# Films where the twist is that there is no twist? (Open spoilers, obviously) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 29, 2010, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-where-the-twist-is-that-there-is-no-twist-open-spoilers-obviously/534264 "2010-03-29T22:34:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-where-the-twist-is-that-there-is-no-twist-open-spoilers-obviously/534264/1 "2010-03-29T22:34:18Z")
Films of certain genres having a twist ending is now pretty much a cliche. So are there any where ‘the twist’ is that there isn’t a twist ending? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-where-the-twist-is-that-there-is-no-twist-open-spoilers-obviously/534264/2 "2010-03-29T22:48:07Z")
A minor example that comes to mind is a _South Park_ episode (“Mystery of the Urinal Deuce”) about the Sept. 11 attacks. Kyle [after an extended adventure including run-ins with fake conspiracy theorists and George W. Bush] : So then who was responsible for 9/11? Stan: Whaddya mean? A bunch of pissed-off Muslims. Frank Hardly: Yeah, what are you, retarded? [everyone laughs] ---
**Author:** ![Roadfood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc348/32.png) [@Roadfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roadfood)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-where-the-twist-is-that-there-is-no-twist-open-spoilers-obviously/534264/3 "2010-03-29T23:08:07Z")
**Twelve Monkeys**. You knew exactly where the movie was headed from early on. You knew exactly that his childhood memories were of his adult self being unable to stop the cause of the plague, and that “Twelve Monkeys” was just a red herring. Knowing all that as I watched the movie, I also “knew” that there would have to be a twist to the ending so that it wouldn’t be exactly what I was expecting. But there was no twist. It ended exactly as it had been telegraphed. A thoroughly disappointing, completely unsatisfying, utter waste of a movie experience. It was like watching “The Sting” and at the end, Hooker really is dead, Gondorff gets hauled off to jail, and Lonnegan gets his money back. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-where-the-twist-is-that-there-is-no-twist-open-spoilers-obviously/534264/4 "2010-03-30T00:45:07Z")
_Miracle Mile_, in which the twist is that no, Harry didn’t misconstrue the phone call or take anything out of context, and neither did the person on the other end. For each of them, what they think is happening is indeed exactly what is happening. You keep expecting a typical sitcom resolution. The movie brings you in as a romantic comedy. Nuclear holocaust that actually takes place is not a staple of romantic comedies, so of course you’re waiting for the misunderstanding to be made apparent so everyone can feel foolish and get in trouble for their overreaction. Nope, sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Amazingrace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8edcca/32.png) [@Amazingrace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amazingrace)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-where-the-twist-is-that-there-is-no-twist-open-spoilers-obviously/534264/5 "2010-03-30T00:57:03Z")
I feel like this is kind of straddling the line, but in [Hot Fuzz](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425112/), Sgt. Nicholas Angel does some serious police work (and some serious ass kicking), only to discover that There’s no complicated series of relationships and motivations for killing the victims–the town just wants to keep winning awards for being such a great place to live and the council is bumping off those who get in the way ---
**Author:** ![fuzzypickles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9d8465/32.png) [@fuzzypickles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fuzzypickles)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-where-the-twist-is-that-there-is-no-twist-open-spoilers-obviously/534264/6 "2010-03-30T00:58:35Z")
After watching _The Hurt Locker_ last night, I was very surprised that Sgt. James does NOT die. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-where-the-twist-is-that-there-is-no-twist-open-spoilers-obviously/534264/7 "2010-03-30T01:04:18Z")
