Enjoyed the dead-reckoning map scene

I admit that this movie had some weaknesses, but one of the scenes I thoroughly enjoyed was when Bryan coached his daughter to pinpoint his location using maps, grenades and other observances.

It actually was mostly believable, considering the circumstances. Here's how it worked:

1. Bryan knew the location of where he and his wife were abducted.

2. By counting time, listening, and observing speed he was able to roughly guess how far he was from this abduction point.

3. That's why he had his daughter draw a circle X kilometers from the original abduction point.

4. He also had his daughter draw a circle X kilometers around their hotel. (That's the part I don't get. Even if the two circles had intersected, how would that have told her where he was?) But, it was a faulty circle, because they didn't intersect anyway.

5. So, he had her go to the window and lob a grenade. (I know, just suspend disbelief. Remember, it's only a movie.)

6. Observing time between when he heard the grenade over her cell phone, and when he heard the explosion with his ears gave him the approximate distance from the hotel to where he was. (Speed of sound, etc. I realize the writers had their math off, but for the purposes of the movie ...)

7. He had his daughter then plot a larger circle around the hotel representing the new distance calculated from the grenade.

8. Since we know he had to be somewhere on the bigger hotel circle, AND somewhere on the circle surrounding where they were abducted, then we know that logically he had to be at one of the two points where the circles intersected. But, which one?

9. That's why he asked her if the wind was blowing, which direction, and how hard. She told him that flags were standing up fairly straight from west to east.

10. Bryan then deduced that if he was located upwind from the grenade explosion he probably would have heard it only fairly faintly or not at all. But he did hear it fairly well, so he must have been downwind. When there are two points on a map, with one representing the westerly (upwind) location, and the other representing the easterly (downwind) location, and you know you are downwind, then you know you are at the easterly point.

11. He then told her to hightail it over to a rooftop near that point on the map, so she could lob a grenade for him to listen for. (Lots of need to suspend disbelief here. But, again, it's only an action movie.)

12. After she lobbed a second grenade there, he knew she was close enough for him to signal his location with some escaping steam.

13. And so on ...

One of the main objections by some commenters to this scenario is the importance of the wind in helping to pick which of the two intersecting points he was at. The truth is that wind plays a huge part in whether one can hear loud noises. Freeway noise, fireworks, an automobile racetrack, and many others all have very different sound volumes depending on which way a strong wind is blowing. It does have to be a fairly strong wind. But in the movie, flags were standing straight out, which indicates a very strong wind blowing. That's all that Bryan needed to know.

To me, this was a brilliant piece of writing that someone had to put some thought into. The best part of the movie, actually. I love this kind of stuff, so I was willing to forgive the many "mistakes."