The story has been told many times before but if the storyteller is good it can be freshened up.
I believe every movie should hire a "logic director" to watch for all the stuff that is confusing or doesn't make sense. But first I have to admit that there were some things happening that, at first, didn't seem to make sense. And though we find out later why they happened, the viewer is angry/upset/frustrated until the confusion is straightened out. At least, I was and I almost turned it off after about ½ hour. I definitely enjoyed picking this movie apart much more than I did watching it. Many spoilers ahead but I recommend that you have watched the movie before reading further because you won't be able to follow along.
Here's a list: 1. The prisoner Hatchet is brought in and handcuffed in the cell. Somehow, impossibly, he gets out of the handcuffs, kill one interrogator and injures another. With what we know at this point it's impossible. What we learn later is he's with the CIA so someone must have unshackled him. Two of the interrogators are inexplicably wearing masks!!! Conveniently, allowing Hatchet to pose as one of masked guys. Abby et al. Bust into the interrogation room and don't notice that Hatchet is not there!!!! Remember there were two guards left outside the room so there was no way he could escape.
2. The injured man is taken to sick bay and although Hatchet sprays the security camera with a semi-clear liquid it's not enough to hide the scuffle. Even if the security team monitoring the situation couldn't make out what was happening they would at least know that something is wrong because the camera view is fuzzy. Camera views are not normally fuzzy.
3. Minor quibble - Abby mispronounces Rashid as "Ra shid" instead of "Ra sheed" - you know, her boss for 10 months??
4. Abby doesn't spend much time at the interrogation room and goes directly to sick bay where Rashid dies in about 20 seconds. Then she calls the watch tower but somehow Hackett has had enough time to kill all three guards there, where they are located in a room with a large window so it would be hard for Hatchet to sneak up on them.
5. When Abby gets no answer she calls Mia at the command center but oops, it's too late, she'd dead, too. Along with equipment smashed including external coms.
6. Do you notice that Abby is always running and Hatchet is always walking slowly?
7. Abby initiates lockdown which conveniently, for Hatchet and the plot, doesn't lockdown the prisoners or the armory or anything else inside.
8. The guards at the "jail" are killed somehow in their secure guard house. There are only two men sent to secure all the prisoners and keep Hatchet from getting to Farhan.
9. Abby sees Hatchet on the security monitor walking down toward Farhan's cell. Does she call for guards to rush there to protect him" No, she just says secure the prisoners.
10. Hatchet gets to Farhan's cell but doesn't kill him but does so later, why?
11. With one easy blow, and I mean really easy, Hatchet breaks a pretty substantial looking lock on the circuit breaker box and bare handed rips out enough wiring to shut down all the lights in the place. You have to be pretty lucky to be not only extraordinarily strong enough to rip out wiring (if you are familiar with the electrical codes) and lucky not to be electrocuted.
12. Hatchet quickly/walking slowly makes it back to the cell blocks, kills a good guy and nonchalantly walks away with nobody noticing. His timing is perfect, as usual.
13. The Mossad, guy, Uri, is posted in the watchtower to find Hatchet on the security cameras but conveniently the place is designed with lots of blind spots.
14. Conveniently audio coms are patchy on level 4 (they've been meaning to fix that!) 15. Abby heads to the server room where they keep all the goodie secrets with no backup.
16. Checking the computer, she notices that there have been recent security breach attempts half a day ago that nobody noticed and it's never explained.
17. While on the computer, Uri discovers the translator, Tessa, has tried to access the site from a remote location. I don't know what that means but Uri is sure the Tessa is a bad guy and tried to call and warn Abby but the coms just won't cooperate. Uri checks the security logs and sees Mia letting Tessa into the command center. We don't see Mia being attacked but Uri somehow makes that assumption.
18. At that exact moment, Tessa, instead of shooting Abby in the back of the head, decides to chat instead, now giving Abby the time to pick up a keyboard (or something) and with Tessa holding the gun conveniently close enough knocks the gun out of her hand.
