Few things are more annoying than a premise that defies common sense.
In Murder at 1600, for instance, someone gets killed at the White House. Only one Washington, DC police detective cares about solving the case and he can’t access to the Secret Service security tapes that would solve the mystery in five minutes.
Meanwhile a murderer lurks the capital…perhaps the president is a target…
Ugh.
Okay, what film plot insulted your intelligence the most?
The first film that leaps to mind is Double Jeopardy with Tommy Lee Jones and Ashley Judd. She was wrongfully imprisoned for the murder of her husband, who she finds to actually be alive. So then she sets out to kill him because she can’t be tried for the same crime twice?
Wrong.
She stood trial for the murder of her husband on Date X. The result of that trial has no bearing on the case of murdering her husband on date Y. Different day, different crime - she can be tried again.
By the logic of this film, I can rob a bank tomorrow, stand trial and then rob that bank everyday from then on. Why? Cuz they already tried me for robbing this bank once already! :rolleyes:
I refused to see this film.
Well, though I see your point, there’s a slight problem with the comparison you offer:
[devil’s advocate]You can rob someone twice, but you can’t usually kill them twice.[/devil’s advocate]
Anyway, it was just a remake of some older flick, IIRC.
My favorite was Double Jeopardy with Ashley Judd and Tommy Lee Jones, featuring the most absurdist reading of the idea of double jeopardy. Allegedly in the universe of this movie, if you are convicted of a crime you did not committ, and you serve your time like a good little citizen, you are free to committ the crime you were jailed for without fear of punishment.
For example, if a jury of your peers say you murdered your husband even though he’s very much alive and living the life of Riley (and your lawyer was asleep when the concept of “appeals” is brought forth)…
And yet, believe it or not, that is not the stupidest thing in the movie. It’s just the most high profile idiocy.
Hey there Froggie! Didn’t see 'ya up there.
Pretty much any part of ‘Mission to Mars’
I can’t think of anything else that does compare to killing someone twice. I mean really, how many one-shot crimes are there? Whether or not you can murder someone twice isn’t the point. The point is she would stand trial again because although she stood trial for one murder, if she then did actually commit the murder it’s a separate crime. Just as robbing the same bank Mon-Fri is 5 different crimes.
Perhaps a better example.
I’m convicted of stealing the ‘Mona Lisa’ and spend time in jail. They then recover the painting. I go into the museum and steal it and sell it. The police recover it, return it to the museum and I steal it again. I can apparently keep doing this for as long as they insist on returning the pianting to the same museum because I’ve already been convisted of that crime.
*The Thief Who Came to Dinner * has always pissed me off to no end. Ryan O’Neal commits a string of robberies wearing no mask in full view of many witnesses. Warren Oates as the investigator keeps playing a little cat and mouse mind game with him through the entire picture.
It’s called a friggin’ police lineup!!! Would that be so damn difficult?
Gaspode. Your scenario isn’t bad, but there is a difference: Ashley Judd’s character never killed her husband in the first place. She was framed, and he was still alive and well. The thought process is something closer to “Well, I never actually killed the guy, yet I served time for it. So, now that I’ve done the time, maybe I should do the crime.”
NOTE: This is arguing for its own sake. I fully agree that the premise of the movie was extremely stupid, and that the so-called double-jeopardy laws wouldn’t apply to a situation like this.
It’s a toss-up between Armageddon and The Perfect Storm. The first had me nearly leave the theater in anger, but the second actually made me throw objects in anger (particularly the bit at the end when Mark Wahlberg makes his “impassioned speech” to his imaginary wife). DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!
Victory
The entire premise is about staging a soccer game in a German POW camp during WWII as a backdrop for a massive escape plan. Then, when everything comes together so that the escape can be pulled off successfully,
THE ALLIED PRISONERS STICK AROUND SO THEY CAN FINISH THE SOCCER GAME!!!
puh-leeeze!
Hey, they knew they were going to escape anyway (which they did . . . though how the fans knew to bring extra streetclothes to dress them in, I don’t know). They had Sylvester Stallone.
“Vic-toire!”
For me, it was Poltergeist.
Let’s see–they build their house on an occupied graveyard. Ignoring all the strange occurrences in the house, this stretched credibility so far that for me, the rest of the film was a joke.
Why? Because at least in my jurisdiction, local laws prevent a building permit being issued for the construction of any habitable structure located on an occupied graveyard (though presumably one would be issued for a mausoleum). Permits can be issued for buildings that will be constructed on land that used to be a graveyard, but only when it can be ascertained that fifty years have passed since the last body was exhumed.
IANAL, but I was working in a property tax office when the film came out and since we received copies of building permits, we had to be aware of the permit laws. And while I can’t speak for any jurisdictions but my own, I would imagine they would have similar laws. At the very least, I would think that they would insist that all bodies be removed before construction begins.
Needless to say, when the storm occurred in the film, bodies started popping up in the pool, and the rest of the theatre audience was terrified, I was rolling on the floor laughing.
Slight hijack here.
I lived in an apartment building across the road from a park that used to be a graveyard. A “proper” Victorian white-folks graveyard built on top of a much older Chinese and possibly Spanish-Colonial era Chumash graveyard. The stones had been removed in the early '70’s and most of the Victorian bodies relocated, leaving a lovely park with a few discreet plaques for the remaining bodies. Unfortunately, over the years the ground had shifted sufficiently, so when my apartment building was put up in the early '70’s, a part of the older cemetary had shifted some yards to the left (or they were sloppy about the 19th century surveying, or someing). Workmen found a lot of disarticulated bones during construction, and the manager of my building, who used to do gardening on the side of one little hilly spot, still turned up the odd human remain while I was there in the '90’s. Yuuuuck!
This helped me accept the “Poltergeist” premise a little more easily.
-Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon-There’s no suspense in people fighting in the tops of trees if said people can fly!!!
-Any movie with time travel. If you fail to accomplish your mission, why not just go back in time again and try again? Here too, no suspense.
-Blair Witch - Why didn’t they just follow the creek?
Of course, most horror flicks have much worse howlers than this…
-Actually, I’d like to know what recent movies don’t have any howlers. (Hmm… better start a new thread…) Doesn’t it seem like most recent movies are more interested in special effects than in any sort of coherent plot? It totally ruins a movie for me when there’s a big plot flaw… maybe I’m just getting old and cranky, but didn’t there used to be movies that made sense?
Independence Day.
The president flies a fighter jet to attack the aliens.
They hack into an alien computer with a laptop in about 30 seconds! Hell, it’s hard enought to connect a MAC with a PC.
The whole thing was idiotic.
Oh, and what about A.I.? Haven’t those aliens ever heard of cloning? Wouldn’t a couple of real cloned humans be better information than a mere robot?
Any movie where Uma Thurman’s character is referred to as good looking. E.g., “The Truth About Cats and Dogs” and “Beautiful Girls”.
Any film based on a John Grisham book. Not it is necessarily the director’s fault - the books are so full of plot holes and irrational conduct that in many cases the films are better. The film ending of The Firm, for example, made a lot more sense than the book’s ending did.
The Client still irritates me, about seven years after I read it. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Man, I should start a Pit thread about Grisham.
Sua