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Did the burglars from the beginning get away?


They were not as quick to get out of the Impala, didn't have a team cap, had loot in big bags.

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I think they probably did. We know for sure that the Driver gets away, and I assume that the only reason the Driver even gets hired for this kind of work is because he has proven over time that he possesses a definite efficiency in getting his criminal cohorts out of danger scot-free.
But then again, maybe they didn’t, because these particular hoodlums seemed quite rattled and reckless.

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And it seems like the driver takes no responsibility once he parks.

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He gave them the advertised 5 minutes, probably even a tad more. Still, I hope in a scene cut from the theatrical release that the driver had the decency to alert them to his plan. There's no reason he shouldn't have, as he had a vested interest in not allowing them to get caught.

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True.

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Yeah because one of them approached him at a diner…tells him his brother got killed in another job.

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Oh ok, I forgot that part.

Must have been tricky to make off with the loot.

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Especially since they kinda stood out compared to the fans

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I went back and watched the scene again and I'm not sure the guy in the diner was the same criminal. It could have been, but he looked kind of different. But he said the driver drove him and his brother back from Palm Springs "last year". Palm Springs didn't seem to have anything to do with the getaway we saw; and it didn't seem like it had been that long ago although I guess that's possible.

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It was 100% not someone from the opening heist scene.

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Didn't think so, thanks.

So do you think they got away, or not so much?

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I think they did.

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so tense with the baseball game play by play audio

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The basketball game? Yeah, for sure.

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who's your favorite current LA clipper ?

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The movie makes it a point to not give us any way to know for sure if they got away or not.

IMO safe to assume they got away, because it was underlining so hard that the driver knew exactly what he was doing and was a consummate pro that provided AAA expert service to his clients. His job was to give them a clean getaway and it sure seemed like he did.

For them to get caught after all that would be like a Family Guy spoof.

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I see what you're saying, but they weren't as smooth and they would have stood out carrying big bags like that. Unless maybe they ditched them? It seems to me that it could also be that they ran into hot pursuit, a worst case scenario, and the driver still gave them all a chance to escape--which they then would have to grab ahold of themselves by moving quickly like he did and probably not carrying the bags.

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IMO it's a mistake to get lost in the weeds of details and realism in something like this. The movie portrays a character who's like the ultimate getaway driver for hire. They obviously had a plan, the hat proves that. Do you think he didn't tell the two burglars what the plan was? Do you think they were surprised to be dropped off in a crowded arena parking garage just after a game? Watching the movie your way, how do you get past "Wait, how did they know exactly when to start their break-in so they'd end up at the arena right when the game ends, that's impossible!" It's basically a fantasy story. You just have to go with it.

re: the guy in the diner, he says the driver did a job for him and his brother driving them back from Palm Springs a year ago, but then they did their next job ~with a different driver~ which led to he himself doing six months and his brother getting killed.

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I don't think it's unreasonable to time the heist to make this a viable getaway plan if things go south. Remember, he has told them they have this precise window of time that he'll wait, so presumably he can dictate the beginning of the window as well. He then of course doesn't know the precise moment the game will end, which is why he's listening to the game on the radio the whole time. As he zooms around evading the cops, he's presumably looping around the area near the arena, and then as it ends he knows that's the moment to go the last couple blocks and zip into the parking ramp.

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But it's unreasonable for a couple of guys to hide inside the chaos of an ocean of people, because they're carrying duffle bags.

The amount of explaining and general mental gymnastics you have to do to assume they didn't make it is amusing. Let's see more of that, please...

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I mean, they're definitely going to stand out. The cops are looking for burglars, and duffel bags are something burglars would carry but no one else at a ball game is going to be carrying them. That doesn't mean they will definitely get caught if they don't just ditch the bags, because as you said there's an ocean of people. But the driver is much better situated, with his cap and no bag. Not to mention that although we didn't see what ultimately happened to the burglars, we did see that they were acting more like they were caught flatfooted, and did not jump out of the car (which the cops definitely had identified) nearly as fast and smoothly as the driver did. He acted like the pro he is, and nothing we saw from them made them seem like anything but amateurs over their heads.

