Bungling Assassins...


What am I missing? Am I taking crazy pills?

There's a reason terrorists time their strikes simultaneously, and it's the same reason law enforcement will arrest conspirators simultaneously: To reduce the likelihood of a tip-off.

These assassins have two targets, but kill them separately. The movie attempts to justify this by having the killers say, "Our paymasters skimped. We should have had two teams." OK, but knowing that you didn't have two teams, why would you take down your first target in a huge national-headline grabbing explosion? Littlefinger was initially so confident their second target wouldn't catch word.

These guys are also concerned about people identifying them, but there are almost certainly street-facing cameras in that affluent neighborhood. The movie gets ahead of itself when the explosion is quickly reported as being caused by a gas leak and the identities of the victims. The former would be cast as educated conjecture, but the latter wouldn't be reported within the hour.

So our forensic accountant is spooked and on the run. Why doesn't he already have a dead man's switch set up? Why doesn't he go to the media straight away?

Jane Citizen happens upon the latest slaying and the hitmen kill her, too. Then they leave her car on the side of the road, brains splattered on the window. If you insist on murdering her, fine, but why not send that car off the embankment as well? At minimum, it would take longer to draw attention to the killer(s) in the area.

The justification is that they're in a hurry. Gotta catch this kid... yet they go to meet up with their dumb boss. Again, the filmmakers try to justify it by saying, "We know that what we're doing is super-retarded."

The assassins have the Punisher. They figure they can send him up to the tower; either the kid's up there or he isn't. We know that communications have been compromised because of lightning magnet Jolie, but the hitmen don't know that. As far as they know, Shane could call for backup.

At the end, the younger assassin correctly figures Jolie's hiding behind a tree, so with his gun drawn, he goes right up to the trees. The advantage of a firearm is action at distance. It doesn't really matter because he rather easily subdues her. Fine, whatever. But when it comes to killing the kid, he just leaves her without looking back, then, out of nowhere, she gets some strikes in.

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