**January Man**. After parading out the list of usual red herrings, bad people, unmotivated close-ups, etc, the identity of the crazy serial killer was revealed, and it was No one from the cast. IIRC Kevin Kline’s line was “He’s a nobody.” ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-where-the-twist-is-that-there-is-no-twist-open-spoilers-obviously/534264/8 "2010-03-30T14:52:02Z")
I feel that **8MM** is a good example of this. The plot involves an old, wealthy woman whose old, wealthy husband had passed away. While going through the items in his private safe, she finds an 8mm film reel that contains an apparent snuff film in which a young woman is killed. She hires a detective (Nicolas Cage) to find out if the film is real. Since the movie’s barely 10 years old, I guess I’ll spoilerbox the rest, but really, no twists: As it turns out, the film was of course real, and the girl was in fact dead. There was no sinister plot, the rich bastard just paid a huge chunk of money ($1 million, I think) for a custom-made murder movie because he _could_. And the murderer in the film, the sinister masked man known as “The Machine”, was just a doughy but muscled guy from the suburbs who did rough porn because he liked it. Just people being criminals because they want to. ---
**Author:** ![Lethal\_Babydoll](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3be4f8/32.png) [@Lethal\_Babydoll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lethal_Babydoll)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-where-the-twist-is-that-there-is-no-twist-open-spoilers-obviously/534264/9 "2010-03-30T17:37:17Z")
The original **Prime Suspect**. Where the killer was indeed the prime supsect ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-where-the-twist-is-that-there-is-no-twist-open-spoilers-obviously/534264/10 "2010-03-30T19:17:09Z")
> [@Roadfood](#): > > **Twelve Monkeys**. You knew exactly where the movie was headed from early on. You knew exactly that his childhood memories were of his adult self being unable to stop the cause of the plague, and that “Twelve Monkeys” was just a red herring. Knowing all that as I watched the movie, I also “knew” that there would have to be a twist to the ending so that it wouldn’t be exactly what I was expecting. > > But there was no twist. It ended exactly as it had been telegraphed. > > A thoroughly disappointing, completely unsatisfying, utter waste of a movie experience. It was like watching “The Sting” and at the end, Hooker really is dead, Gondorff gets hauled off to jail, and Lonnegan gets his money back. I disagree. Just because you may have guessed correctly at a twist ending doesn’t mean one wasn’t intended. That film doesn’t fit the OP at all. I think **Twelve Monkey** was one of the best films of 1995 with a completely satisfying story & ending. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-where-the-twist-is-that-there-is-no-twist-open-spoilers-obviously/534264/11 "2010-03-30T19:28:00Z")
_Tombstone_ - The ending was only a surprise for the historically illiterate. _Saving Private Ryan_ - Though the narrators identity was a small plot twist. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-where-the-twist-is-that-there-is-no-twist-open-spoilers-obviously/534264/12 "2010-03-30T19:33:11Z")
Akira Kurosawa’s movie Heaven and Hell (AKA High and Low). The bad guy really was some unknown random bad guy. The rich guy really was a decent fellow. The police really were hard working and honest. It’s not clear whether a anti-twist twist was intended, or if film presentations of rich people and the police are so jaded that for a movie to display them all as decent and capable all the way to the end, and for there to be no twist about who the bad guy, simply appears like a twist to the modern viewer. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-where-the-twist-is-that-there-is-no-twist-open-spoilers-obviously/534264/13 "2010-03-30T19:45:37Z")
Meta-non-twist. What I mean is that in the movie Primal Fear, there isn’t really a twist. In fact, what happens is that the movie twists twice to end where you begin. You’re being asked to follo along with Richard Gere’s character, as he gets fooled into thinking that Edward Norton’s Aaron is innocent. Aaron _creates_ a twist. However, if you step back and look at things from a critical eye, you can see that there was never a real twist to it. Which is part of why it’s so cool/ ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-where-the-twist-is-that-there-is-no-twist-open-spoilers-obviously/534264/14 "2010-03-30T19:58:46Z")
In the new movie **Hot Tub Time Machine** there’s a part where they are back in 1986 and one of the main characters is in a band performing for the resort. He decides to do a rendition of Black Eyed Peas “Let’s Get it Started” to impress the kids from the 80s. I was expecting the twist to be just like Back To The Future where Marty breaks into a Van Halen like guitar solo at the end of Johnny B Good and all the kids just stare back cause they can’t grasp the music of the future. But there was no twist, they played it straight and the crowd loved it. ---
