good film, but a few implausibilities...

Thanks for your thoughts and comments. A couple responses:

1) Historically, draft numbers came up in chunks, not one at a time. In fact, it is quite likely that three people of the same age in the same geography would be drafted on the same day, along with literally hundreds if not thousands of others.

2) Do you have any friends that, no matter how much time has passed, you pick up the phone and it feels like you saw them yesterday? I do, as does everyone I know. And typically, these are friends from childhood/developmental years when life was simpler. I have one such friend from grade school, and two from high school. That's what these guys are to one another. It's not to say that these guys have hung out every day since high school, far from it. But when forced into extraordinary circumstances, they seek out those with whom they can most closely relate - the friends who knew them best, the friends who knew them before they became whoever they are today. "I knew you when..."

By the way, I've not made a habit of responding to every question and comment on the film, but yours were presented in an intelligent, rational, civil manner, and so I wanted to respond.

#1 Was already summed up nicely.

As for #2, also keep in mind that they all live in the same city seemingly within just minutes of each other. I have friends that I've known since grade school and up that live within minutes or hours of me and we're all still great friends. I don't see them every day or even every week but we're still real tight, and can pickup where we left off as if not more than a day has passed. Time can't dissolve bonds between close friends no matter how much of it passes. I think this is portrayed really well in this movie.

#1 I took it that the notices were received "virtually simultaneously." In terms of heart surgery that is within one second; in receiving and opening mail, that could be within a few days. The main point I think that that they all had to start thinking and reacting at roughly the same time, and the script benefits from the slightly implausible -- as you say -- premise that therefore they received their notices on the same day. The other explanation given above is correct. I'm just trying to put forth that it doesn't matter, so long as the three draftees track.

#2 At least two of them went to "Stuyvesant" together. According to Google, this school, along with the Bronx High School of Science, is a priveleged school that a) requires high standards for admission, based on competitive examinations and b) draws from all five burroghs of the city.

Thus the three men did not have to grow up in similar demographics or neighborhoods. Chris Klein could have been a Park Avenue brownshoe while Elijah Wood might have come from (the old) Washington Heights, and Jon Bernthal (the cabbie) could have come from Queens, the Bronx or Brooklyn -- and yet they could have been chemistry lab buddies at "Stuy" for four years.

The examples given of origin in the above paragraph are speculative, only for purposes of illustration, and are not meant to stereotype those parts of the (Greater) New York City.


Film ... exists to consecrate the human face ... -- A. O. Scott