I don't get this movie!
I've watched it about 3 times and I do not get this movie at all! It doesn't make any sense! Someone please explain
shareI'm no movie expert so I'll try and explain it as best as I can.
Hopkins character, Crawford, knows that his wife is cheating on him with the police officer Nunally. So he devises a plan so essentially to get away with murder (or as Gosling's, (Willy) boss says, got away with attempted murder) because when Crawford does shoot his wife, he doesn't kill her, she remains in a coma.
Crawford then allows the police to enter his home (can't remember on what premise, maybe he has a hostage) knowing that Nunally would be present. I can't remember if he does ask for Nunally personally but in any case, he is the one that enters the house, and realising that his lover has been shot and hearing Crawford's confession of shooting her, attacks Crawford.
Nunally then asks to be present when they take him to the station and is present when he signs the written confession.
Meanwhile, Willy (Gosling) has got a job with a prestigious corporate lawyer firm, getting out of the prosecution business where he has a near perfect conviction rate (he says that he chooses the cases that he believes he can win) and upon hearing of this case, takes it up thinking it will be a quick prosecution.
At the start of the trial, most of the evidence is circumstantial because they do not have the weapon that was involved in the shooting. Despite this, the trial continues because the prosecution believe they can get Crawford on the confession alone. However, Crawford reveals that Nunally was sexually invovled with the victim (something he doesn't deny, told noone about) and so the judge presiding over the case decides that its inadmissible because Nunally was present at the confessions and so could be presumed that Crawford said this under duress. (Further along the timeline, they obtain video footage of someone around Nunally and Crawford's wife at the hotel as shown at the start of the film but cannot make a full ID). At this point the prosecution crumbles almost completely and the DA (Willy's boss) pulls him off the case so that he can move to his new job without any problems. However, Willy's new boss (Nikki, who he has started a relationship with) fights to keep Willy's new job.
However, Willy cannot let this go so persuades the DA to put him back on the case knowing that should he lose, he would have no job at all.
I think I can afford to skip a bit here.
The weapon that was used in the shooting still hasn't been found so Nunally becomes desperate and meeting with Willy tells him that he can plant the gun so that ballistics can match in order to produce the evidence knowing Crawford's guilt. Willy eventually becomes desperate as well and asks his assistant Mona if she can call him while he's in the courtroom if he miss calls her to come into the hearing and tell Willy that the gun has been found. When Willy asks Mona to do this, she replies "So the gun has been found!?" to which he replies "I haven't decided yet" which indicates that Willy will decide whether to use the planted gun.
In the courtroom however, Willy doesn't decide to go with it and Crawford is released on a mistrial. As a result, Nunally kills himself.
At this point, Crawford decides to pull the plug on his comatose wife and despite Willy obtaining a court order to prevent it, he pulls the plug on her regardless (Crawford had taken a restraining order out on him).
Now, Crawford is planning to go away feeling that he has "won", however, while Willy is with Flores (Nuanally's partner) and they get their phones mixed up (they have the same phones, cellphones if you use that word) and Willy realises something and shows Flores.
Willy then goes to meet Crawford at his home and tells him how he shot his wife and got away with it.
At the start of the film, you see Crawford walking past Crawford and his wife at a hotel where they are in the pool. Knowing that Nually wasn't on call until the evening (he'd called where he worked asking for him personally), he goes into his hotel room and swaps the guns (knowing that they have the same gun). So Crawford actually shoots his wife with Nunally's gun and when Nuanlly realises his lover has been shot, Crawford swaps the guns again so Nunally takes the evidence away with him "he sat through the entire trial wearing the only piece of evidence on his hip".
However, Crawford still believes he has gotten away with because of the double jeopardy law (I assume this is the one where you cannot be tried of a crime that you have already been tried for) but Willy reminds him that the initial trial was for attempted murder as his wife was still alive. Now, however, she is dead so the charge is now for murder- and Flores is outside the house ready to take Crawford in.