**Author:** ![Recliner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a88e57/32.png) [@Recliner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Recliner)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-where-the-twist-is-that-there-is-no-twist-open-spoilers-obviously/534264/15 "2010-03-30T21:16:18Z")
> [@Roadfood](#): > > **Twelve Monkeys**. You knew exactly where the movie was headed from early on. You knew exactly that his childhood memories were of his adult self being unable to stop the cause of the plague, and that “Twelve Monkeys” was just a red herring. Knowing all that as I watched the movie, I also “knew” that there would have to be a twist to the ending so that it wouldn’t be exactly what I was expecting. > > But there was no twist. It ended exactly as it had been telegraphed. > > A thoroughly disappointing, completely unsatisfying, utter waste of a movie experience. It was like watching “The Sting” and at the end, Hooker really is dead, Gondorff gets hauled off to jail, and Lonnegan gets his money back. Huh? The twist was that they got the wrong guy – and then, that they thought they had stopped the plague – wasn’t it? Or do two twists cancel out? ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-where-the-twist-is-that-there-is-no-twist-open-spoilers-obviously/534264/16 "2010-03-30T23:05:21Z")
> [@Roadfood](#): > > **Twelve Monkeys**. You knew exactly where the movie was headed from early on. You knew exactly that his childhood memories were of his adult self being unable to stop the cause of the plague, and that “Twelve Monkeys” was just a red herring. Knowing all that as I watched the movie, I also “knew” that there would have to be a twist to the ending so that it wouldn’t be exactly what I was expecting. > [@Recliner](#): > > Huh? The twist was that they got the wrong guy – and then, that they thought they had stopped the plague – wasn’t it? Or do two twists cancel out? I think you’re both misremembering the movie. The plan did not involve _stopping_ the plague, because the future scientists did not believe it was possible to accomplish this through time travel. Bruce Willis was sent back in time to gather information and a sample of the original virus so the future scientists could develop a treatment or cure. He isn’t wholly successful, but he does correctly identify the source of the virus. The woman seen on the plane at the end of the movie is one of the future scientists, and presumably does get the sample they wanted using the information obtained by Willis’s character. Mission accomplished. **Roadfood** , you may have guessed that the “twelve monkeys” business was a red herring, but I don’t believe that the viewer was intended to realize this early on. So that’s a twist you saw coming, not a non-twist. The main other of the movie was that Willis’s childhood memory was actually his adult self being killed.Again, you may have guessed this from early on, but it was still intended as a twist. ---
**Author:** ![Algorithm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/algorithm/32/12204_2.png) [@Algorithm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algorithm)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-where-the-twist-is-that-there-is-no-twist-open-spoilers-obviously/534264/17 "2010-03-30T23:31:10Z")
Given the director, and their films immediately preceding it, _Lady in the Water_surprised me when the movie ended exactly the way they’d described it in the first [del]paragraph[/del] act. It was also an incredibly shitty movie, so that was kind of a twist. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-where-the-twist-is-that-there-is-no-twist-open-spoilers-obviously/534264/18 "2010-03-31T15:40:02Z")
M. Night didn’t put a twist in any movies except Sixth Sense, plus a minor irrelevant one in The Village. Though his detractors certainly do go to great lengths to shoehorn a twist in there and then decry how stupid it is. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-where-the-twist-is-that-there-is-no-twist-open-spoilers-obviously/534264/19 "2010-03-31T15:42:03Z")
_Unbreakable_ can be argued to have a twist ending. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-where-the-twist-is-that-there-is-no-twist-open-spoilers-obviously/534264/20 "2010-03-31T15:51:06Z")
> [@Algorithm](#): > > Given the director, and their films immediately preceding it, > > _Lady in the Water_surprised me when the movie ended exactly the way they’d described it in the first [del]paragraph[/del] act. > > It was also an incredibly shitty movie, so that was kind of a twist. I’m sorry if I come off as an asshole here, but this kind of post really bugs me. You’ve got a spoiler box, but it’s impossible to tell what you’re spoiling for unless you click on the box. This totally defeats the purpose of having a spoiler box in the first place. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-where-the-twist-is-that-there-is-no-twist-open-spoilers-obviously/534264.md?page=2)