Picking Nits
Jack handing over his gun; why Luther left the money in Reggie's car for years; Rosalie vanishes; no manhunt for Gans; the $957 suit; the lost twelve hours; Jack's dates with Annette O'Toole's character; Reggie leaving the hotel for Roman's; the easy return to Billy Bear's apartment; the Roman's girl; the night's timeline
In the discussion (10)
Approx. transcript time · 00:51:42Read transcript
- Jack Cates giving up his gun when Jonathan Banks's cop has been shot but is not dead is not 1982 police procedure, and since these men have already shot cops one more hostage should not be enough; it should be a Mexican standoff.
- Why was Reggie's car in the parking garage so long, and if Luther had the keys why did he wait for Gans to break out of prison instead of taking the money any time, and why does he have the keys at all; Rosalie screams when Luther is shot on the bus and is never seen again, presumably killed, perhaps cut because the movie had been hard enough on women.
- Why there is no bigger manhunt for Gans after he kills two cops, unless it is the early-eighties feel of a city under budget siege; only Cates seems to be on it, and when he phones for messages after parting from Reggie at the subway the station of thirty people is business as usual.
- Whether Reggie's suit would really cost $957, a lot of money then, perhaps a two-thousand-dollar suit adjusted for inflation or even ten thousand; it should have said $457.
- The morning timeline: they wake, Luther crosses the street and gets the car, the chase leads to the subway and a near shootout, Gans and Billy Bear escape, Jack is nearly arrested by cops who do not know he is a cop, and Reggie runs after the money at about 9:30; the next scene is at night, so Reggie is gone ten to twelve hours before he phones from Roman's.
- Is anyone worried that Jack has now lost the cop killers twice and lost the man he sprung for forty-eight hours; Reggie follows Luther to the hotel, eight hours pass, and he turns up at Roman's with a gun he somehow acquired, presumably from a friend.
- The biggest nitpick is Jack making dates with Annette O'Toole's character during a cop-killer investigation, with her complaining that he makes her work too hard at it, which makes her a terrible girlfriend; Reggie leaving the hotel assuming Luther is in for twelve hours instead of hanging outside is an investigative faux pas, and Billy going back to his ex-girlfriend should have been staked out instead of abandoned after thirty seconds.
- A tally of Jack and Reggie's interactions: a fistfight, Reggie coming clean, sleeping in the car without talking, the morning chase, the split, ten hours apart, Roman's, the bus chase and shooting at the bus; then Frank McRae's captain yells and Jack tells him Reggie has more guts than any partner after about ten minutes together and a stream of racial insults, which is movie magic.
- Circling back to Billy Bear's apartment the second time is too easy, and if the girls there were harboring Billy why do they call the cops on Jack and Reggie; most importantly, Olivia Brown's character dances with Reggie once and is immediately ready to go across the street with him, paying since he has no money, until he spots Luther; the evening's clock is debated between 7:30, 8 and 10 with Roman's pumping.
- After the bus crashes and the sheriff yells, there are drinks, Billy Bear, a big fight and Gans shot around two in the morning at a homicide scene, yet Eddie finds the Roman's girl, whose name he may not know, the same night; someone named Zach is asked when San Francisco bars closed in the eighties, and a reconstructed clock from a 7 o'clock Roman's to an 11 o'clock shootout leaves the girl waiting nine hours; a lot of holes.