# What are some movies where the characters are absurdly incompetent or just flat-out idiots? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 17, 2017, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-movies-where-the-characters-are-absurdly-incompetent-or-just-flat-out-idiots/784624 "2017-04-17T13:53:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-movies-where-the-characters-are-absurdly-incompetent-or-just-flat-out-idiots/784624/61 "2017-04-18T17:08:53Z")
> [@Eddie The Horrible](#): > > Making this one of the stupidest scenes in film history. I realise Tarantino was going for cartoon reality, there, but still…embarrassingly dumb. Tarantino was deliberately imitating 70’s martial arts flicks. In such movies, the henchmen ALWAYS attack one at a time. You can’t really have it any other way and still be paying homage to the movies he was paying homage to. You couldn’t written the same story in a more realistic way but it’d be an essentially different movie. The movie has a number of other weird problems, but I’m OK with the Crazy 88 scene. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-movies-where-the-characters-are-absurdly-incompetent-or-just-flat-out-idiots/784624/62 "2017-04-18T17:11:44Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > Dumb movie yes, but wasn’t he being pheromone’d into monster lovin’? Not that I recall. The Wiki plot synopsis doesn’t mention it and the IMDB synopsis just says “seduced” (which is how I remember it; a lot of doe-eyes and stuff). [This site](http://www.themoviespoiler.com/Spoilers/splice.html) mentions that Boy Scientist was reaching out longingly towards the screen when watching Dren via camera on a monitor. And that he blames his initial attraction to it on the fact that Girl Scientist used her own DNA to make the creature. Try that someday if caught sleeping with your wife’s sister: “She shares your DNA! What else was I supposed to do?!” ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-movies-where-the-characters-are-absurdly-incompetent-or-just-flat-out-idiots/784624/63 "2017-04-18T17:21:57Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > The cops in _Die Hard_ (excepting Powell) weren’t very smart, but they weren’t egregiously stupid, either. They tried to assault the building, they turned off the power, they attacked the roof with a helicopter; they were much too gung-ho and by-the-book, but none of those are automatically bad moves. They didn’t know that turning off the power was exactly what the criminals wanted. For the most part it didn’t matter what they did. They were locked out of the building; even when they acted stupidly it didn’t really amount to much. > > _Die Hard 2_ was the bigger offender in this area. Oh, and 100% agreed. The premise of Die Hard is that Hans Gruber is, as he calls himself, an exceptional thief, and has things rather well planned out; there isn’t any practical way the cops could have defeated him. It really is an outstanding plan. They do things by the book, and that might not be original but it’s not stupid. Dwayne T. Robinson is irritatingly dumb but he just does the standard things. Where the movie has someone acting stupidly is… well, Hans Gruber. He egregiously fails to deal with the problem of John McClane; his henchmen are dispatched to attack McClane but he keeps pulling his punches. Knowing he has an extremely dangerous man screwing things up, Gruber’s men should never be with him standing around, as in fact they are several times, at any point; they should be pursuing McClane non-stop until he is dead. Even after Karl is killed, he’s got more than enough manpower to cover the hostages, cover the ground floor, and still send men to kill McClane. Again and again they almost get him, and then let him go. For that matter, once Gruber knows McClane is not a security guard - which McClane tells him - it would be logical for him to simply tell McClane what he implies, but never does, after he shoots Ellis; that he’s going to execute people until McClane surrenders. Hell, walk out into the group and say “Looks like someone at the p[arty got away. I’m going to shoot people until someone tells me who it is.” Point your gun, and you better believe it’ll be maybe eleven seconds before someone says “Holly Gennaro’s husband was here! Now he’s gone! It’s him!” But he does none of these things. Of course, if he did act logically, McClane would be screwed, and there wouldn’t be a movie. Now, Die Hard 2 is so goddamn stupid I can’t even. [QUOTE=Ranchoth] Aliens would be a good example of the former, on a few levels—a very green CO makes a poor tactical decision, in a novel situation he admittedly wasn’t really prepared for, then starts to freeze up under pressure. [/QUOTE] In the Canadian Armed Force “Combat Leadership Course,” the first battle against the aliens was required viewing to show examples of how NOT to lead: - Lieutenant is leading from behind - Sends troops into a situation difficult to escape from without much intelligence - Gives unclear orders - Doesn’t think through logistical issues (the danger of using live rounds in the reactor area) until it’s too late - When he gives an order about THAT, fails to explain why, thus causing confusion and loss of morale ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-movies-where-the-characters-are-absurdly-incompetent-or-just-flat-out-idiots/784624/64 "2017-04-18T17:33:00Z")
