I watched Avatar yesterday (extended cut but didn’t really notice that much different about it apart from the start) which I haven’t seen since I watched it at the cinema, very pretty film even in plain 2-D and entertaining although the storyline is a little thin.
Anyway despite that it had at least one moment of suspension-of-disbelief breaking when during the escape scene the female pilot pistol-whips the guard into unconciousness. Now I realise that’s a standard movie-making trope but it always jars me a little because in what we laughingly call ‘real-life’ hitting someone like that with a pistol would actually result in someone rightly angry and very pissed off shouting dogs-abuse, fighting back, and achieving the very opposite of that which was intended or someone who is indeed unconcious but with a fractured skull and internal bleeding.
So is there any film where such a scene plays out in the unexpected way, where the character is not conviently and easily knocked out?
True, but part of the trope is that its a means of using non-lethal force, 99% of the time if the person is shown later they’re simply rubbing the back of their neck and complaining of a mild headache.
Ah. Well, in that case I can understand a disconnect - my understanding was that you had a suspension-of-disbelief fail moment when the attack occurred. Sorry for reading it so literally.
It does seem to be a common trope; TV Tropes has a page for it (Film listing includes the Avatar example), though it doesn’t seem to go into the unbelievability of the whipped character regaining consciousness with little or no after-effects.
Almost Heroes: Chris Farley punches Matthew Perry in the jaw to knock him out so Farley can take on the incredibly dangerous mission. When that doesn’t work, Farley picks up a large rock to try again, when Perry shouts “OK, OK, you can go!”
That’s just a paraphrase, i haven’t seen the movie in awhile, and i can’t find that scene on YouTube. Funny movie.
I remember some 80s action movie, where they are sneaking into some drug lord’s compound in Columbia. One guy walks in on them, and they’re holding him at gunpoint wondering what to do. One of the team hits the prisoner on the skull with his pistol, and the prisoner starts screaming and thrashing in pain, and their stealth mission is now compromised.