The Untouchables poster
The Untouchables

Picking Nits

Crew photograph; witness security; calm baby; sailors and Mounties; Capone’s impunity; Ness’s moral shift; falling effects

In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 00:58:43Read transcript
  • The artificial-looking fatal fall is blamed partly on period effects, with Die Hard and The Departed comparisons.
  • Allowing a crew photograph conflicts with distrust of everyone; the promise not to publish it does not eliminate the risk of Capone obtaining it.
  • Celebrating and smoking during the witness transfer neglects an obvious security priority.
  • A baby should be crying while bouncing down stairs in an old carriage.
  • Sailors repeatedly entering lethal gunfire to save the carriage seem implausibly self-sacrificing.
  • Mounties advancing slowly with revolvers against automatic weapons should suffer casualties; their unscathed crossing is implausible.
  • Capone’s prolonged immunity prompts frustration, countered by public demand for alcohol and bribery.
  • Ness moves too quickly from a law-abiding family man to casual lethal violence after his family is threatened.