Zulu Dawn. Not only stupid, but Hubris- and pretty realistic. In other words, yes the British commanders of that era really were dim bulbs. The Charge of the Light Brigade and of course Gallipoli. ---
**Author:** ![dude\_robert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8e7dd6/32.png) [@dude\_robert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dude_robert)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-movies-where-the-characters-are-absurdly-incompetent-or-just-flat-out-idiots/784624/65 "2017-04-18T18:14:51Z")
Well, I thought the guards in [Ultraviolet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OT1gcO2urM) were reasonably incompetent, as in they wouldn’t do what real armed offensive ‘guards’ would do, although they were being used as more offensive units than simple defensive guards, so maybe they were mercenaries or something. Their leadership was also pretty shoddy, considering he had dozens upon dozens of his men mowed down to little effect upon the single adversary they were facing. I just found it funny how they were just charging into the room at the protag even though they had guns and could have shot at her from a distance, and didn’t even bother retreating even after seeing all the bodies laying around everywhere. Also, I think at near the end of the movie, a bunch of people that intent to kill the protag aim their guns at her for 7 seconds before she reacts and kills them or something. NOTE: I haven’t actually watched the movie. ---
**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-movies-where-the-characters-are-absurdly-incompetent-or-just-flat-out-idiots/784624/66 "2017-04-19T17:59:27Z")
The biggest idiot, though, is Meg Ryan’s character in that movie where Nicholas Cage is an angel that’s fallen in love with a human - her. Her death is so stupid it removes every speck of tragedy from the scene. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-movies-where-the-characters-are-absurdly-incompetent-or-just-flat-out-idiots/784624/67 "2017-04-19T18:21:09Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > Are we just counting movies where, in-universe and in the context of the story, the characters are idiots, or ones where the characters are written (due to laziness or incompetence) as acting stupidly, but this is considered “normal” in-universe? I like the way the latter situation is described in [one of the Challenge of the Superfriends snark reviews](http://jabootu.net/?p=886): > [@](#): > > Back at the Hall of Justice, the remaining Superfriends are trying to communicate with their errant teammates. This raises one of those ongoing logic questions. Why, when a few team members go off on some away mission (during which they invariably get themselves captured), don’t the others back at the Hall watch over them on their magical viewscreen? Then they would know if their friends were in trouble, or at the least wouldn’t have to figure out what happened to them. > > Of course, if they did that, they’d do the same thing in every show, and then none of the Legion’s schemes would work. Well, in actuality, it would mean that the Legion would have to come up with better plans to compensate for this. Which, following this line of thought further, means that the writers would have to work harder and come up with more intelligent scripts. So I guess that answers my question. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-movies-where-the-characters-are-absurdly-incompetent-or-just-flat-out-idiots/784624/68 "2017-04-19T19:21:18Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > Yes. This. +1. > > I _ **hated** _ this movie. It was offensive on every level. Every character - scientists all - pushed the stupid button and held it down hoping to get every single erg of stupid out of it. > > I began ranting on Facebook about it. I compared Life unfavorably to Prometheus, Green Lantern and even Highlander 2. The next day I went back to the theater so my oldest kid could take a picture of me flipping off the poster. > > Christ, everyone involved should be forced to forfeit 10% of their net worth for being in it. Argh. After about 30 minutes of the stupid, I went to the bathroom at the theater to take a good, long crap - the results of which were more artistically valid than that film. How did a bunch of good and talented actors get involved in this? Was the script they originally read a lot less stupid? I’d say they’ve nailed down next year’s _Razzie_. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-movies-where-the-characters-are-absurdly-incompetent-or-just-flat-out-idiots/784624/69 "2017-04-19T19:45:33Z")