19. All this time no one had decided it might be a good idea to secure the armory where Hatchet has had time to rig a timed charge.
20. Hatchet sneakily sneaks up on Chaplain and grabs him using him as a shield and points his gun at Abby and Westley. Now, we all know Hatchet is a cold blooded killer but he's given a warning to drop his gun; his response is he kills Westley and shoots at Abby.
21. Have you noticed that nobody in this movie is wearing a bullet proof vest?
22. Meanwhile, on level two Hatchet w/Chaplain move into a blind area, frustrating Uri and me.
23. Abby is searching the living quarters and Uri gives an update "Hatchet is on the move". Isn't that informative?
24. Uri decides that he might be able to rig up a Sat phone, really? I mean, you don't have to rig a Sat phone, you just turn it on.
25. Miller and Tessa have a fractured, non-productive conversation where Miller acts like Tessa has given him the way to get out of the Black site. Later, Miller really screws things up. When Abby shows up, Miller kills Tessa right in front of her, which puts him in a very difficult situation if Abby lives to report him, if he was smart he would kill her, but he decides, no. They have a showdown, with Miller and his buddy pointing their guns at Abby and Abby pointing her gun at Miller. Abby knows that if she gives up her gun Miller will kill her but she does it any way and though Miller(idiot) doesn't kill her he locks her up which is a death sentence for her, considering the drone is on the way. Meanwhile, Uri should have been watching and listening to the 'mutiny" 26. Miller and his buddy take Farhan to the breakroom? And goes to the middle of the room exposing all three of them from multiple directions so that Hatchet can do his usual appearing-instantly-from-nowhere-behind-everybody's-back. Hatchet throws a knife at Miller's buddy which hits him in the non-lethal shoulder killing him instantly. The Hatchet and Miller fight ends with Miller's neck slit by the glass in the oven door. Now most people don't know this but the modern oven door glass is tempered which is 5 times stronger than regular glass and doesn't break into shards like regular glass, it just crinkles. Plus, the oven door glass is actually 4 separate pieces of glass. Hatchet is not going to knock Miller's head through it. What should have happened when Hatchet slammed the door down was for Millers head to bounce off and probably hit the floor.
27. Abbey goes out the antenna access where there is no antenna, where she is outside and free (why doesn't she just escape????) to connect the satellite phone to the dish? Antenna? But we all know satellite phones only need a satellite, right???
28. Meanwhile Uri shoots Chaplain after he's forced out of the elevator wearing clothes to make him look like Hatchett though Hatchet never wore those clothes. Uri makes sure he's dead with a second shot before verifying that he really is Hatchet even though we know that he knows that Chaplain might still be alive.
29. Abby contacts "Homestead" (I assume her powers that be) gives the security code to abort the drone but there is a Republican on the other end of the line who replies "Abortion, no can do". Abbey accepts it without a fuss not even asking to speak to the guy's manager; she can be such a doormat.
30. Abby confronts Hatchet and shoots him twice in the legs but doesn't kill him. He being CIA, pleads with her to go back together and they can straighten things out. Did he really believe that she would be such a good sport, knowing that he killed her husband and child? There was no way she could go back without implicating the powers that be in all there badness.
31. Now that I think about it, how did she know that the drone strike on the hospital was done by the CIA? A lot of things are not explained in this movie.
32. Drone's ordinance is limited to about 50 lbs. Would that be enough to blow through those heavy duty blast doors and go to the lower and upper levels of the Site? WW2 bombs which weighed up to 500lbs. That were dropped on ships didn't necessarily sink them. A Javelin, that can destroy a tank (but not annihilate it) has an explosive charge of 18.5 lbs.
33. The remote Black site was conveniently located by a nice road close enough that she could walk to. Heck, she didn't even need to carry food or water. I was expecting a camel train of nomads that would end up selling her into the white slave trade.
34. At the very end, both her and her ride were trusting souls weren't they?
35. I noticed that this movie had a female director, this could have been a great movie if Kathryn Bigelow had been at the helm.
