MovieChat Forums > The Greatest (2009) Discussion > Not to be picky, but .... (spoiler possi...

Not to be picky, but .... (spoiler possible)


First of all, I liked this film very much. I've had to deal with deep personal grief a couple of times in the past decade, one a sudden one like this, and it does capture the range of feelings/responses that vary from person to person.

And I'm not a quibbler about little things. I go with the flow and appreciate film stories for what they're meant to be. And, after this and An Education, I'm ready to watch any film Carey Mulligan appears in.

But sometimes reality jars me out of the fiction of the film flow. In this case, two things at the same time-point of the film. And perhaps they were both just conveniences to help the story along.

Or did I just missed something that logically explains it ....

1. Aside from the idiot kid stopping the car in the middle of the road in a dark area, on an s-curve ... well teen-agers don't always have the best judgment and he was overcome with needing to tell Rose how he felt ... and we've got to have a reason for the movie .... But, the creep in the pickup rams into the car, gets out of his pickup, goes to Bennett, talks to him, covers him with a jacket, spending 17 minutes with him ... and THEN goes into a coma for six (or whatever) months?

2. And, during all this, on a parkway road in the middle of nowhere (judging by the environment in daytime seen at the end of the film), there is a surveillance camera mounted somewhere to capture these 17 minutes in enough detail to see all that, though not hearing what is said, and at night too?

What'd I miss that explains these two things? (The suspension-of-logic need to help move the storyline along, I'm guessing.)

Again, I'm usually in the moment during a well-done film like this, but when it got to the end of the movie at the accident scene, it stopped me when I realized that, "Wait a minute. There's not gonna be some camera, at night, filming those 17 minutes. And what'd the other guy have? A 17-minute delayed onset of a six-month coma?"

DazeYaVoo

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I liked this story and would recommend it to others, regardless of the discrepancies, but......

I completely agree! I noticed it from the start that there was a supposed camera in the middle of nowhere. It really bugged me.

Another thing that bothered me, after the dad's "heart attack", the mom lies to the dad and says their son died on impact. The whole movie she's been searching to find out what happened during her sons last 17 minutes of consciousness. Why would he suddenly believe that?

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The guy that goes into the coma, they explained that. He had bleeding into his brain. So he was able to get out and interact. When the bleeding got too bad he went into the coma. Now the camera out in the middle of nowhere.....

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Oh, okay, thanks. I apparently missed that bit about bleeding on the brain. Don't know if that is medically plausible, but it would have been enough to not make the question arise until long after the movie was already over.

Maybe on re-viewing, there's something in there about that (which looked like an s-curve) area being a high accident area, ergo the tree-mounted camera.

I haven't watched it again yet. That's the cinémeter for how good we think a movie is when my daughter and I talk about films we've seen. "How long before you'd watch it again?" is the question. The answers range from "right now" to "next week" to "maybe next year" to "do you mean in this lifetime, without being Clockwork Orange'd, and on sedatives?"

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It's definitely medically plausible. That's why people are monitored so closely after head injuries. Bleeding inside the skull can go completely undetected and can cause them to loose consciousness later on, even if they initially seem fine. Anyone who's had head trauma needs to be kept awake and examined as soon as possible.

Movies I've seen in 2010: http://www.flixster.com/movie-list/2010-movies-6

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Maybe it was edited out...or something? but when the guy woke up from the coma, didn't he say, "i had the green"?? or something like that?
and some intersections have cameras on them....
not really "rural" cameras...but maybe it was an editing thing?

-G

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I didn't understand why he said that about having the green. It certainly didn't seem like an area that would have any lights.

This movie was so great, but they were pushing it to enter the survellience video. A doctor could have told her that the guy said he talked to the kid, and it still would have worked.

If you're not responding to me, "reply" to the post you're responding to. kthanks.

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I believe that there was a camera because it was a bus stop. Also, there typically is not sound on surveillance video.

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^ Yup, I was hoping someone would point that out before I reached the bottom of the page.

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There was a bus stop, but at the end of the movie when the family is chasing Rose through the woods, I don't remember seeing a traffic light. I guess I should watch again.

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There was one.

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I really enjoyed this film too but I so agree, these are two things that did not make enough sense.

kierstin-happyphotos.blogspot.com

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