> [@epbrown01](#): > > The biggest idiot, though, is Meg Ryan’s character in that movie where Nicholas Cage is an angel that’s fallen in love with a human - her. Her death is so stupid it removes every speck of tragedy from the scene. She does an implausibly stupid thing once, and promptly dies. Now, obviously I agree that what she did was idiotic. But consider the authorities in **Minority Report** : they get evidence that fellow cop Tom Cruise should be arrested, and so they put out an APB and launch a manhunt for the guy and so on. After a while, Cruise heads to police HQ to break someone out; since they’re idiots, the retinal scan says he’s still a cool guy in good standing and lets him in. And, well, that’s okay. It’s _stupid,_ but it’s not Meg-Ryan-In-That-Movie stupid. Sure, they should’ve gotten it right beforehand – but it’s minimally plausible that they’d only realize their mistake once he’s passed that scan and gotten in and wreaked havoc and made off with a VIP, at which point they’d all smack their foreheads and say _oh, right, how incredibly stupid of us not to think of that._ And so Cruise heads off and has various adventures as a fugitive on the run, until someone eventually tips off the cops – after which our hero gets captured and locked up. Thing is, though, he later escapes from custody – because, well, the retinal scan says he’s still a cool guy in good standing. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-movies-where-the-characters-are-absurdly-incompetent-or-just-flat-out-idiots/784624/70 "2017-04-19T19:55:34Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > Yes. This. +1. > > I _ **hated** _ this movie. It was offensive on every level. Every character - scientists all - pushed the stupid button and held it down hoping to get every single erg of stupid out of it. > > I began ranting on Facebook about it. I compared Life unfavorably to Prometheus, Green Lantern and even Highlander 2. The next day I went back to the theater so my oldest kid could take a picture of me flipping off the poster. > > Christ, everyone involved should be forced to forfeit 10% of their net worth for being in it. Argh. The entire cast of **Life** look like Rhodes Scholars compared to every single human in **Kong: Skull Island**. ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-movies-where-the-characters-are-absurdly-incompetent-or-just-flat-out-idiots/784624/71 "2017-04-19T20:16:09Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > After a while, Cruise heads to police HQ to break someone out; since they’re idiots, the retinal scan says he’s still a cool guy in good standing and lets him in. I thought he got some back alley surgery that gave him new retinas to fool the system. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-movies-where-the-characters-are-absurdly-incompetent-or-just-flat-out-idiots/784624/72 "2017-04-19T20:17:58Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > Sure they were, look how long it took for anyone other than Powell to acknowledge that they had someone inside helping them. Powell even lampshades how idiotic the others were being. Well, Deputy Chief Robinson says there’s someone inside, but they don’t know who he is. He may have been working with the terrorists, for all they knew at the time. But it’s still more comic relief than anything else. Whether they believed McClane or not, there was nothing they could do and it didn’t change the plot. > [@RickJay](#): > > The premise of Die Hard is that Hans Gruber is, as he calls himself, an exceptional thief, and has things rather well planned out; there isn’t any practical way the cops could have defeated him. It really is an outstanding plan. They do things by the book, and that might not be original but it’s not stupid. Dwayne T. Robinson is irritatingly dumb but he just does the standard things. > > Where the movie has someone acting stupidly is… well, Hans Gruber. He egregiously fails to deal with the problem of John McClane; his henchmen are dispatched to attack McClane but he keeps pulling his punches. Knowing he has an extremely dangerous man screwing things up, Gruber’s men should never be with him standing around, as in fact they are several times, at any point; they should be pursuing McClane non-stop until he is dead. Even after Karl is killed, he’s got more than enough manpower to cover the hostages, cover the ground floor, and still send men to kill McClane. Again and again they almost get him, and then let him go. > > For that matter, once Gruber knows McClane is not a security guard - which McClane tells him - it would be logical for him to simply tell McClane what he implies, but never does, after he shoots Ellis; that he’s going to execute people until McClane surrenders. Hell, walk out into the group and say “Looks like someone at the p[arty got away. I’m going to shoot people until someone tells me who it is.” Point your gun, and you better believe it’ll be maybe eleven seconds before someone says “Holly Gennaro’s husband was here! Now he’s gone! It’s him!” > > But he does none of these things. Of course, if he did act logically, McClane would be screwed, and there wouldn’t be a movie. I think a lot of that is debatable, or at least fanwankable. How many people at the party knew John was there, or even who he was? As I remember it, when he arrives he goes pretty much straight to Holly’s office and she’s there with Takagi and Ellis. By midway through the movie, Holly isn’t going to turn him in and Takagi and Ellis are dead. Also, the only