Question: In the scene where Tommy believes he is being made, right after he walks into the room you hear him say "Oh no!" right before he is shot. Tommy obviously realizes that he was set up. However, what is it that he sees in the room that tips him off?
Answer: A man being 'made' is an event shrouded in ceremony. The top people in the family are there, among others to congratulate the new soldier. Tommy walked into an empty room.
Just as others have pointed out, the film implies Tommy realised something was wrong the moment he walked in and saw the place was empty...no other "made men" there for the ceremony. However, I always wondered why he hadn't caught on to what was happening when he saw there were only a couple vehicles parked out in the driveway.
Answer: Either the fact that the room was empty (being made is a big ceremonial event with many people) or he felt the gun pressed against the back of his head right before they shot him.
Answer: There should have been more people waiting for him.
Answer: Wasn't the floor covered with a plastic sheet? That would have given it away.
Or it was a floor with no carpet (tiled, I believe)...easier to mop up.
Question: What exactly is a Code Red?
Answer: It's something done to one trooper in a unit who is not pulling his load, to let him know his teammates are tired of him making them look bad. It can range from a beating after lights out to scrubbing a soldier who won't shower with toilet brushes and Comet. (And yes, both of those are from my own military experience, though I wasn't the victim!) It's meant to give a warning and doesn't normally harm anything but the victim's pride. They are strongly against regulations in the past year or two as several soldiers were injured by their unit getting overzealous, just like in the movie.
Question: Maybe I missed a major plot point, but why exactly does Tom kill his lover at the very end?
Chosen answer: Tom & his lover are travelling on a boat. The rich girl, who knows Tom as Dickie is also on the boat. If they were to meet, Tom's false identity would have been revealed, and the lover would have been able to figure out that Tom actually murdered Dickie.
Answer: He had to kill him. Tom couldn't kill Meredith because she wasn't alone and Peter was.
Question: I always wondered about this. As a cop, McClane knew about weapons. While handing over the machine gun to Zeus, he explained how it worked. But he did not tell Zeus to switch the safety catch off. How on earth could McClane forget to tell something crucial like that? Zeus isn't even pissed about it later on, while it could have cost him his life.
Answer: And Zeus mentions about brothers knowing how to shoot guns.
He said it was racist to assume that brothers know how to shoot guns. He admitted he didn't know how to use that model.
Chosen answer: A simple omission, in the heat of the moment he forgot to mention it. He may have thought, since he just took the gun off an enemy, that the safety was already off.
McClane probably did that intentionally as Zeus didn't know much about guns. In fact, you hear McClane say "Don't be a hero, you find him, you come get me."
Of all the possible answers, this is definitely not the one. There's no way he handed him the gun and then purposely did not tell him that the safety was engaged. There would be no point in that.
Question: I'm not sure if I was seeing things but during the fight between Hancock and Mary, when it goes all windy and stormy, at one point it cuts to some people who are screaming and running away. I thought I saw a figure that appears to be made out of rocks or similar material and about 10 foot tall, it wasn't our hero or heroine as they were not in that scene so what on earth was it?
Answer: I saw it, too, and wondered. He's a street performer in L.A. that just happened to be around during filming. See: http://io9.com/5023487/hancock-giant-robot-mystery-++-solved.
Question: Why did everybody in the courtroom go silent when Tom said that he did chores for Mayella because he felt sorry for her?
Answer: At that time in history, Tom, a black man, was considered inferior to Mayella, a white woman. When he says he "felt sorry" for her, it is interpreted as him thinking he is above her or better off in some way. Regardless of his good intentions, for him to think of himself as being in a superior position to help her was considered unacceptable because it was seen as a black person rising above their lower place in society.
Question: Who was the man who hung himself in the end?
Answer: The Mayor (played by R Lee Ermey) who had been told the story of Homer Wilkes and threatened with castration earlier on.
Question: Is Callahan holding the binoculars upside down when he is peering down on the apartments looking for Scorpio? He is on the rooftop with the Jesus Saves Sign. They look upside down to me. (00:38:39)
Answer: Yes the binoculars are upside down.
Question: The only way that the valley could be flooded by rampaging water is that a dam was broken up river. Otherwise the water rises very slowly. Does the movie explain this? If so I missed it. In which way was that river flooded?
