Question: How could Anthony Hopkins be arrested for turning off his wife's life support? He was acquitted of shooting her, so he's legally considered innocent of that, and he was completely legally entitled to turn off her life support.
Question: How could Amanda have gone to school or even left her house? She was supposed to be dead.
Answer: A real life problem with abducted children, especially those abducted at such a young age, is that after a short period of time they begin to grow and look drastically different than when they were abducted. Amanda could have been home schooled for some time and passed off as the adopted child of her abductors to the general public after a relatively short amount of time. Unfortunately, the average person would likely not even recognize Amanda if they saw her out in public.
Question: Regarding Paul and Eli. Are they actually twin brothers or is Paul an figment of Eli's imagination and Eli schizophrenic? As far as I remember Paul is only mentioned three times. At the beginning when he meets Daniel, when Eli attacks his father (and says 'you are as stupid as Paul!' and at the end, when Daniel mentions him. Are there any other bits I've missed? Or is it left open to interpretation?
Answer: There is nothing in the film to suggest anything other than that they are brothers. Paul sells out his family, takes the money and goes away. It is only natural that they would not want to speak of him later on. Daniel on the other hand, keeps a certain track on Paul, especially since he also got into the oil business and became a minor competitor to Daniel.
Question: Alexander shoots the moose with a rather rapid fire action: it sounds as if the rifle is semi-automatic. What was the true story, and why did Alexander specifically ask for a a cal .22 rifle? Was it because he planned to hunt small game, and knew that a heavier rifle/calibre would be unsuitable? To plan for moose hunting, he would choose something like cal.308.
Answer: Having read Krakauers book: The rifle was a .22 Remington scoped semiautomatic. Accounts at the time mention that this may not have been the best choice, and it is clear that McCandless did not have enough experience to live in the wild, although it is impressing enough that he managed to survive for 16 weeks.
Question: When does the song "I Learned From You," play in the movie?
Answer: It is the first song over the credits, the second is "A Place for us".
Question: I have to admit that I don't know if this can be called a 'mistake', so I just post is as a question also to gauge the response from others who may have seen the movie. The 'trick' the movie's second act is based on, with Jude Law showing back at the novelist's house posing as an investigator... Would ANYONE be fooled by this? I don't pinpoint an obvious flaw in the make-up that maybe would be a Character or Continuity mistake, but seriously; is there ANYONE who wouldn't see through that silly disguise, especially considering that it's the only other visitor the guy had in days, that he is obsessed with him, Law comes to see Caine about his 'own' disappearance, which as opposed to the audience Caine knows is fake and left him open to at least a prank or revenge. I mean, they are up close for so long during this, both times, it is such a wild stretch of the suspension of disbelief. I was truly convinced Caine had seen through him right away and was playing with him, but shockingly, that was not the case. (00:02:30 - 00:39:40)
Answer: Sleuth was originally produced as a stage play written by Anthony Shaeffer. In that medium, the surprise reveal was more plausible. The 1972 movie, starring Michael Caine in the younger role, was relatively more successful in deceiving the audience, though, it too, was fairly obvious. The 2007 version, directed by Kenneth Branagh, seemed to assume that most of the audience already knew about the plot twist and, as it comes midway through the story, it appears the movie instead focused on the psychological aspects of the cat-and-mouse relationship between the two characters.
Question: When Laurence Fishburne shot someone in the head, it was with a scoped rifle. After the gun fight, how come there was no scope on the rifle?
Question: Are this film's Zodiac killer and the Scorpio Killer in "Dirty Harry" based on the same person?
Chosen answer: Scorpio is loosely based on the Zodiac killer, yes. However, "Zodiac" is made to portray the hunt for the real-life Zodiac killer (as accurately as possible), with only a few ficticious elements thrown in for the sake of story-telling, while "Dirty Harry" is pure fiction.
Question: When Chris is talking to Gary in the bar, he mentions that one of the side effects of his traumatic brain injury is that he randomly falls asleep. Would he actually be allowed to drive if that's the case? Seems like he would be required to disclose that to the DMV.
Chosen answer: That's a good question! If this condition was known to his doctor, the doctor would have been required to notify the DMV and Chris would more than likely lose his driving privilege. However, there are medications, for example, used to treat narcolepsy that Chris might be prescribed in order to regain driving privileges. He'd have to have maybe a six-month period free of falling asleep before his doctor would notify the DMV that it is safe for Chris to resume driving.
Question: I have been trying to obtain a copy of this movie with English subtitles that is available to watch in my region. I live in the UK and I own a Region B Blu-Ray player. This means it can only play Region B Blu-Rays and also Region 2 DVDs. Are there are any versions available in a Region B Blu-Ray or a Region 2 DVD with English subtitles, or places to watch it online with English subtitles?
Answer: Google your player model, you may be able to make it region-free by pressing certain keys in a certain order. The home media of this film has what it says "New and improved English subtitle translation", but it's almost certainly going to be either Region A (Blu-Ray) or Region 1 (DVD). It is part of the Criterion Collection, spine #576. All of this being said this title is showing on CinemaParadiso.co.uk, the DVD rental company, with English subtitles and in Region 2.
Question: If everyone involved in the scheme knew that Clayton's mother would get in the way and really didn't want to let Jack do the surgery why did they call her to the hospital? Yes she's on the call sheet but couldn't they erase her name of the sheet to make the surgery and scheme go smoother? I mean it's $100 million dollars at stake and they have had a year to plan everything out.
Chosen answer: They still had to follow hospital protocol, they couldn't risk getting into trouble over a technicality at such a critical stage of their plan. Since he had just married Jessica Alba, her rights as his wife now superseded those of his mother, and so as far as the scheming group knew, the mother was essentially powerless to make decisions for her son. They had no way of knowing she would go to the lengths that she did to save him.
Question: After watching the film, I was wondering, does anyone know if the novella (upon which this film is based) or any similar Stephen King works served as inspiration to Konami's "Silent Hill" video game franchise? I am asking, because there are certainly some similarities between these works, both stylistic and in terms of tone.
Answer: I'll have to answer my own question here. After doing some research, it appears that yes, "The Mist" was partially an inspiration for Konami when they created the "Silent Hill" series.
Chosen answer: Once Crawford (Anthony Hopkins) took his wife off life support, it resulted in her dying. Crawford was arrested for murder, not because of taking her off life support but because his shooting of her resulted in her death ultimately. Crawford was only tried (and acquitted) for attempted murder. Since this is a new charge, double jeopardy did not apply.