Best movie plot holes of 1988

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A Fish Called Wanda picture

Plot hole: Shortly after the robbery, Kevin Kline and Jamie Lee Curtis get together in a little flat and Kline calls the police from a landline to tell them who committed the robbery. In England this would immediately lead the police to the flat from which the call was made, and the person reporting the robbery would be the first person the police would want to find and speak to. Otto has handed it to them on a plate. (00:12:29)

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Midnight Run picture

Plot hole: At the end of the film Mardukas reveals that he has been wearing a body belt packed with cash - "in the neighbourhood of three hundred thousand dollars" - ever since Jack detained him in New York. Are we to assume that Jack Walsh, an experienced, hard-bitten ex-police officer, now a bounty hunter who routinely chases down violent and armed bail absconders who would kill him without a second thought, didn't even perform a perfunctory search of Mardukas when he detained him? This man used to work for the Mafia! What if he was carrying a weapon? A body belt with three hundred one thousand dollar bills in it would be uncovered by even the most casual pat down.

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Suggested correction: He was using $1000 bills. That's 300 bills in the belt which spread evenly absolutely could have been missed near his waist as part of his clothing.

Rubbish. I specified $1,000 bills as that would be the smallest package he could have secreted about his person, and it would still be instantly detectable. If he used $100 bills the package would be ten times larger, and he would have to carry a rucksack under his shirt.

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Child's Play picture

Plot hole: Andy is suspected of having killed Eddie Caputo, because he was at the scene when Eddie's house blew up and Eddie was killed. But there are glaring things that go unquestioned: None of the cops seem to think it's strange that a six-year-old kid would travel by himself so far to some random house in order to blow it up. The South Side neighborhood where Eddie lives is halfway across the city from Andy's apartment. How did Andy know where Eddie lived? How do the cops think he even knew Eddie at all? None of them address this most puzzling problem.

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Suggested correction: The police believe Andy to be insane (hence why he is sent to a mental institution instead of juvenile hall), and thus do not believe his choice of victims to be in any way rational.

Also, as unlikely as it is that a six-year-old child could (or would) travel halfway across the city to murder a random person, the possibility that a child's doll came to life and carried out the act was considered far too outlandish at that point in the plot.

zendaddy621

Suggested correction: We don't see the entire investigation. We just see the cops holding Andy then taking him to a psychiatric clinic. Chances are they were asking those questions and we just didn't see it because it's not important to the plot. Regardless, the cops have every reason to believe Andy either knows about or was partly responsible for the murders considering he keeps showing up at murder scenes. There's only so many conclusions you can draw, even if they don't make sense.

TedStixon

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Halloween 4 picture

Plot hole: When the deputy arrives at the sheriff's house, Michael gets out and leaves the door open. The deputy comes out to the car and sees it open. And he thinks nothing of it, despite knowing he didn't open it. Logic would say, "Well someone else opened it."

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Space Mutiny picture

Plot hole: When Kalgan is torturing Lea, he says that he wants her father's countermeasures in case of emergency. But when she is rescued and finds out MacPhearson is a traitor who is working for Kalgan, Captain Devers is worried because MacPhearson knows all of the ship's countermeasures. If MacPhearson knows the countermeasures, then Kalgon does too, so there is no reason to bring it up while he is torturing Lea.

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Hellbound: Hellraiser II picture

Plot hole: When the policeman asks Kirsty at the beginning who came when she solved the box she says the Cenobites; she had no way of knowing what they were called. Frank only told Julia; Kirsty didn't hear it anywhere and the Cenobites themselves didn't tell her either.

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The Naked Gun picture

Plot hole: Frank is given 24 hours to clear Nordburg. This is never referenced again, even after 24 hours have passed. (00:28:25 - 00:31:05)

logan crews

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Rain Man picture

Plot hole: Raymond's rigidly set routines force him to watch the TV shows "People's Court" and "Jeopardy" at the same times every day. Traveling on the road, however, this would be almost completely impossible, since the two shows aired in syndication. Not all cities aired them at the same times.

