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How would this have been if seen from the cons's point of view

posted 9 years ago by Tyler-A-Arse
3 replies | jump to latest

If this had been an episode of Hustle, or even Mission: Impossible, would anyone have had sympathy for Virgil? He didn't exactly have clean hands. He could easily been seen as someone who needed to be stopped.

I watched this not knowing what it was about, so I wasn't expecting any type of twist. At one point, I wondered if Claire was a automaton, then I thought it was just a simple love story. I suspected Billy of being up to something, and Claire gave it all away when she ran into the street to help Virgil.

I was so involved and sympathetic to Virgil that I was hoping I wouldn't see what I thought I was gonna see when he walked into his vault. Such a gut-wrentching scene, and it was done so perfectly with him standing in the room in dead silence. (excellent directing)

I enjoyed the movie alot. A think a second viewing would be even more interesting.

[–] Splasharina 9 years ago

Virgil was a damn snake. Not only did he scam widows and other trusting folk by vastly undervaluing their possessions, he was robbing the pieces of the automaton from Claire with the intention of making a fortune off it. Sure, he bought her a ring -- as a sop to his conscience. It's another case of the hunter hunted. Don't feel too sorry for him.

[–] kirbynintendo 9 years ago

At one point I wondered if she was going to turn out to be an automaton, as well. And in a way, she was. The symbolism is that she was not a "true human" acting on true emotions; she was just an emotionless actor, going through the motions of acting in love, in order to scam him. And that is just like what Robert talks about when they're discussing the old automatons & how they functioned. He says even if they were fake, and there was a dwarf inside doing the voice, it was somehow convincing because it was "always right." Whether the machinery faked people out or whether there was a person inside working it like a puppet, or a little of both, either way people were scammed by it.

With the part about Virgil getting beat up in the street, I wondered if that was even a set-up as well. I thought maybe Billy had him beat up right in front of her house so that he would (obviously) call her, and she would run out, in order to give him the idea that she was beginning to get over her agoraphobia and he actually had a chance of getting her to come live with him. They are trying to scam a scam artist, so in order to make it more believable & to keep Virgil from suspecting Claire got over her phobia too easily, maybe that whole scene was actually part of the set-up. Keep in mind there were even other people involved in the con than just Robert, Claire & Billy...the blonde girl comes & picks up the tracking device & puts it in Virgil's trunk. Even the guys who constantly moved furniture in & out of the villa were likely paid off to not question why every few months they moved the same furniture in & out of the same house. So the idea that the thugs who beat up Virgil, conveniently right in front of Claire's house so Claire could run out to him, were part of the scam is not so difficult to conceive.

[–] morganseer 9 years ago

That's what I figured, that that was also staged, because it worked so perfectly into their plan. It wasn't an easy overcoming for Claire; people are capable of enormous feats when their loved ones are in danger. The attack accomplished two things. It provided a turning point for Claire's recovery, so she could transition to Virgil's house, and it provided proof of her great love for him. Brilliant.