7 Craziest Film Fan Theories (That Actually Make Total Sense)
Mind-blowing or crack-brained? You decide...
Some people reckon that film geeks spend too much of their time spitballing ridiculous theories about their favourite movies, as if there were more important and fun things to do with their lives. More important… okay, maybe. But more fun? These people have clearly never had a pub conversation after 11pm before.
Those of us that have, understand the rising exhilaration of blethering on about a film, only for someone else to get it: to nod excitedly and then to begin contributing their own ideas. Just like conspiracy theorists, we freeze-frame DVDs, blow up still images, connect the dots between unconnected films, pull together themes and metaphors, all to present to the world some of the wackiest theories known to man. Some say you can’t officially call yourself a film geek unless you’ve got a pet theory that you know is absolutely bloody stupid, but that you’re privately convinced is also complete genius.
You’ve all heard the one about the briefcase in Pulp Fiction, how it contains Marcellus Wallace’ soul, or the loot from the heist in Reservoir Dogs. You’ve probably gone over all of the reasons why Sean Connery’s character John Mason in The Rock is definitely, absolutely James Bond under a careful pseudonym. But have you heard the following theories before?
Oh, and of course here be spoilers…
7. Cyrus 'The Virus' Had A Brother In The Law (Literally)
Hijacking the prisoner transport plane, his plan hinges on assisting a drug lord in his own escape, using the man’s connections to get them to a non-extradition country – when the drug lord double crosses him and one of the other prisoners sabotages his plans, he’s forced to make a hard landing at night in Las Vegas and meets a particularly sticky end.
Las Vegas was the working environment of one Gil Grissom, working the night shift of the crime scene investigation squad covering the area. He would have been called to the scene when Cyrus ‘The Virus’ was found beaten, electrocuted and decapitated after a car chase and a plane crash… and it would have been in his lab that the horribly mutilated corpse would have been discovered to be his own younger brother, Cyrus Grissom.
In Con Air, Cyrus mentions that his father didn’t teach him a thing – he wouldn’t have done, as Gil and Cyrus’ father died when they were nine and seven, respectively. The loss hit them both hard: while Gil withdrew into himself, dissecting roadkill in an effort to find out how life and death worked, Cyrus began a life of violent crime from an early age.
Both super-intelligent, Cyrus would use his jail time to obtain two degrees, one of which would have allowed him to practice law were he not a career criminal. Gil took his PhD in biology, and became a crime scene investigator in 1985. By the time of his gruesome death, Cyrus ‘The Virus’ Grissom was wholly irredeemable, having killed eleven fellow inmates, incited three riots and masterminded two previous escapes.
It’s doubtful that Gil Grissom would have had much time to mourn the black sheep of the family: the only prison escapee to still be at large was Garland Greene, aka The Marietta Mangler, a mass murderer known to have killed at least thirty people. His C.S.I. team would have worked overtime recapturing that one.
If you think the theory is far fetched, just a matter of a couple of coincidences, here's another one: Jerry Bruckheimer produced both Con Air in 1996/1997 and the C.S.I. television series in 1999/2000, and would have been involved in the creation of the main characters for both.