Dear Johnny Fanboy,

While watching Time Bomb on DVD the other day, I noticed a mistake.

Towards the end of the movie the assassins are planning to take out a governor. They plant a bomb to kill all the lights and then, under cover of darkness and using special infrared glasses, they plan to kill the governor without being spotted by any witnesses. So far, an excellent plan.

However, why does one of the assassins insist on wearing black leather gloves at the function? Under cover of darkness he can surely kill the governor and sneak out. He won't even leave the gun behind, so there's no risk of his leaving incriminating fingerprints. He can sneak out because no one will know the governor is dead, and the guards will be more concerned about getting everyone out into the light before there is an accident.

So, why wear gloves and risk drawing attention to himself? If I was at a posh dinner do and one of the guests at my table was wearing black gloves and kept looking at his watch every two minutes (which he does), when the police got around to interviewing me about the events of that night I would recall how odd that fellow was. If he wasn't wearing gloves I would have thought no more about it and would not have told the police about him.

F Uhlenbroek

Johnny Fanboy replies:

Maybe the assassin has overactive sweat glands and is worried that the gun might slip out of his hands at a critical moment.

Also, as the guy works for an agency that operates above the law, any witness testimonies that mention him could be destroyed. Or he could carry out the interviews himself and claim that he was indeed carrying a gun because he is an undercover cop. No one will have seen him fire the gun in the dark, so his secret would be safe.

Either way, it would be much better to leave no prints on the gun in case something went wrong and the weapon was dropped leaving the hotel, or the assassin was caught in the act.

Alternatively, maybe the guy just likes wearing black gloves because he thinks they look cool!

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