Yes he explains why he leaves, but that's not what I was talking about. He went through great lengths to set up this landmine and have a local friend collaborate with him, and he just leaves without even seeing what happens. Why? because it's convenient to the plot. He shouldn't be there - otherwise he'd call for help, or intervene.
Ilya simply believes this story even though its quite risky. Ilya has a lot to loes, he has a wife and a daughter whom he clearly cares for. He's not some psycho loner living in the woods that has nothing to lose so he just plays around with human lives for fun.
The friend could change his mind and come back, or could be watching from far away, but none the less Ilya goes ahead with the whole torment. Ilya is not a stupid guy, he comes up with very elaborate psychological ways of tormenting Chris and Alicia, yet doesn't think much of their whole backstory. Someone else could be coming this way just like he was, there's also a chance of that. There is no proof that he drove here, we see him on foot, which means he doesn't live far away. So there could be someone else coming this way, or simply Daniel could come back for any reason, Ilya doesn't know that Daniel left for good.
Why wouldn't he think that Chris could harm him? Chris could go to the police for instance. He just leaves him as a witness for no reason. Again, convenient to the plot. It would have been better if Ilya thought he killed them both and Chris survived. That would make more sense.
Tourists are registered in local hotels usually, if they don't come back to check out for a while - the police could be alerted. But you could say "this is Georgia, so it's not that organized" which would be wrong.
Again, Ilya has numerous opportunities to kill Chris but doesn't act. he sees that Chris is clearly there to avenge Alicia's death. Again convenient to the plot that he doesn't just hit him over the head with something heavy while Chris isn't looking, and just drive him somewhere into the mountains and drop him off a cliff.
I understand that Chris wants them to suffer, but he surely wasn't ready to kill the daughter, he could have played with an empty gun to torment her without actually killing her.
My "babble" is actually quite logical, while yours is appologetic. You liked the movie and
are trying to defend it. I never said I didn't like the movie, only these plot holes stand out and bother me, and that's why I wrote about them.
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lone-foxx
8 years ago
Perhaps you missed the part of the movie where Ilya explains the landmine trap/trick and how gullible he knew Chris would be; because Chris is the type of person who believes what he sees in movies, such as standing on a mine till help arrives rather then the mine just going off immediately. And who told Ilya this information....?
You might wanna rewatch that part of the movie before wasting more time asking the wrong questions.
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nissebror
8 years ago
I'm more amazed that Chris points out to Daniel that the mine isn't armed, and that both him and Alicia fail to see a giant metal chain in a green grass field. That's something that bothers me, but most of the stuff you mentioned is based on simple human psychology.
You can never know for sure why someone acts a certain way, or why they react to a situation in a certain way. Illias might've considered that Daniel could be watching, but not really cared. He might not've believed them that the friend existed all, and that they're just *beep* around. It's hard to know exactly what's going on inside his mind.
Now, of course it's possible that Daniel could come back, or watch from a distance, but the reason he doesn't stay is cause he knows the mine isn't real and he's going to a bar to get drunk and laugh about how dumb his friends are that don't know a landmine is pressure activated and not trigged once you lift the weight. Sitting on a mountain top somewhere for hours until they realise that the mine isn't real isn't as satisfying as just laughing at their expense in a bar somewhere.
I do think you're overestimating just how much the government cares about what you do once you're overseas. People leave hotels without saying anything all the time, sometimes cause they don't pay, other times cause they couldn't be *beep* staying there or cause something else happened. A hotel manager isn't gonna care why you don't come back cause he'll be busy with the next guests. If you're interested, you could start asking hotel clerks and ask what their protocols are if you don't come back to your room that night/that week. My guess is that they'll say they don't have a protocol and doesn't give two *beep* what you do as long as you pay your bill.
As far as why Illias doesn't fear Chris. Well, he's been standing on the mine for several hours, which Chris admitted to him. So his legs are gonna be tired. He's in shock after shooting Alicia and lying under her body. So his first thought isn't "I'm gonna chase after this guy and kill him", especially cause Chris even says that Alicia was still alive and he tried to save her.
The reason Illias doesn't kill Chris once he's at the family house is cause he doesn't want his family to know what he's been doing in the mountains. If he just randomly kills a visitor for no apparent reason, his family would start asking questions that he wasn't ready to answer. He believed that Chris was actually leaving when he was walking down the path, so he believed that they could settle it without involving the family. He might've feared something else could happen, but perhaps chose to trust Chris in that instance.
You're right that Chris didn't want to kill the daughter, and it surprised me too that the bullet wasn't a blank or something like that, but I assume that's why he keeps spinning the wheel to hopefully increase the chances he accidentally doesn't shot the girl. It's not really a plot hole that he kills the daughter though, more a sign that perhaps Chris didn't think everything through as well as he'd thought. It's a character flaw, not a narrative flaw.
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