MovieChat Forums > Flightplan (2005) Discussion > 28 Major plot holes - please add others

28 Major plot holes - please add others


I know that there are already several threads here mentioning plot holes but there are, amazingly, people who still seem to think this is a good film and people complaining about said plot holes are missing the point.

It's true that there is many a good film with one or two holes in the plot, sometimes even gaping ones. But they always allow for the suspension of disbelief.

This turkey has the plot holes coming so thick and fast that even if you continually adjust your disbelief level you just cannot see the film making the slightest sense.

Here is a composite list of all the plot holes I noticed and a few that others have spotted. Please add any more that you know of.

1) Get husband onto roof of building

2) Push him off without anyone seeing

3) Know in advance exactly where the body will be taken

4) Risk involving the morgue director in the plan

5) Know which flight the coffin will travel on

6) Ensure marshal gets assigned to that flight

7) Ensure girlfriend gets assigned to that flight

8) Get explosives into a coffin for which you don't know the combination

9) Rely on a woman and child getting on board without anyone noticing the child.

10) Rely on the child not speaking to anyone, not making any noise, not asking for anything.

11) Rely on their being empty seats on the packed inaugural flight of a new aircraft type

12) Rely on the mother taking the child to lie on those seats

13) Rely on no one seeing the child's removal

14) Rely on no one noticing a man putting his hand into a sleeping woman's trousers

15) Rely on mother going ballistic rather than just calmly talking to people and making requests

16) Somehow manage to get the computerised check-in systems to 'forget' the girl

17) Rely on the mother not requesting the airport authorities check the inevitable CCTV footage

18) Rely on the corrupt stewardess being the one assigned to search the section with the kidnapped child

19) Rely on the captain/airline contacting the morgue (to ask what?) rather than the hospital or police and thus get the fake information

20) Rely on no one, immediately on hearing of the child's death, asking why her coffin is not on board

21) Rely on the mother escaping and opening a coffin that she believes is sealed when there are dozens upon dozens of other luggage containers in the hold

22) Rely on the authorities agreeing to the ransom without talking to the so-called terrorist

23) Rely on them actually transferring the money - how would an alleged terrorist have known if it had been transfered

24) Finding a way to get the money when the authorities knew exactly where it was

25) Rely on the exploding child leaving no trace with an amount of explosive so small it didn't even hurt two people who were no more than ten metres away when it went off. That would not happen.

26) Expect someone with no explosives training to know that the explosives present were of such low power that they would be safe no more than 10 metres away

27) Have corrupt stewerdess remain on plane (necessary to distract Kylie so that the marshal could free and arm himself). How would that have been explained later? Why would she even have remained?


Plus:

Kyle was a propulsion engineer. You know, those big things with the spinny insides that hang down from the wings on pylons. There is no way that would have given here any detailed knowledge of the aircraft internal layout, electrical systems or avionics.



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5) Know which flight the coffin will travel on

6) Ensure marshal gets assigned to that flight

7) Ensure girlfriend gets assigned to that flight


These are probably the biggest plot holes that come to mind. I think 5-7 can be explained by the possiblity that Carson and his companion were not really an air marshall and stewardess. Perhaps they captured or murdered the real employees, stole their identification papers and impersonated them to get on the plane.

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The biggest plot hole is the idea that she could get a kid onto a plane without ANYONE (other than the one stewardess) seeing her. I've never boarded a plane without walking past AT LEAST two flight attendants.

Furthermore, it's absolutely absurd to think that they would only use one attendant to check the manifest. Ever heard of human error? Apparently the writers haven't.

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What I dont get it is, why the pilot suddenly thought she had a bomb on board?! Just because the air marshal said so?! That makes no sense?! Is that why the AM at the end said that people do what he wants them to do, because he is a figure with authority??? I think the movie sucked but still, a lot of plot holes can be eliminated by simple asking, how often did he push someone of the roof??? maybe he knew the odd are little but if he tried often enough, it would be worth it...

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a lot of plot holes can be eliminated by simple asking, how often did he push someone of the roof??? maybe he knew the odd are little but if he tried often enough, it would be worth it...


Um no... I don't think so. According to the film he deliberately tracked her down as she was an Aircraft Engineer who knew the ins and outs of this particular airplane. It wasn't like her husband was a random victim. Her husband was pushed off the roof because the Air Marshal targeted Jodie Foster's character as the foil. Your comment really opens more plot-holes than it eliminates.



I'm writing this signature in bold so people know it's a signature

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It's a movie people. Just go with it and enjoy it for what it's worth...entertainment. I did!!

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Nothing that happened was actually implausible, but then again it relied heavily on a sequence of events happening in a particular order. E.g if one other person had seen the girl, then most of the film would not work.

But why is this so different to many other movies? Call it coincidence if that helps you fill the holes.

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Nothing that happened was actually implausible


....swiftly followed by...

if one other person had seen the girl, then most of the film would not work


....the very definition of implausibility.