I believe every movie should hire a "logic director" to watch for all the stuff that is confusing or doesn't make sense. But first I have to admit that there were some things happening that, at first, didn't seem to make sense. And though we find out later why they happened, the viewer is angry/upset/frustrated until the confusion is straightened out. At least, I was and I almost turned it off after about ½ hour. I definitely enjoyed picking this movie apart much more than I did watching it. Many spoilers ahead but I recommend that you have watched the movie before reading further because you won't be able to follow along.
Here's a list: 1. The prisoner Hatchet is brought in and handcuffed in the cell. Somehow, impossibly, he gets out of the handcuffs, kill one interrogator and injures another. With what we know at this point it's impossible. What we learn later is he's with the CIA so someone must have unshackled him. Two of the interrogators are inexplicably wearing masks!!! Conveniently, allowing Hatchet to pose as one of masked guys. Abby et al. Bust into the interrogation room and don't notice that Hatchet is not there!!!! Remember there were two guards left outside the room so there was no way he could escape.
2. The injured man is taken to sick bay and although Hatchet sprays the security camera with a semi-clear liquid it's not enough to hide the scuffle. Even if the security team monitoring the situation couldn't make out what was happening they would at least know that something is wrong because the camera view is fuzzy. Camera views are not normally fuzzy.
3. Minor quibble - Abby mispronounces Rashid as "Ra shid" instead of "Ra sheed" - you know, her boss for 10 months??
4. Abby doesn't spend much time at the interrogation room and goes directly to sick bay where Rashid dies in about 20 seconds. Then she calls the watch tower but somehow Hackett has had enough time to kill all three guards there, where they are located in a room with a large window so it would be hard for Hatchet to sneak up on them.
5. When Abby gets no answer she calls Mia at the command center but oops, it's too late, she'd dead, too. Along with equipment smashed including external coms.
6. Do you notice that Abby is always running and Hatchet is always walking slowly?
7. Abby initiates lockdown which conveniently, for Hatchet and the plot, doesn't lockdown the prisoners or the armory or anything else inside.
8. The guards at the "jail" are killed somehow in their secure guard house. There are only two men sent to secure all the prisoners and keep Hatchet from getting to Farhan.
9. Abby sees Hatchet on the security monitor walking down toward Farhan's cell. Does she call for guards to rush there to protect him" No, she just says secure the prisoners.
10. Hatchet gets to Farhan's cell but doesn't kill him but does so later, why?
11. With one easy blow, and I mean really easy, Hatchet breaks a pretty substantial looking lock on the circuit breaker box and bare handed rips out enough wiring to shut down all the lights in the place. You have to be pretty lucky to be not only extraordinarily strong enough to rip out wiring (if you are familiar with the electrical codes) and lucky not to be electrocuted.
12. Hatchet quickly/walking slowly makes it back to the cell blocks, kills a good guy and nonchalantly walks away with nobody noticing. His timing is perfect, as usual.
13. The Mossad, guy, Uri, is posted in the watchtower to find Hatchet on the security cameras but conveniently the place is designed with lots of blind spots.
14. Conveniently audio coms are patchy on level 4 (they've been meaning to fix that!) 15. Abby heads to the server room where they keep all the goodie secrets with no backup.
16. Checking the computer, she notices that there have been recent security breach attempts half a day ago that nobody noticed and it's never explained.
17. While on the computer, Uri discovers the translator, Tessa, has tried to access the site from a remote location. I don't know what that means but Uri is sure the Tessa is a bad guy and tried to call and warn Abby but the coms just won't cooperate. Uri checks the security logs and sees Mia letting Tessa into the command center. We don't see Mia being attacked but Uri somehow makes that assumption.
18. At that exact moment, Tessa, instead of shooting Abby in the back of the head, decides to chat instead, now giving Abby the time to pick up a keyboard (or something) and with Tessa holding the gun conveniently close enough knocks the gun out of her hand.
