RED (film)/Headscratchers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Film: The actual conspiracy... didn't make much sense (Spoilers Ahoy!).

  • So the actual plot was killing everyone who knew about the Vice-President's "misadventure" in Guatemala. Fine, in a Comic Book Plot sort of way. But other than the dead reporter, nobody else knew about the VP's involvement. Frank and Co. only found out because Dunning told them. And it seemed as though no one whom the reported had actually talked to was actually talking. Are they seriously trying to say that they didn't interrogate a single one of the targets to see what they actually knew and who they talked to?
    • Its a comedy dont get to worked up over the framing device.
    • Of course, it's even worse once you factor in them going after Sarah because Frank was communicating with her. So they were monitoring the two of them, knew they've never met face to face, but assumed Frank told her something? "Wilkes was pulling the strings to make sure no one talked" only explains so much.
      • Frank explicitly mentions that it wasn't the fact that he talked to Sarah at all, but how he talked to her. They were after her because she could be used to get to Frank.
    • A lot of people get burned (i.e.: terminated) for a lot less in Real Life. If you've got the slightest idea of who was doing what, you're a security threat.
    • The whole thing was orchestrated by Dunning to kill the VP. Dunning knew Moses and the rest of them back in their active days (notice they identify the man who collected the package by his looks) and he knew that a simple hit squad could not kill them all and that they would want revenge, either killing the VP themselves or giving him opportunity to do so. His motive is that the VP wants out and he will loose his money, conections and contracts if it comes out that he helped to cover warcrimes and used that as leverage to get rich as defence contractor. But if he succeeded everyone who knew about the village and/or could place him there (the pilot) would be dead and he would get away scott-free with most of his connections intact. He probably promised Wilkes to replace the VP as his protegee.
    • I agree. It was an Excuse Plot if nothing else.
    • Xanatos Gambit as Dunniny would benefit from many different outcomes. If Dunning succeeds in killing everyone connected to Guatemala, cool beans. That's taken care of and no one can connect him and the VP (it is worth noting that no one went after Boggs, probably because by himself he's too nuts to be a threat until Frank got him to join their crew). If they survive, he can continue attempting to take them down with his CIA puppet until they track him down. They're not going to attack him directly because from their perspective he's a puppet of the CIA, not the other way around. If they come after him Dunning can turn them around and point them at the VP to take him out. No loss to Dunning because Stanton wants out anyway and this will take him out and make the survivors of the assassination into internationally wanted killers (or get them all killed, which is also a win). Dunning just didn't expect that Frank would take Stanton alive instead of kill him. If Frank had actually killed Stanton instead of tried to trade him for Sara, Dunning would have won. In fact, if Dunning had never shown up to the factory and instead just sent his goons, no one would have known he was the mastermind behind the whole thing. So the issue is not that the conspiracy made no sense, because it does, but why Dunning risked everything by showing up personally at the exchange to gloat instead of sending his puppets to take care of it. Should have read the Evil Overlord List, Dunning; your plan was going perfectly until you made that mistake!

The Secret Service coverage portrayal for the Vice President was pitiful.

It stretched my Willing Suspension of Disbelief - I had to resort to the MST3K Mantra. They didn't have enough agents. They didn't have an agent outside the main door of the ballroom, which would have prevented the door from being locked off. They're rushing the VP out due to a possible gas leak and the fire alarm going off, but there was still no hurry to get out in an orderly fashion. How on earth Moses managed to get his mitts on a presidential limo really pushes it. My workplace was in a restricted zone during a G20. The Secret Service really does think of and cover everything before going in.

The dropped contact lens shouldn't have deterred the security guards at the elevator.

The guards should have just said "That's okay, it can work without your contact lens in. Go ahead and scan it."

  • At which point they potentially invoke the annoyance and anger of a flag-rank officer who will shitcan their careers. No thank you. They can wait for him to get his contact lens.
    • I agree. Anyone in the military - especially enlisted like that tactical squad - are trained to fear ranking officers, no matter how unreasonable their requests (read: orders) seem, and the higher the rank, the greater the fear. The Bavarian Fire Drill works a lot better with annoyed eyes in between a pair of four star insignias glaring patiently at you. I still consider the fact that he saluted them afterward, in a sense telling them they were doing their jobs well, makes this scene a very subtle Crowning Moment of Awesome.
    • There's also that the guards still did do their jobs; they still insisted on scanning Frank and Sara and checking their IDs before allowing them past. Nobody had told them that a contact lens could possibly be used to hack the scanner.

What was the point of the brawl?

If Frank had just taken Sarah and just walked out of there, he wouldn't have gotten shot, and thus wouldn't have had a reason to go to Eagle's Nest. This is why it seems just a bit too contrived. They needed a reason to get him there, so they needed to get him hurt. Why not just have Cooper happen across him? The only reason I can think that this was necessary was to smuggle the Guatemala file out, but first off, there was Sarah's briefcase, and second, once he had the file, Frank said "change of plan" right before entering the office and starting the fight. This means this wasn't the plan all along, so he had another plan to get that file out of there before he went in, and if he was going to try to just talk to Cooper, then he's a lot more gooey and romantic than Victoria thought: gooey to the point of sloppy. Either way, it was a dumb move and seems out of character.

  • He was going to Bavarian Fire Drill his way into the office, then see what Cooper kn--oh crap, Cooper's here! Time to fight! Alternately, he kinda expected to be able to subdue Cooper quietly. I'm not sure if he looks surprised when he sees Cooper.

The initial assault

Frank puts some bullets in a pan. They eventually cook off. On hearing gunshots, the bad guys go into full spraying mode and disintegrate his house. So, uh... what was the original plan? If someone shoots, kill off everyone including the guys on our side? Why even give them guns then?

  • The original plan was to kill Frank quietly in his sleep with a syringe of poison that would presumably make it look like natural causes, such as a heart attack. The first guys in were probably told "Do not just go firing off your guns, we want this as quiet as possible." They were probably not told that if guns went off, the team outside would consider the mission partially blown anyway and just start pumping a lead storm into the house.
    • Remember that immediately after Frank takes out the entry team, we hear the outside team calling them on their radio and asking them to check in - which they obviously can't do because they're dead. So the instant the inside team fails to answer for long enough that the the outside team realizes they're dead, they're going to vaporize the entire house anyway. Hence Frank immediately setting up those decoy noisemakers to draw their fire while he hides in the basement.
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