been Alex who had gone to check on the dog and then the scenario could have changed completely.

The Safe Deposit Box

According to the plot, Margot rented a safe deposit box using the name Juliette Langlois to safely store the three photos taken by Anne and the shotgun she used to kill Philippe Neuville. I would suspect that someone would have had to make periodic payments on the box. Although it is possible that she could have prepaid for a minimum of eight years or that payments could have been made anonymously by Margot's father on her behalf, this subject is not adequately addressed in the movie.

Although Captain Levkowitch discussed the safe deposit box with Margot's father in the interview that takes place in her father's home, neither of them appear to address this obvious question. Later, Levkowitch raises the question while having a discussion with his partner, but never provides an explanation for why the police didn't have an answer. I would suspect that if the police had the authority to obtain the contents of the box, that they would have had the authority to trace payment records.

The Key to the Safe Deposit Box

According to the account provided by Margot's father, Margot apparently had the key to the safe deposit box in her purse when she and Alex went to Lake Charmaine. In his account to Alex before killing himself, Margot's father mentions that he had failed to check the pockets of the two men, who had already taken the key from Margot's purse, and had therefore inadvertently buried the key with their bodies. He called this his only mistake. The account as told suggests that Margot's father knew of the safe deposit box and of the key in her purse at the time of the planned murder at the lake. The only other possible option is that Margot later informed her father that the key had been in her purse and was then missing.

Accordingly, this scenario raises several questions. For one, why would Margot be so careless as to carry the key around in her purse? Furthermore, assuming that Margot's father also knew, why would he, while being aware of the pending plan by Neuville to have Margot killed, also be so careless as to permit her to do this? Obviously, there would have been risk for Neuville in having Margot killed without first obtaining the key (assuming having known that the key was sufficient to retrieve the evidence against his son Philippe).

Accordingly by this logic, allowing the key to be obtained by the killers would have greatly increase the risk under any scenario or outcome that Margot would be killed. And, directly related to this, it was certainly possible that the one killer (who was betraying Neuville and working with Margot's father) could have done a second turn around and ultimately betrayed Margot's father. Although Magot's father may have learned of the plot through phone taps, it is unlikely that the killer would continue to use the phone to report back to Gilbert Neuville in a double betrayal. In this case it would have been the key (and the related evidence) that would have been the only source of protection for both Margot and her father. It would therefore be unlikely that Margot's father would be careless about Margot retaining it in her purse.

The Shotgun

According to the plot, the shotgun had belonged to Alex's father and had been acquired by Alex apparently when his father died (though it was later revealed that he had actually been murdered). The shotgun was present at the country home where Margot lived when Alex was serving his residency in Bordeaux and was used by Margot to kill Philippe Neuville the night he beat her. Sometime in the two months after killing Philippe, Margot then placed the shotgun in the deposit box with the three photos taken by Anne. When the police retrieved the shotgun from the safe deposit box, they performed ballistic tests on it and determined that it had been the weapon used to kill Philippe Neuville.

This scenario also raises several questions. First, why would Margot store the shotgun? One possible reason would be to prevent it from being found by the police or by Gilbert Neuville. Possibly, because it had belonged to Alex's father, she didn't want to actually destroy or discard it without his knowledge or permission. According to the plot, the police were apparently aware (possibly through registration records) that Alex owned his father's shotgun.

Second, the practice of matching bullets removed from victims to the weapons that fired them is generally based the transfer of grooves or markings created by the rifling in the barrel of the weapon on to the projectile. However, shotguns do not contain rifling and would thereby not be applicable to this common ballistic test. Use of some remaining method for matching the discharge of a shotgun to the weapon is certainly questionable and is not addressed.

Interestingly, when Captain Levkowitch questions Alex in the elevator when they are leaving Helene's apartment, Levkowitch asks several questions of Alex regarding the shotgun, but refers to the shotgun as a hunting rifle. Possibly, there was confusion in the French-to-English translation, but the weapon depicted in the scenes portraying Philippe's murder was clearly a double-barrel shotgun.