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Yeah yeah yeah. If it was a documentary shot in the real world, sure, you could call out every possible flaw you could imagine and you'd have a point. But in a fantasy story about the world's greatest getaway driver who gets paid big bucks to pick up criminals at point A and deliver them to point B where they can get away with their crime, nah. If it was a story about a retarded buffoon getaway driver played by Will Farrell, then maybe I could share your overly pessimistic view that for all of his apparent supremely talented badassery, all he really did was essentially just deliver them straight to jail.

All you really have in your favor is that the movie shows us absolutely nothing about the fate of the thieves in keeping with the fact that the driver has absolutely zero interest in what happens to them after he's done his job. Still, his job is to get them away clean. And IMO it was clearly meant to be seen as a job well done.

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I think you are stubbornly overlooking nuances in the script and direction here. The driver is extremely competent, yes: but he also lays out very clear boundaries of what is and is not his responsibility. "Anything happens in that five minute window, I'm yours. No matter what. Anything happens a minute on either side of that, you're on your own. You understand?"

Now, this does not technically, literally apply to the point when they get to the arena. But the dynamic has been laid down. He will do his job to the utmost, and get them to a place where they have every chance of escaping if they act just as professionally and competently as he does. But they are "on their own" after he parks the car. It's not his problem. It's not his job to hold their hands at that point--he never looked back. And I just don't think they looked like they were up to the task. They were not as highly skilled as he is. That doesn't make HIM a Will Ferrell buffoon! That's on them.

And don't forget, one of the two masked burglars (or perhaps robbers: the police radio said "shots were fired") was very slow to exit the building they robbed. His partner was sitting there like "C'mon, c'mon, where are you man?!?" If that second guy had gotten out as quickly as the first one did, maybe they make a clean getaway right from the beginning and there's no real drama. The driver can just drop them off wherever they had originally agreed to (I've got to think the arena was an emergency backup plan for if things went pear-shaped).

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The last point at which we see the two thieves is a shot of the back seat just as they've pulled into the parking ramp. They don't look steely-eyed, ready to spring into action. They look kind of freaked out and a bit confused about what's going on. Then when the driver parks, we can't see the back seat but it sure doesn't look like those back doors open at the same time he gets out. Then just a few seconds after he has walked away from the car, cop cars converge on the area where he parked. To me, it doesn't look promising for them but it's left ambiguous, which is a nice touch.

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One more thing it occurred to me to add has to do with his reputation in the criminal underworld. Obviously it doesn't look great for the people he drives to get busted. But what story are other criminals going to hear? "The two dudes in the back seat got picked up by the cops, but the driver was in the wind." The proof is in the pudding: he got away clean, so they could have too--but once it was no longer about driving but about walking, they failed and he did not. Not his problem, not his fault.

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A getaway driver who drops his clients off in a situation where their only hope to avoid getting caught is by being the slickest, smoothest criminals in history is not going to get a lot of jobs. The story other criminals are going to hear is that he sucks as a getaway driver because the only way to escape using his services is to keep up with his supernaturally extreme skill level.

EDIT: Not using this in our argument, but it's interesting- I just checked the screenplay, easily found via google. It's different than what was shot and edited in the film.

* The driver has a season pass keycard with him so he can access the "Season Ticket Holders Only" section which has plenty of available parking spots.

* All three exit the Impala at the same time and the driver watches the two thieves calmly disappear into the crowd.

* The driver had a second getaway car stashed in the Season Pass section and he drives out of the garage. Still alone, though. The thieves are already gone.

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Interesting that they shot it so differently. Sounds like the director wanted to leave it more ambiguous what happened to them. He also presumably directed them to look confused and kind of freaked out as they pulled into the parking ramp.

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There were so many people around after the game that if they blended in right, they probably got away, went out a different entrance

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If they blended in right. A big "if", since they were slow to get out of the silver Impala the cops were looking for, we saw cop cars converge on that parking spot seconds later, and they were carrying duffel bags (if they were trying to get away with the loot).

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