In the beginning of the film where one of the hostage lied about leaving his cellphone at home was taken in that room and was completely beat up with blood and everything to show - don't tell me he survived that... How can they say Clive Owen's character wouldn't kill/hurt anyone when he did just that in that scene. or did I miss something?
shareHammond, the cell phone guy, was part of the gang, he was in on it.
The "beating" was a charade designed to scare the heck out of the real bank customers, make them think they were in danger of receiving the same treatment if they didn't do as they were told.
Nothing in the film indicates that Hammond was in on it.
shareYou know what..... I think you are right.
I had always thought that the beating of Hammond was part of the misdirection and confusion orchestrated by the bank robbers but I just watched this movie again and you're right, there's nothing to support the view that Hammond is part of the gang.
In fact he is seen again near the end when the bank robbers are sitting in a car outside waiting for Clive Owen to come out, Hammond is seen assisting the two cops in getting the safety deposit box so I guess he is just a bank employee after all and the beating was real.
You were right and I was wrong.
My theory is that he was in on it. He was the "inside man" working at the bank who (quite possibly) found something that implicated Christopher Plummer or (more likely) found evidence that suggested Christopher Plummer's character had something to hide. Being a bank employee, he could have found some things out and made an educated guess about what was what and passed that information along to someone in the gang. Whether that person was Clive Owen or not is irrelevant. They must have known something about that bank and that safe deposit box in order to have "robbed" that particular bank.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6533152/1/Payback
I admire your imagination FbxCycler but as I stated, there is nothing in the film that indicates any of THAT, certainly. I'm pretty sure "Inside Man" is a play on words to describe Clive Owen and his scheme. But you can create your own backstory like that for any of the characters if it helps you enjoy the film. I think it's a great movie.
The scene with Hammond apparently getting beaten is a curious one. It's shot in such a way that we only see the action indistinctly through opaque glass and at the end we just see Hammond's lower legs. Therefore it raises the suspicion that the beating is fake (and perhaps it raises this suspicion deliberately). But it turns out Hammond really was beaten. Possibly when the scene was shot the film-maker's idea was for the beating to be fake, but this idea changed later on. The hostage later hauled away for removing his mask was unambiguously beaten, though not killed, if I remember correctly.
I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that ye may be mistaken.
I'm not 100% certain but I think the hostage hauled away for removing his mask was one of the bank robbers, and it was HIS beating, not Hammond's, that was planned and implemented as misdirection.
shareYes he was part of the gang. He removed his mask on purpose so they had an excuse to take him out of the room so he could help dig the toilet hole. We see him diggin the hole and We see him in the car waiting at the end.
shareI think the confusion comes from the fact that later Steve? gets dragged out of one of the rooms and he takes a few token punches/kicks to sell the idea that he's a rebellious Hostage to the people in that room...
shareIf you watch the "beating", you'll notice that none of the punches come within a foot of connecting with the hostage. The stomping could have easily been faked as well. It's hard to see how any of the onlookers could have been fooled by the phony punches.
shareHammond serves as misdirection. Certain audience members will suspect he's the inside man, especially because we never actually see him get beaten.
It's also interesting how poor we are when it comes to recognizing faces. Someone upthread said Hammond helped dig the hole, but that's mistaken. The confederate with the bruises was the one who removed his mask and started mouthing off. The whole purpose of that was so other hostages would later recall that he was NOT one of the robbers.