Plot hole: The movie is based on one huge plot hole: if it wasn't for the "professional" hitman's sloppy work, Bullitt and his team wouldn't have been needed for much. The hitman enters the hotel room, wounds the policeman, then shoots the target with one shotgun blast to his upper left shoulder area. Any hitman worth his fee knows that this is not likely to be an immediately fatal wound. The hitman had a pump shotgun and should have finished the job right then and there. Surely he had more than two shells. Instead, he sees the target is slumped unconscious, then leaves the hotel room without checking to see that his victim really is dead. Nothing seems to be immediately threatening the hit team, though. The hitman spends the rest of his life trying to finish his job and pays the ultimate price for being lazy.
Bullitt (1968)
Plot summary
Directed by: Peter Yates
Starring: Robert Duvall, Steve McQueen, Jacqueline Bisset, Robert Vaughn, Don Gordon
Lt. Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen) is called on by D.A. to protect a star witness in a case that he hopes will take him into politics. The subject is a Johnny Ross, a mob accountant who mad off with a load of money and sought protection from the law. Bullitt puts Ross up in a hotel until the hearing, and puts several police on rotating guard. In the middle of the night, two assassins make their way into the room, kill Ross, and wound several officers. Worried that his career is ruined, the D.A. hopes to make an example out of Bullitt, even while Bullitt realizes there's more to this case then what appears to be.
Matt P.
Chalmers: Ross.
Bennet: Albert Edward Renick, used car salesman, Chicago.
Chalmers: Who's Renick?
Bullitt: He was the man who was shot in the Hotel Daniels. You sent us to guard the wrong man, Mr. Chalmers.
Trivia: In the restaurant scene near the beginning of the film, the actor playing the waiter accidentally flips the corner of the menu in Steve McQueen's eye, but it was left in the finished film.
Question: What happens at the end of this film? Was the man who was shot the real man, and who was that guy who McQueen shot at the end?
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Answer: The man shot at the hotel at the beginning is Renick. Ross assumed Renick's identity and was going to flee the country. Ross kills Mrs. Renick to keep her quiet. The man at the airport that Bullitt kills is Ross.
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