19. All this time no one had decided it might be a good idea to secure the armory where Hatchet has had time to rig a timed charge.
20. Hatchet sneakily sneaks up on Chaplain and grabs him using him as a shield and points his gun at Abby and Westley. Now, we all know Hatchet is a cold blooded killer but he's given a warning to drop his gun; his response is he kills Westley and shoots at Abby.
21. Have you noticed that nobody in this movie is wearing a bullet proof vest?
22. Meanwhile, on level two Hatchet w/Chaplain move into a blind area, frustrating Uri and me.
23. Abby is searching the living quarters and Uri gives an update "Hatchet is on the move". Isn't that informative?
24. Uri decides that he might be able to rig up a Sat phone, really? I mean, you don't have to rig a Sat phone, you just turn it on.
25. Miller and Tessa have a fractured, non-productive conversation where Miller acts like Tessa has given him the way to get out of the Black site. Later, Miller really screws things up. When Abby shows up, Miller kills Tessa right in front of her, which puts him in a very difficult situation if Abby lives to report him, if he was smart he would kill her, but he decides, no. They have a showdown, with Miller and his buddy pointing their guns at Abby and Abby pointing her gun at Miller. Abby knows that if she gives up her gun Miller will kill her but she does it any way and though Miller(idiot) doesn't kill her he locks her up which is a death sentence for her, considering the drone is on the way. Meanwhile, Uri should have been watching and listening to the 'mutiny" 26. Miller and his buddy take Farhan to the breakroom? And goes to the middle of the room exposing all three of them from multiple directions so that Hatchet can do his usual appearing-instantly-from-nowhere-behind-everybody's-back. Hatchet throws a knife at Miller's buddy which hits him in the non-lethal shoulder killing him instantly. The Hatchet and Miller fight ends with Miller's neck slit by the glass in the oven door. Now most people don't know this but the modern oven door glass is tempered which is 5 times stronger than regular glass and doesn't break into shards like regular glass, it just crinkles. Plus, the oven door glass is actually 4 separate pieces of glass. Hatchet is not going to knock Miller's head through it. What should have happened when Hatchet slammed the door down was for Millers head to bounce off and probably hit the floor.
27. Abbey goes out the antenna access where there is no antenna, where she is outside and free (why doesn't she just escape????) to connect the satellite phone to the dish? Antenna? But we all know satellite phones only need a satellite, right???
28. Meanwhile Uri shoots Chaplain after he's forced out of the elevator wearing clothes to make him look like Hatchett though Hatchet never wore those clothes. Uri makes sure he's dead with a second shot before verifying that he really is Hatchet even though we know that he knows that Chaplain might still be alive.
29. Abby contacts "Homestead" (I assume her powers that be) gives the security code to abort the drone but there is a Republican on the other end of the line who replies "Abortion, no can do". Abbey accepts it without a fuss not even asking to speak to the guy's manager; she can be such a doormat.
30. Abby confronts Hatchet and shoots him twice in the legs but doesn't kill him. He being CIA, pleads with her to go back together and they can straighten things out. Did he really believe that she would be such a good sport, knowing that he killed her husband and child? There was no way she could go back without implicating the powers that be in all there badness.
31. Now that I think about it, how did she know that the drone strike on the hospital was done by the CIA? A lot of things are not explained in this movie.
32. Drone's ordinance is limited to about 50 lbs. Would that be enough to blow through those heavy duty blast doors and go to the lower and upper levels of the Site? WW2 bombs which weighed up to 500lbs. That were dropped on ships didn't necessarily sink them. A Javelin, that can destroy a tank (but not annihilate it) has an explosive charge of 18.5 lbs.
33. The remote Black site was conveniently located by a nice road close enough that she could walk to. Heck, she didn't even need to carry food or water. I was expecting a camel train of nomads that would end up selling her into the white slave trade.
34. At the very end, both her and her ride were trusting souls weren't they?
35. I noticed that this movie had a female director, this could have been a great movie if Kathryn Bigelow had been at the helm.