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Die Hard picture

Plot hole: After they shoot the glass and McClane escapes, the terrorists all just leave. There are limited ways out of the room, there must be a blood trail over the glass, he's moving slowly...and they let him go.

Jon Sandys

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The Great Outdoors picture

Plot hole: At the amusement park when Buck is looking for Cammie, it is lightly raining but no-one seems to be getting wet.

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It Takes Two picture

Plot hole: When Alyssa is playing football at the camp when everyone thinks she's Amanda and she has the ball she turns and starts running and yelling before the other teams start to even follow her.

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Bulletproof picture

Plot hole: When Gary Busey infiltrates the Mexican terrorists' compounds, he first throws a stick to distract some guards and kills them. A few minutes later a terrorist officer reports to his boss that Gary Busey has killed three of his best men. Are we to believe that the three best terrorists were tricked by a stick thrown into some bushes, and then easily killed by an unarmed assailant (they had submachine guns)?

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Hobgoblins picture

Plot hole: After Dennis (the first guard assistant) gets killed, the vault is open for several minutes before the old guard arrives. The hobgoblins, however, do not run for their freedom, but patiently wait until the hero, Kevin, comes in a later scene and opens the door. Then they escape as quickly as they can.

Twotall

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Working Girl picture

Plot hole: We see Tess wearing Catherine's clothes when Catherine is gone, but Catherine is much slimmer than Tess. They wouldn't fit without being altered and she had no time to do so.

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Suggested correction: Katherine is also taller than Tess. The same size could fit a taller, slimmer woman and a shorter, less slim woman.

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Killer Klowns From Outer Space picture

Plot hole: When Debbie and Mike are in the pink cocoon room of the circus tent Mike yells, 'Joe Lombardo.' However, Joe Lombardo doesn't die until at least 4 scenes later in the movie, when a Killer Klown edges him off the road and over a cliff.

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A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 picture

Plot hole: Freddy is killed at the end because he sees his own reflection in a mirror, which causes the souls in his body to revolt and kill him. But this weakness to mirrors and reflections doesn't fit in any other film of the series. He repeatedly appears in mirrors in the other films, and in the climax of "Dream Warriors," he even appears in a hallway of mirrors that are facing each other, where he would have seen his own reflection multiple times. No matter how you slice it, his death in this movie doesn't add up in the overall context of the series.

TedStixon

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Critters 2 picture

Plot hole: When the old women are painting the eggs, you can see them blowing the yolk out of some. Why didn't they blow the yolk out of the Critter eggs?

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Waxwork picture

Plot hole: When James and Gemma arrive back at the waxwork just before the film's climax, they claim a "man with a high-pitched voice" (Hans) invited them. In the earlier scene when they decided to not enter the waxwork, they left before Hans answered the door, and he couldn't have found their phone numbers anyway.

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License to Drive picture

Plot hole: Les comes home and tells his parents he passed his test. A scene later, his mom is going through the laundry and takes the test out of his jeans pocket. How did it get there when Les is still wearing the same outfit he wore to the DMV?

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Frantic picture

Plot hole: While Harrison Ford is taking a shower shortly after arriving at the hotel, the 'bad guys' kidnap his wife from the hotel room. How did they know she was the one who had picked up the wrong suitcase (which contains what they are after) at the airport? They could only have assumed that. And the suitcase they were after was in the room so why didn't they just take it?

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Suggested correction: Ford himself explains how they know she picked up the wrong suitcase. Emmanuelle Seigneur grabs Ford's wife's suitcase by mistake, and puts it in the locker to be collected by the bad guys. The bad guys then go to the locker and get the suitcase - only to discover it's the wrong one. Ford specifically mentions her name and address tag is on her bag, so they see that, and immediately know who to look for.

swordfish

But, why did they have to kidnap her? They could just take the suitcase and leave her alone. They came all the way to her room but not looking for the suitcase?

Good point, but that still doesn't explain why they simply didn't take the case from the hotel room instead of kidnapping Mrs Walker and holding her ransom for it. Suggested answer - they wouldn't have been able to make a movie out of it.

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