*spoilers below*.
I didn't like this film. I thought it was pretty dull. But someone brings up a good point on another post.
If the jackers were two independent guys stealing the oil. Then who had the gun at abel's house and who beat up the salesguy. Lazy plotholes? Or are we to assume it was one of the other oil dealers and just write it off?
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Well your right that this was super full and full of plot holes as well as a pretty unreal look into a man in that buisness. As to your question these men are supposedly just guys that stole the oil because they probably pulled off 3 grand off of what was 6 thousand worth of oil. They failed to say anything else on that topic so I assume what I saw. The only thing was that fat guy who was buying the oil had to know that the trucks that he was filling the tanks with was from standard but with all the plot holes they never truly let you know if it was in fact the fact the fat guy in the end that was paying Abel the 213 thousand back so that was very unclear.
As far as another huge plot that I found so UN realistic was how Abel was this guy who in a buisness is out to rip you off (especially in 1981 when gas prices were so high in NYC) that it was pushed way to hard on us that this guy was super honest and did nothing wrong in a buisness that was mobbed up as well as buying the company from Anna's gangster father was just way overused and totally hard to really beleive. Such a shame this movie bombed and the ones calling it a masterpiece are the people that see a movie they really like and jump right to masterpiece talks when many (or most) films in the top 50 on IMDB aren't even close to masterpieces.
THERES NO ROOM IN MY CIRCUS TENT FOR YOU !!!!
The guy who came to Abel's house with a gun may well be exactly what Abel said he was: a burglar who probably just wanted to steal their TV. He's listed as "Burglar" in the credits. (the actual film's credits, not IMDb's credits)
I, too, was trying to reconcile the attack on the salesman if the hijackers were just independent operators who were only interested in stealing oil. My best guess is that it was an unrelated action by one of Abel's competitors. At least two of his competitors complained that Abel was poaching their customers and the attack on the salesman was clearly meant to intimidate.
Of course, we only have the lowlife hijacker's word that they were independent. They could still have been working for the same competitor who had the salesman attacked. But I think the notion that they were independent fits the film's theme better. The filmmaker tried to present Abel, who was a tax cheat at the very least, as a virtuous man compared to all the scoundrels operating in the cesspool that was NYC in 1981. As such, multiple antagonists were needed.
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