Picking Nits
Finger move; Mike’s comeback and travel; double elimination; letters; prize; odds; cab sleeping; punch; route
In the discussion (12)
Approx. transcript time · 00:25:59Read transcript
- The over-the-top finger repositioning seems to sacrifice leverage and should let an opponent win immediately, yet it works even against Hurley. — Kyle Brandt
- A motivational speech cannot plausibly reverse the strength mismatch into two straight victories. — Kyle Brandt
- A humiliated twelve-year-old who leaves crying seems unlikely to return voluntarily. — Kyle Brandt
- Double elimination is explained repeatedly, yet undefeated Hurley is eliminated after one final loss without explaining a rule change. — Bill Simmons
- Letters alone cannot explain lost contact when telephones were available. — Kyle Brandt
- Mike’s unaided drive from Bel Air to LAX, ticket purchase, flight escape and tournament arrival strain belief at age eleven or twelve. — Bill Simmons
- A $250,000 truck plus $100,000 cash seems an enormous 1987 arm-wrestling prize. — Bill Simmons
- No other competitor apparently knows Lincoln’s finger-repositioning move. — Bill Simmons
- Twenty-to-one odds seem too short for a newcomer in a 500-person field dominated by an unbeaten champion;70-to-one is suggested. — Kyle Brandt
- Lincoln should spend some of his $1,000 win on a motel instead of making his frightened child sleep upright in the cab. — Kyle Brandt
- Hurley should be penalized or disqualified for punching Lincoln; counting it as a loss could repair the double-elimination contradiction, but the film does not explain that. — Bill Simmons
- The route through Colorado, California, Arizona and Utah is confusing; a brief pickup explanation does not clarify the aimless travel. — Bill Simmons