Answer: Probably they have dismantled the coffer dam that was used while constructing the main dam. Hence, the flooding.
Good and reasonable last resort explanation - have the Coens ever addressed it?
Question: When Robocop is about to arrest Jones, he suddenly feels his system malfunctioning. Jones then explains that Directive 4 is used to shut him down if he attempts to arrest a senior officer of OCP. Why did Jones put this directive into Robocop? At the time nobody knew he was working with Boddicker.
Answer: Because he knew he was doing illegal activities. Robocop was said to be highly efficient at his job and Jones did not want to risk him out on the streets without the insurance of shutting him down if Robo came after him.
Question: I've seen this movie over 100 times and I know every single word, but when I watched it a few days ago on Netflix I noticed straight away that the talking sounded completely different and some words where changed, in the cold turkey scene Renton was supposed to say "i don't feel the sickness yet but it's in the POST, that's for sure", but on the Netflix version he says "I don't feel the sickness yet but its in the MAIL, that's for sure", why was this changed and did all the actors have to re-do the whole film in audio?
Chosen answer: I can only assume it would have been done for the benefit of international audiences. To Brits, 'post' is commonly used as a noun describing any item received that was posted in the mail system, rather than just as a verb to describe the act of sending something in the mail. Typical small changes of word meanings that makes perfect sense to someone in Britain may easily confuse a viewer from another country.
Is this for real they don't think people are smart enough to know the post is the mail? Like we have post offices it's not like it's so far out there we couldn't figure it out my god.
Bear in mind "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was retitled entirely to "Sorcerer's Stone" in the USA. Movie studios are desperate to avoid audiences being confused, whether that's warranted or not.
Question: A tape recorded by John directed toward agent Perez states that her partner would soon take the life of an innocent man. How did John know that agent Strahm would kill Jeff? For all he knows, Strahm could have followed Rigg through the factory rather than Jeff. The "if you're good at anticipating the human mind, it leaves nothing to chance" excuse doesn't work here. The only reason Strahm followed Jeff was because he heard Jeff hit a ceiling light with a crowbar.
Question: When Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker exited the airport, why were they in pain? Did the French man do something to them?
Chosen answer: He gave them body cavity searches.
Question: What is the actual likelihood that a decorated serviceman, with no prior criminal record (we know this because if Poe had any priors he wouldn't have been in the Army) would actually get prison time for killing two men who attacked himself and his girlfriend? Seeing as there were witnesses (said girlfriend and bartender) I find it hard to believe he would have gotten more than an extended period of probation. A prison term, even a year or two, seems severely harsh considering the circumstances.
Chosen answer: Zero. As you said, he was attacked and there are witnesses that he tried to avoid the fight and the killings were in self-defense. It is an extremely weak plot hammer to get Poe onto a plane full of criminals. It's foolish as well. The writers could have had Poe framed for a crime then exonerated and put in the same situation much more believably.
It's in Alabama. People are put in prison here for much less.
First, Poe is a federal prisoner, not subject to State laws or legal procedures. Secondly, he is not in Alabama. During a conversation with Billy Bedlam we hear that he is incarcerated in the "Q" - prison slang for San Quentin in California. It makes you wonder why a Federal prisoner is in a State prison, but that's another type of mistake.
Would it really be considered self-defense, though? After he beat the guys to the ground he could have just stopped and walked away, but he didn't. He kept beating them until they died.
He is defending his wife against two armed assailants, and use of lethal force is allowable. No DA in the United States would even think about pressing charges, knowing full well a grand jury would throw them out in a second.
Question: Was the double cross with the chainsaw scene a set up by F.Murray Abraham? Or was it a genuine deal and did he just suspect it may be dangerous, and sent Tony because he annoyed him?
Answer: It's unlikely a set up. Tony is supplied with money and guns to defend himself. If this was a setup, the toad would've had more details. He would've known Tony had backup with guns and they would've waited to ambush them. Also makes no sense for Omar to put himself at risk without a legitimate opportunity to make cash. Frank knew about the deal as he supplied the buy money. Omar seemed loyal to Frank. Why would he send some low level thugs to be set up losing his boss' money in the process? All he would do is lose trust and be suspected.
