So at what point did you know? SPOILERS

When Frank started smoking and was walking to the ball with the white Tuxedo on. He had a new swagger to him and I had a feeling it was him.

-- I hate Robots. But Ninjas are awesome. --

At dinner when he kept asking what this Pierce guy was like. It came across as both he and Jolie's character just playing at being different people and he was fishing for compliments. No guy who's trying to score would ever ask that many questions about a man the woman he was with supposedly loved. When she later set him up with the kiss and didn't sleep with him, I realized that she didn't know who he was.


"My name is Paikea Apirana, and I come from a long line of chiefs stretching all the way back to the Whale Rider."

The letter gave it away for me. First, I thought it was odd that it was read with Angelina Jolie's voice, so I figured that the filmmakers did this in order not to spoil a possible twist. And the moment when Paul Bettany's character put the pieces together and found out that Frank "only was a decoy", I knew that he had to be Alexander Pearce.

I knew pretty early on. Everyone was saying they didn't know what Alexander looked like, which made me immediately think it was Depp. "Twist" endings are so common these days that I automatically become skeptical in any mystery film like this.

Having recently seen The Conversation I knew as soon as she read the letter.

I knew as soon as the Scotland Yard guy shouted "get that note".

I realised then that it was going to be a double bluff on the police, and that whoever she met on the train would be the actual fugitive.

I was born knowing it and my first words were "Depp is Alexander Pearce."



This post brought to you by The Yoyodyne Corporation

I finally saw it (for free on Encore, the only way I'd watch crap like this) and I came here to see if it was perhaps as obvious to others as it was to me.

I knew after she read the letter/when they met on the train. Logic it out:

1. There were rumors of plastic surgery/a complete identity change. Alexander is wondering/would want to know/has to find out:
- Does she still love me after 2 years apart?
and
- Can she love me [looking] like this?

2. The letter says to find someone that could be him and make the authorities believe it is him. This was done to make the police believe she just picked a random tourist as a decoy, which would get them some alone time, which is what he would want in order to make her fall in love with his new face.

After that, there are other things:

- He gets on the boat. We could assume that they discussed his itinerary during the trip, but it's a reach. "Frank" couldn't know where she intended to go or that she intended to room with him and make the authorities believe he was Pearce. She could be a psycho killer or a criminal who will drug him, cut out his kidney, and leave him for dead. He doesn't know, but he goes along for the ride anyway and he seems to have absolutely NO plans to actually explore Italy as a tourist. A lonely math teacher from Wisconsin pays for a trip to Italy and does... nothing? He has no hotel reservations or plans; he's content to just be in the same suite as a "beautiful woman" rather than exploring Italy? Really?

- He calls her attention to the flowers and the accompanying ball invitation.

- Fishing for information at dinner about Elise and Alexander's relationship (which goes back to the "does she still love me" thing.)

- He says something like, "I didn't expect [Shaw] to show up so soon" which clues you in that "Frank" knows more than he lets on about Shaw.

There were also a few things out of place for a simple math teacher:
- The boat knot
- Running across rooftops from gangsters. Granted I don't know for sure what I'd do in that situation but theoretically if you're not who they're looking for, you don't really have much to worry about. If you ARE who they're looking for, then you KNOW to run because you KNOW who they are and what they'll do to you regardless of whether or not they believe you.

Two things made me question my assumption:
How Frank behaves when no one's watching (it seemed like even Depp didn't know he was going to end up being Pearce.) You could explain this away by saying AP wanted to keep up the illusion just in case someone shows up, but there really was no need to do so because no one in Italy knew him. You could say "well maybe the room was bugged" but you'd just be piling stuff on to explain that oddness.
How everything was so contrived and awful that I ended up hoping "The Englishman" was actually Pearce.



I'm a firm believer in the philosophy of a ruling class, especially since I rule.