I hope this helps, I'm sure someone will explain it much better than me or let me know I've made a mistake or missed something out like why Crawford shot the windows expending 4 bullets in total (not something that I understand in truth) but, makes sense to me!
The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled off was convincing the world he doesn't exist.
Like the OP, I have seen this three times over the past couple of years, with the latest viewing only last night...
I still don't have a clue as to what it's all about.
My thanks to MuffinMcLovin for the nice explanation of this convoluted tale, but I find that just as hard to follow as the film itself.
The DVD seems to have not just one, but TWO alternate endings (apart from the sudden closure in the film), and after I played the first one of these, still trying to make some sense of it all, I was more confused than ever...
Guess I will just have to put this one onto the small pile of movies that I just "don't get".
It will be sharing this dubious pile with Woody Allen's "Annie Hall", and Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby".......
"The Opener of the Way is Waiting"
Anubis,
It's like this - Crawford found out that his wife was cheating with Nunally. So he came up with a plan where he thought he would get away with murder. He decided to kill her with Nunally's gun, because Crawford himself had the exact same gun.
He snuck into the room where Nunanlly was staying and swapped the guns. He went home with Nunally's 'police issued' gun. Nunally, unknowingly, now has Crawford's gun.
Crawford goes home and shoots his wife with Nunally's police issued gun. He allows ONLY Nunnally to enter the home and see his dead lover. Overcome with grief and not paying attention to Crawford, he does not notice that Crawford then swaps the guns again, taking HIS ORIGINAL gun back, and gives Nunally back his POLICE ISSUED gun. The police issued gun is the murder weapon.
Nunnally leaves the house with the murder weapon, and now Crawford has HIS ORIGINAL gun, which has NEVER BEEN FIRED. Why would anyone would ever think to investigate Nunnallys gun and match ballistics, right? So it seems Crawford's plan would work.
So Crawford goes to trial for ATTEMPTED MURDER since his wife did not die from the gunshot. But the lawyers do not have the murder weapon. They have Crawford's gun, but it has never been fired. With no murder weapon, it's hard to get a conviction. So, Crawford gets away with "attempted murder". Nunally distraught over this, commits suicide with THE SAME GUN THAT CRAWFORD USED TO SHOOT HIS WIFE.
Crawford, fearing that his wife will recover and be able to tell the true story, decides to take his wife off of life support.
Willy, looking over the evidence of Nunnallys shooting all of a sudden realizes that the gun Nunally shot himself with is the same as Crawford's gun. He puts 2 and 2 together and then realizes that Crawford switched guns in the beginning, thereby allowing Nunally to leave the house with the murder weapon. Had Nunally not shot himself, possibly no one would have ever known this.
So Willy confronts Crawford in his home, and enlightens Crawford with the fact that yes, Crawford cannot be tried again for "attempted murder", but now since the wife is dead, due to the gunshot wound, he can now be charged with murder with the new evidence he now has. He said he would have ballistics match the bullet that was in his wife, which they could not recover while she was still alive. Now she's dead, they have the bullet to match and the gun to match and the motive to tie it all together.
Hope this helps.
Hi Junior,
Thank you for the clarification. You have explained it well, and finally, I see some sense in it all.
I really like anything with Anthony Hopkins in it, but I just found this one too confusing.
Armed with your precis, I will have another look at it.
Once again, thank you. ^_^
"The Opener of the Way is Waiting"
No problem. I'm glad it helped. I was confused too when I first saw it when I was younger. I didn't understand how he could be tried again because I didn't grasp the "attempted murder" versus "murder" thing was I was younger.
But neither did Crawford, which was his "fracture". His weakness was that he didn't fully comprehend the law and how taking his wife off of life support, thereby killing her, would change the facts, and allow a new charge of murder to be brought against him.
He implied his lack of knowledge in law in the scene in the court room where he tells the judge that Nunally was sleeping with his wife. He said something about not knowing the legal term for something - I can't remember right now lol.