Planting of the Handgun Used to Kill Charlotte

According to the plot, the police searched Alex's apartment because he was identified as the last known person to see Charlotte, the woman photographer, alive. When the police arrived at his apartment, they had to sedate the dog, Nina, because she attacked the first policeman through the door. If Charlotte was killed around 10:30 the previous evening, that meant that either the thugs must have planted the handgun before Alex and Nina returned from the Internet cafe the same night or they somehow got past Nina the following morning. Because Alex later used his presence at the Internet cafe as an alibi for the murder, that meant that the murder took place while he was there. Assuming that Alex then went directly home (otherwise he would have had a second alibi), the thugs would have had to travel from the scene of the murder to Alex's apartment and plant the handgun all before Alex returned. Although this may have been possible, it was not something that could have been planned or presumed with certainty. In the respect that it was not presumably obvious to the viewer, it should have been briefly depicted in the plot, rather than become a mystery and a possible hole in the plot.

Alex Unexplainably Being Found on the Dock

According to the plot, the issue of Alex being found unconscious on the dock at Lake Charmaine was treated by the police as an unexplained mystery that cast doubt on Alex's credibility and the police having the complete story of Margot's murder. Because there were no witnesses to the events at Lake Charmaine other than Alex, it was simply Alex's account that he was struck unconscious and fell back into the water when attempting to climb the ladder on the dock. Thereafter he spent three days in the hospital recovering from a concussion.

In actuality, Alex's concussion alone would have been a perfectly normal explanation for Alex's recollection of events not being totally consistent with his being found on the dock. Also, if Alex had actually killed his wife and was inventing a cover-up story, why would he have told a story that created a mystery, when he simply could have stated that he was struck on the head after he climbed out of the water? The use of such an illogical argument as a device to create suspicion by the police begins to diminish the believability of the plot from the time when it was presented.

The Email Messages from Margot

According to the plot, Alex eventually figures out while at the Internet boutique that the username "Concert" and password "Olympia" were not literal, but were merely clues for username "U2" and password "1995." However, in both cases when he enters the respective password, the actual characters are displayed on the screen rather than the standard masking of the password by asterisks that is consistent with normal Yahoo web-mail sign in. According, Alex and the movie viewers should have seen the passwords displayed as "******" or "****" instead of "olympia" or "1995" respectively. And, although displaying the entered password was probably intentionally done to aid the movie viewer in understanding that Alex had just then resolved the coded communication for the required username and password, the clue was done at the expensive of creating another real-life anomaly.

And, by the way, in case you didn't otherwise notice, the man that arrived at the Internet boutique about the same time as Alex and then sat to his right was the same thug he would later come face to face with immediately prior to being pulled into the van the following day. And, although no explanation was provided for how the thugs had determined the details of the meeting place the following day at 5 p.m., it could probably be assumed that the man sitting next to him either peaked over his shoulder or looked at Alex's computer screen when Alex was looking away to check on his dog, Nina. This point could have been made a little more obvious since there was no reason in the plot not to.

Taking Alex Hostage

In the plot, the lead thug, who worked for Gilbert Neuville, ordered the other four thugs to take Alex hostage when Alex was leaving the park. This appears to have been far too foolish a move for both the thug leader and for Neuville to make. It simply does not make appropriate sense. First, it appeared fairly obvious that Alex did not have a successful meeting with Margot. It also did not appear that Alex was aware that the meeting area was being staked out. Quite obviously, the best move for Neuville's thugs under these circumstances would have been to tail Alex and try again next time. In contrast, once they took Alex captive, especially without disguises, the four of them would then be identifiable by Alex. If they released him, he would then be even more careful. And, by taking him captive, they limited themselves to forcing him to either tell them what he probably didn't know or to help intercept messages from Margot and then having to kill him later. Alex undoubtedly would have recognized this fate and would have undoubtedly fought to his death to not identify his wife and expose her to being killed.