Any game of chess will show no more than two moves after which “checkmate” will be announced. Any game of checkers will show one of the players performing at least a quadruple jump.
Any fully clothed person standing near a swimming pool will fall or get pushed into said pool.
Any person following a trail of footprints on the ground will focus their gaze only on the footprints and not toward where they lead.
Any poker showdown will be between at least two incredibly strong hands (e.g. full house losing to four-of-a-kind).
Any person coming upon another person staring off into the distance with an expression of fear or shock will direct their gaze not to the object being stared at, but to the face of the person doing the staring.
Whenever a tabletop (not a cell) phone or a doorbell rings, the person in their home will first look at the phone or the door for a moment or two before moving to answer it. Similarly, when an announcement is projected from a loudspeaker in a public area, the crowd will, as one, look up at the speaker.
A detective looking for a clue, perhaps even not knowing exactly what he/she is looking for, will enter a room full of books, drawers, papers, etc., look at one or two, and in less than a minute will have found it.
Daryl Zero : Now, a few words on looking for things. When you go looking for something specific, your chances of finding it are very bad. Because of all the things in the world, you’re only looking for one of them. When you go looking for anything at all, your chances of finding it are very good. Because of all the things in the world, you’re sure to find some of them.
No one is allowed to use interstates when traveling across the US. Divided highways are off limits. People in cinema are limited to single lane two-way roads.
To be fair, in Rain Man they explained why this was, and it was one consistent with the plot. That doesn’t explain the zillion other times people took the slow way.
Or the impossible way, like Romy and Michelle taking two lane desert roads from LA to Tuscon, instead of The/I 10. There ISN’T a direct route that is desert road. You have to go 200 miles out of the way (on a 500 mile trip). or go through Mexico.
I love Gumball Rally. Racing from NYC to LA, they go through Sedona on a two lane winding road. Yeah, that wont eat into your time. At least Cannonball Run tried to stay on the interstates.
Television detectives can relate and absorbs copious amounts of information in very short periods of time over the phone.
“Detective Johnson, here,” 1 sec pause, “uh-huh” 1.5 sec pause, “okay, thanks, Chief.”
“What’s up, partner?”
“They found another body downtown, 5 foot 9, 120 lbs, blond, student ID from NYU, her father is a diamond dealer up in Syracuse and she spent last summer as an au pair in Denmark with a family called Schnardenfreuden, they have two boys who are active in swimming and archery, the youngest has won trophies. Chief wants us down there now.”
Oh and my favorite a thousand bullets will only kill or wound 2 good guys.
One, poorly aimed under stress, bullet will mortally wound the bad guys in the last minutes of the movie.
Corollary: Sometimes detectives don’t even need any background to launch an investigation. There was an episode of Highway Patrol in which Broderick Crawford responded to a missing child report. He met with the distraught mother for less than 30 seconds and then went out to his squad car and radioed in a complete description of the little girl.