In “O Brother Where Art Thou”, George Clooney battles the insufferable suitor, Vernon T. Waldrip, who is tall but gawky. Vernon, however, possesses some pugilistic knowledge; George is knocked on his butt and banished from Woolworth.
A more common movie scenario is that the hero wins a fair fight.
So, what other movies have comparable scenes? We’re looking for fair fights here, not Clooney getting smacked around by John Goodman.
Rocky loses in the first movie.
*Rocky *. The title character goes the distance with the World Champion, scoring a moral victory, but lost the fight on a split decision.
**Dio **beat me to it.
Well, Indy was really getting smacked around by the bald boxing Nazi in the original Raiders of the Lost Ark, and clearly woulda lost, but for a fortuitous airplane propellor.
You could argue that the fight as described in the woodcutter’s version in Rashomon qualifies. The arguable hero – or at least Good Guy – gets seriously beaten. Neither combatant looks good in that version, which feels the closest to reality, and a long distance away from the heroic and capable fighting described in the other testimony.
Indiana Jones got pretty badly beaten up by that big shirtless Nazi before the flying wing’s propeller ended the fight.
ETA: D’oh! Beaten by Cal.
The first fight between defending champion Darth Vader (in black) vs. Luke Skywalker (in white). TKO in round 3.
The challenger did better in the rematch.
See also: Darth Vader vs. Obi-Wan Kenobi. He was on a streak.
I’d nominate Cool Hand Luke when Luke gets his ass kicked by Dragline in the yard. It could be argued Luke’s an antihero by comparison to say, Luke Skywalker, but he’s the protagonist of the story.
I’m kind of impressed by Burn Notice in that while Michael delivers regular beatdowns to untrained people, when he fights somebody of equal training he sometimes does lose and often even if he wins gets hurt. (I’m impressed by very little else on Burn Notice, though. I don’t know why we watch it - I think maybe the snow had some kind of brain rays in it.)
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. “Walk away. Don’t think, just do it.”
Tommy from Rescue Me gets his butt handed to him frequently. I haven’t seen it in a year or so, but I remember several years ago when his ex wife’s boyfriend gave him what for, I tell yah.
I don’t know Everett - was it the one branch, or all of 'em?
I guess it isn’t fair unless you believe Deckard was a replicant, but he gets his ass whipped by everybody who has a mind to in Blade Runner.
You know you watch it for Bruce Campbell! But truly, Michael does get his ass handed to him sometimes and seems to take it in stride. (I have the last two seasons DVRd; best watch time before technology changes.)
Jim Rockford (I know, he was a TV hero, not a movie hero) got beaten up regularly by bad guys who were bigger or tougher than he was.
As for movies… well, Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger) pretty much gets his butt kicked by the alien hunter in Predator, and ultimately defeats him by luring him into a booby trap.
Oh, a great example comes at the end of*** Giant.***
Rock Hudson’s character is a Texas rancher whose son married a Mexican girl, and who now has a brown-skinned grandson.
Rock, his wife (Elizabeth Taylor) and their daughter-in-law try to have lunch at a Texas diner. The owner is a racist who refuses to serve Mexicans. The chivalrous Rock challenges the owner, and they get into a lengthy brawl. When it’s all over, Rock gets his butt kicked, and the racist diner owner wins.
Back at the ranch, we see Rock icing his wounds, while Liz tells him how proud she is for what he did. and their grandbabies smile.
THE END
Bruce Campbell is given very little to do except draw in nontraditional fans of this kind of show, and anyway any cool factor he brought would be negated by the shambling leather sack of coathangers and lip collagen that follows the two of them around in every episode. You’d think somebody would beat it to death with a broom at some point just out of a startle reflex, but so far no such luck.
ETA - for some reason we were mainlining this show during our snow days - I think we’re in season 3! But we lost momentum and it’s hard to remember why we were liking it.
Aragorn gets pretty badly beaten up by Lurtz, the lead Uruk-hai orc, at the end of Fellowship of the Ring, but wins in the end.
The young Arthur’s foe has Excalibur in hand and could easily have beheaded Arthur (as his buddies urge him to do) in Excalibur, but is so convinced of Arthur’s innate royalty that he dubs Arthur a knight instead and then pledges his loyalty. Later, Arthur gets his ass kicked all over the place by Lancelot before “cheating” by summoning his sword’s magical powers to defeat Lancelot.
What?!? You don’t like Fiona? I don’t care for Gabrielle Anwar (she looks like she spent way too much time in the sun and can’t carry an accent to save her life), but I like the idea of Fiona.
People LIKE Fiona? You mean the terrorist? The one they had to have a whole episode about how she isn’t one of those BAD IRA terrorists, because even the writers realized it was kind of uncomfortable? The one who might be an interesting character if she actually ever did or said anything interesting, as opposed to the show telling us that she’s fascinating? (And pretending like she’s hot instead of out and out terrifying? I might like her a lot more if people reacted to her like they would in real life, which is more like “Kill it with fire!”) I hope in later seasons some actual conflict and character study comes out of her gun-running hobby or something, but I SERIOUSLY doubt that’s going to happen.
ETA - in short, I don’t hate her JUST because her spine looks like a large alien parasitic worm. That’s just the cherry on top of the mummy’s curse.