MovieChat Forums > The Cooler (2004) Discussion > cop scene at the end was a bridge too fa...

cop scene at the end was a bridge too far


That was too much to swallow, and Bernie left his fingerprints all over that beer can--and being that it's a cop's death it's going to be minutely investigated. Plus, as others have pointed out, the timing of their just passing the LV sign doesn't mesh with all that was shown to have happened back there since they left, which was more jarring than this director must have thought. I really don't think he thought too much at all about the last 5 minutes.

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I don't think the final scene stretches credibility all that much. First of all, the cop is only out there to pull over Bernie's car (an older model, therefore very recognizable) and whack him and retrieve the money. And how do we even know he is a cop? We never saw his car, only the flashing lights for the stop; he could have just been a hit-man hired by Shelly. But let's assume he was a cop... He obviously didn't call in the stop after he pulled them over because that would tie him to murder, so there's no tracing Bernie back to the crime. As for Bernie's prints on the beer can, there's no reason to open an investigation into the accident because there's nothing about it that looks suspicious--if there was something to question then yeah, maybe they'd run prints on everything but in this case it would be open and shut as just a drunk-driving accident (because I think it's pretty certain there would be a post-mortem blood test on the alcohol content of the driver).

What I DID have a slight problem with was the whacking of Shelly, which seemed too convenient a device just to get his character out of the picture (literally) so the "new" Vegas could supplant the old. Having the current owner of a casino murdered in the parking lot doesn't seem like a very unsuspicious way of putting a regime place in effect for a business that is trying to convince the public and the authorities that the mob has no ties to the change of control of the Shangra-La casino. It would raise all kinds of red flags.

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