Omar was an informant. He wasn't loyal to anyone. Omar's driver is the one that suggested to send Tony to the Colombians. And I think Omar knew the Colombians were shady, and that's why he sent Tony. It was, in a sense, a setup.
Chosen answer: While it is never really mentioned I think it is a safe bet that it was a double cross. F. Murray Abraham was seen later in the film to be an informant and killed because of it.
It wasn't a double cross, as it was the driver of the car that suggested/whispered it to Omar the first time Omar met Tony and Manny outside the restaurant they were working at.
Question: After the robbery and once the dust settled (business was back-to-normal at the bank, etc.) why did the bank president not immediately go to open the safety deposit box and see what happened to its contents? He knew it was the target of the robbery. Reason would dictate that one of the first things he would have done would be to open the box and see what was there... Not leave it to the NYPD to open it and discover a mostly empty box except for the big ring, chewing gum and note.
Answer: The aforementioned answer fails to keep in mind he is the owner of the bank and could've have done this hours before the bank was opened and or hours after the bank was opened. Dalton spent 3 days behind the wall. Mr Case had a special fixer, and she had the mayor in her pocket. It is a reasonable assumption that a billionaire like Aruthur Case would be able to have the contents of his safety deposit box removed with little to no problem. One way is "yes Mr. Mayor I will be giving you a blank check for your reelection campaign." The issue is this was a major plot hole that almost ruined a otherwise great and well thought out movie.
Answer: Arthur Case did not want anyone to know about the safe deposit box or what was in it. In fact, the box's number had been left off the bank records. The police did not immediately know if anything had been stolen during the robbery. Case going to the bank to check on the box, would only have drawn attention to it. The contents, the diamonds, were a link to Case's criminal Nazi past that he wanted kept hidden. It was only by chance that Detective Frazier discovered the box and the clues that had been left inside it by Dalton Russell.
Question: Why does Norton lie and say that he "has company" and then make De Niro wait longer during the robbery? Sure, Norton double crosses him later, but wouldn't making his partner wait put both of them in danger of getting caught since it delays them and increases their chances of getting caught?
Answer: Norton already has an advance plan to prevent himself from getting caught. The delay is both to fluster DeNiro, and to prevent him from having enough time at the moment of the double-cross to come up with an alternate to handing over the prize without getting caught himself.
Question: Maybe I missed it, but did the McAllisters even bother to call home? I don't remember them calling the house at all. Why wouldn't that be the first thing they do? Kevin seems to be pretty independent for his age. He might have not answered the door, but I'm sure he would have answered the phone.
Chosen answer: They did but the power and phone lines were down due to a tree branch that had fallen on them the night before the family left. A flight attendant on their plane mentions that attempts had been made to call the McAllisters' home but "the phones are still out of order".
But how did he call the police at the end if the phone lines were down.
That was several days later. Clearly the phone lines were repaired over the course of the film.
It's ridiculous though that the phones are apparently working by the time they land (Kate's SIL calls everyone on their street). Yet none of them try the house again.
Answer: That is also how Kevin was able to order his cheese pizza from Little Nero's.
Answer: The phone lines were fixed by the end of the movie. Remember, this takes place over the course of several days.
Answer: It's also possible they don't think he's at the house still since the cops did attempt to stop by and see if he was home, but received no answer after ringing the bell. Or they did try to call and left a message, but Kevin may not have thought to check the phone messages if he was out of the house and didn't expect anyone to call. He also didn't want anyone to return until the day prior to Christmas, by which point the mom was already en route and the dad and remaining kids had a plan to come home on Christmas morning.
Answer: The next day, after the cop shows up to check the house, while the Wet Bandits are in the house next door, the phone rings and the answering machine picks up, allowing Peter to leave a message. If the next-door neighbor's phone is working, wouldn't it only make sense for Peter to immediately call his own house? Even if Kevin hasn't returned home from shoplifting a toothbrush and doesn't answer the phone, Peter should still be able to leave a message on an answering machine and most likely keep calling over and over until Kevin answers the phone.
Answer: He was expecting a crowded room full of friends congratulating him. Also it was common knowledge among the mafia that being walked into an empty room when you were due to be made meant you were about to be executed, so Tommy likely knew he'd met his end just moments before the shot.
William Bergquist