*****PLOT SPOILERS THROUGHOUT THIS REVIEW******** ******DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILM!********
In real life, successful plans (especially military ones) allow for things going wrong, things not happening in the right order, unexpected events and unreliable information. The 'Fog of War' is a major factor in any situation, even with today's technologies. Clever plans have a great amount of tolerance built-in, so they can be changed to fit current circumstances as parts of them succeed or fail, especially when you have little direct control over the situation.
Not so for Robbins' character's terrorists.
No one would ever devise a plot anything like Arlington Road except a thriller writer desperate to keep the viewer amused.
This is why the film should never have been made, because it wraps a brainless mediocre piece of entertainment in the bodies of the 149 adults and 19 children who died in the Oklahoma massacre. It is exploiting a recent real-life atrocity purely for the sake of making money and selling videos. Death = $$$$.
It's obscene, and worst of all some people will think this is how terrorists operate in real life. Real terrorists leave arabic flight manuals in hire cars and tell instructors they're not interested in how to land an aircraft, but still manage to kill 3000 people in one day. That's what's really frightening.
In real life, successful plans (especially military ones) allow for things going wrong, things not happening in the right order, unexpected events and unreliable information. The 'Fog of War' is a major factor in any situation, even with today's technologies. Clever plans have a great amount of tolerance built-in, so they can be changed to fit current circumstances as parts of them succeed or fail, especially when you have little direct control over the situation.
Not so for Robbins' character's terrorists.
- Bridges' character beats up Robbins' badly enough so he feels comfortable leaving him alone but not so badly that he's unconscious. This is all part of the plan, we find out. How could Robbins' character rely on not being either restrained, knocked out, taken to the police or even killed by Bridges' character?
- Bridges' character spends just long enough fighting Robbins' for a bomb to be securely planted in his car, but is in a hurry enough to leave a live and unrestrained Robbins. How could Robbins' character possibly plan for this?
- Bridges' character, a civilian academic in a disturbed state of mind, has enough stunt driving skills to speed through acres of pedestrians in the middle of rush hour, so that he'll just see the noon delivery van disappearing into the FBI building. If he misses the van or arrives before it, or if the van itself isn't on time, the bomb won't get into the building.
- In real life he would have wrecked the car (and maybe damaged or set off the bomb) or been stopped by the police before he was a quarter of the way to the FBI building.
- What if Bridges had parked his car outside and gone in the building by foot?
- Bridges character HAS ALREADY PHONED the FBI building to warn them about the bomb BEFORE he sets out. Why didn't Robbins' terrorists break his mobile phone when they planted the bomb in his car?
- Why didn't the FBI building close its gates after the warning? Surely they would have at least stopped the white delivery van Bridges' character specifically tells his Agent friend to investigate.
- Why the heck is Robbins' character trying to convince the world it's the work of a crazy individual anyway? How does that draw attention to or advance his cause?
- Worst of all, why does Robbins' character embark on an elaborate six month charade of dinner parties, psychological warfare, deliberately injured children, campsite kidnappings, faked car crashes, hidden blueprints, hostage taking, phone tapping, name changes, car exchanges, etc etc? All he has to do is deliver a briefcase sized bomb fifty yards past a small checkpoint. Couldn't he have driven it himself? Couldn't he have abandoned a parked car just outside the building with a larger bomb in it instead?
No one would ever devise a plot anything like Arlington Road except a thriller writer desperate to keep the viewer amused.
This is why the film should never have been made, because it wraps a brainless mediocre piece of entertainment in the bodies of the 149 adults and 19 children who died in the Oklahoma massacre. It is exploiting a recent real-life atrocity purely for the sake of making money and selling videos. Death = $$$$.
It's obscene, and worst of all some people will think this is how terrorists operate in real life. Real terrorists leave arabic flight manuals in hire cars and tell instructors they're not interested in how to land an aircraft, but still manage to kill 3000 people in one day. That's what's really frightening.