I’ll start:
An up-and-coming journalist is researching a story on organized crime in the city. He gets a death threat in the mail. He mulls it over all day. Ultimately he decides to heed the death threat, and he abandons his story on organized crime in exchange for a story on a local pet beauty pageant.
He goes on to live a long, healthy, and happy life, and no one ever tries to murder him.
Another:
A gritty beat cop is about to retire. On his morning jog, he stumbles over a briefcase in the street – looking down, he sees bloody $100 bills spilling out of it.
He resists the urge to pick it up and just goes home. The next day he has a nice retirement ceremony at work, and then he and his wife retire and move to Florida.
He took the blue pill.
A man walking down the street hears a pay-phone ringing and ignores it.
The sequel:
A man walking down the street hears a pay-phone ringing and picks up the receiver and immediately puts it back down, causing the caller to lose his 50 cents. Outrage does not ensue.
Forgive me jumping in here again, but here’s what you’re really looking for. Be sure to press the red ‘x’ for sound.
Terrorists take over the control tower at Dulles International Airport, and announce they will keep all inbound planes in a holding pattern until their demands are met, or else the planes will run out of fuel and start dropping from the sky. Undeterred, the airplanes merely change course and land at all the numerous alternate airports in the D.C. area, safe and sound. When John McClane hears about the incident and offers his help, he’s told, “No worries, situation’s under control, go pick up your wife in Baltimore.”
A private investigator is packing his briefcase when a beautiful woman rushes in and seizes him by the shoulders. “You have to help me!” she wails.
“Sorry, lady,” he says, pullling down the shades, turning off the light and flipping over the OPEN sign, “quitting time.” And he leaves.
This is the perfect vehicle for Patrick Warburton.
Deckard put the drink down. “I was quit when I came in here. I’m twice as quit now.”
And he left, over Bryant’s shouting, only to die unexpectedly four years later.
The phone rings at the police station:
Precinct 13, what’s your emergency?
I just heard a gunshot, the woman screams in his ear.
Calm down, ma’am, are you sure it was a gunshot?
Oh, I’m sorry, it was my neighbors car backfiring. CLICK
A former racketeer hears about an opportunity for a really big score. To pull it off, he’d have to get his former gang back together. His gang included a computer hacker, a safe cracker, and a woman so hot and so smooth-talking that she can con anybody into anything.
One by one, he tracks them down. The hacker is afraid to jeopardize his H1-B work visa. The safe cracker’s wife just had a baby and she’d kill him if he pulled shit like this. The con woman just bought a new house and started a new job and isn’t looking for a big change right now.
The guy gives up and goes back to his job selling insurance.
A woman hears a knock on the door. She opens it, only to find a large man in a leather jacket standing there.
“Is your name Sarah Connor?”, he asked, in a gruff voice with an Austrian accent.
“Y-yes…”, she answers, fearfully.
“You left your wallet at the supermarket”, handing it to her.
She thanked him profusely, but he declined a tip, and left.
An ordinary street cop is faced with disarming a time bomb. Remembering a 5th grade science project, he carefully tracks down one of the wires connected to the battery, and cuts it.
A young girl returns to the farm she ran away from just an hour ago as a tornado rips through the countryside. Entering the house, it collapses on her and kills her. And her little dog too.
Bill hurriedly gets into his car and tears off down Canyon Road. His speed increases despite not using the accelerator. He goes to brake, and discovers his brakes aren’t working; the pedal goes all the way to the floor. Bill turns the key to “off,” the engine stops, he slowly applies the emergency brake and eventually the car comes to a halt.
A cop is talking to a suspect about a recent crime. The suspect has a solid alibi and to keep the cop happy gives the cop a few leads to hunt down, good leads. Leads the (now former) suspect has reason to believe are probably the right people.
Then he calls the other people on his cell phone and tells them the cop is on his way over and they might want to lay low (ie not be home) or get a story ready. The movie sort of peters out after that. It’s kind of like regular police work. He fills out some paper work, tells the victim they don’t have any more leads but “here’s my card, call me if you here anything” and that’s that.
I watched A LOT of CHiPs when I was younger, but this scene always stuck out in my head. It’s pretty much exactly what you described.
A young man visiting a foreign country is enjoying a quiet meal alone in a booth in an empty restaurant. He eye catches a gorgeous woman outside, looking around in a desperate panic. She runs inside and ducks onto the floor under the table in the booth across from him. She looks at him with her amazing doe eyes pleading with him for help. Just then his attention is brought back outside the window as a group of grim looking men in suits scan the area instinctively moving to cover as much territory as possible, With hands readied near their holstered handguns, one walks up to the window, blocking the light with his remaining hand as he peers inside.
The man jumps up, points his finger and shouts “She’s down there, officer, under the table.”