LOL!

"What was that, an exhibition?"

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>>if one other person had seen the girl, then most of the film would not work
>....the very definition of implausibility.

Hey, there were only 430 people who could have seen her! Seems like a small risk to take!

Roger Ebert said this film had "an airtight plot."

If you need any more reason to ignore Roger Ebert, there you go.

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Well Google Dictionary is telling me that implausibility is the provoking of disbelief. How does another passenger not seeing the girl provoke disbelief? I probably couldn't tell you who was sitting behind me in a plane unless they started kicking my chair causing me to turn around.

To passengers further away, the little girl would have looked like an empty seat. Plus whilst passengers were sleeping as they do on a night flight, you wouldn't be paying attention to a stewardess smuggling a child from her seat, which is literally one metre away from the curtained crew cabin area...

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Well Google Dictionary is telling me that implausibility is the provoking of disbelief. How does another passenger not seeing the girl provoke disbelief?


Gimme strength. The dictonary even put you straight and you still cant grasp it.

Firstly, you say, another passenger, as if there are only a few, we are talking hundreds of people here. If only ONE saw the girl, the plan is DEAD

How did the plotters know that....

The girl wouldnt strike up a oonversation with someone?
Go to the toilet?
Call a steward and ask for a drink?
Arrive late and have to walk past everyone?
What if they didnt fall alseep?
What if some guy was eyeing up the mother until he saw she had a kid?
What if she got airsick, for crying out loud!

There are dozens of scenarios that makes this plan......implausible

The little girls bording pass is equally implausable. How did the plotter even know where the mother had it to steal it? What if she kept it in her back pocket and fell asleep sitting on it.......do you NOW understand what implausable means????????????????????????



"What was that, an exhibition?"

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-girl could of learn not to speak to strangers
- could of be threating that if she made a noise she would of been killed
- people use bathrooms all the time
- arrive late what this about
-what if they did?
what if he was caught eyeying the mother?
-its possible dude stop with the bs

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You are making the same mistake that everyone else who (for some bizarre reason) tries to defend the plot holes in this film makes.

Yes, there are possible explanations for most of the observed plot holes. In most cases the explanations involve something thoroughly unlikely happening.

What makes the whole thing so ridiculous is that when planning the enterprise the perpetrators relied on these unlikely things happening on every single occasion.

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these are just weak complaints. i am not going to go through the list but i will explain things.

1. people did know the girl was on the plane
2. the people who said no were not paying atettion sleeping or watching a movie or were in front while the mother and daughter in back

3. any mother would go baslitc if she lost her child this is nothing new

4. its illegal for someone to be drug on the plane just cause she going baslitc

5. you tell us know one saw her well... explain why two iowa girls are missing in middle of the day near a busy high way a park baseball field and houses were they know everyone?

yes there fence near the lake they disspaired to. I seen far worst movies this is not a bad movie.

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I caught this film last night on TV. It was pretty good, but I felt could have been so much better if someone like John McTiernan (Die Hard) had directed it. That guy really knew how to crank up the isolation and tension in confined spaces!

I think the single biggest plot hole for me is: Why choose someone (Foster's character) who had such detailed knowledge of the aircraft in the first place? (this plot hole also leads on to the other major plot hole of course: Why did a propulsion engineer seem to know the entire aircraft so well?!)

The terrorist planning to blow up the plane knows far less about the layout than Jodie Foster's character, allowing her to fairly easily get away from him through a hatch in the toilet, for example. That one was a just a bit too obvious, especially as you could tell she was deliberately selecting a specific toilet. Whereas her terrorist captor could not tell...?!

For me, one of the biggest weaknesses, is that I just couldn't even remotely believe that the terrorist was at all a convincing character, compounded by his inferior knowledge of the aicraft.

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You watched it too on bbc huh?

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[deleted]

ROFLMAO!

Sorry for any butthurt you may be suffering but your contention that no one should be allowed to point out absurdities in films - especially when there are so many - is both petulant and stupid.

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"Professional complainers"...! You mean I can actually get paid to write comments on IMDb message boards!?

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But aren't *you* taking this in a negative manner yourself? I find this thread very amusing.

If the OP would just be an average hater, he/she would simply put a "1" on the rating and write a flaming review (usually very short, real haters don't write insightful reviews). But instead we got a quest for goofs. That is not hating, that is done with a big :) if you ask me.

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I agree, though you missed the biggest plot hole of them all:
006 is flying the plane, gets handed a gun, but doesn't do anything...? Come on, now.

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2 flight crew searching for a missing child, 'Hey, this is a great time for us to have sex!' 'sure, lets have sex instead of looking for a lost child." then they have sex. In the plane, instead of looking for a small child.
No wonder the air line workers protested about this steaming dog turd of a movie.

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If the money was transferred, why didn't he just blow the plane up and cast himself as the hero?

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