way Gruber can communicate with McClane is over the radio. If he starts killing hostages willy-nilly to get to McClane, the police and the feds outside are going to know about it, and he needs them to behave a certain way later in the movie. Kill too many hostages and maybe they won’t go along with the helicopter trip that Gruber needs to cover his escape. On the subject of stupidity, why does McClane keep any detonators after he’s used up all the explosive he had? They could only be of use to Gruber. Chuck 'em down the elevator shaft or out a window; anything to fuck with the bad guys plans. > [@](#): > > Now, Die Hard 2 is so goddamn stupid I can’t even. I think my biggest problem with _Die Hard 2_ is that the airport authorities are stymied because they have no transmitter they can use to communicate with the planes. Uh, guys, every airplane parked at that airport has a transmitter on it. Find one, flip on the master switch, and you’re on the air. However, I wouldn’t expect everyone watching the movie to know that. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-movies-where-the-characters-are-absurdly-incompetent-or-just-flat-out-idiots/784624/73 "2017-04-19T20:18:25Z")
> [@MovieMogul](#): > > The entire cast of **Life** look like Rhodes Scholars compared to every single human in **Kong: Skull Island**. Have you seen both? I tragically have, and the stupid in _Life_ was on a whole other level. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-movies-where-the-characters-are-absurdly-incompetent-or-just-flat-out-idiots/784624/74 "2017-04-19T21:30:12Z")
> [@xizor](#): > > I thought he got some back alley surgery that gave him new retinas to fool the system. IIRC, yes and no. The way I remember it, the back-alley surgery is so he can get around without being recognized by the nigh-ubiquitous retinal scanners that advertise products at him and stuff – but he keeps his old eyeball with him, so he can receive VIP treatment from security as befits a good cop: a trick that’d work once if the opposition is _“stupid,”_ and twice if the opposition is _“no, stupider than that.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-movies-where-the-characters-are-absurdly-incompetent-or-just-flat-out-idiots/784624/75 "2017-04-19T22:04:57Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > the infamous “I’m being chased by a giant rolling wheel so I’ll go in a straight line rather than to the left or right” scene. To be fair, stress can shut your brain down pretty hard. Well, _my_ brain, anyway. When I’m crossing a street and I hear a siren and the part of my mind that’s deathly afraid of cars starts shrieking “RUN RUN RUN YOU’RE GONNA GET HIT RUN!!!”, I panic so bad that I literally cannot tell what direction the sound is coming from. I just bolt towards the closest sidewalk, because my amygdala won’t let go long enough me for to process basic sensory information. So yeah, if a giant wheel was coming after me in a straight line, my potentially escaping its path would be entirely due to chance. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-movies-where-the-characters-are-absurdly-incompetent-or-just-flat-out-idiots/784624/76 "2017-04-19T22:14:40Z")
In “Avalanche”, none of the ERVehicle drivers know how to drive in snow. We spend a good chunk of the movie invested in the rescue of an old woman…only to have her ambulance driver spin off a bridge into a crevasse. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-movies-where-the-characters-are-absurdly-incompetent-or-just-flat-out-idiots/784624/77 "2017-04-19T22:16:47Z")
“This is Spinal Tap” and “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”. I’ve had to deal with young people who thought people really did act the way they did in the latter at work, and got away with it. They had to be told that they don’t, or shouldn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-movies-where-the-characters-are-absurdly-incompetent-or-just-flat-out-idiots/784624/78 "2017-04-19T22:21:54Z")
In “Identity Crisis”…Ralph Dibny’s home is protected by the finest in Thanagarian, Kryptonian and Earth technology…none of which includes a camera. Afterwards…none of the magic or time travel people think so much as look back in time, go back in time or create an image of what happened there. And then they stick a civilian woman in Arkham. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-movies-where-the-characters-are-absurdly-incompetent-or-just-flat-out-idiots/784624/79 "2017-04-19T22:31:52Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > In “Identity Crisis”…Ralph Dibny’s home is protected by the finest in Thanagarian, Kryptonian and Earth technology…none of which includes a camera. You know that bit in a TV-cop show where they of course run the phone records of the deceased and start by getting the story of the last person on the list? Yeah, well, _these_ investigators aren’t, uh, good at stuff. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-movies-where-the-characters-are-absurdly-incompetent-or-just-flat-out-idiots/784624/80 "2017-04-19T22:36:12Z")
Geena Davis may be a Mensa member; however, her character in “Thelma and Louise” sure wasn’t. Susan Sarandon’s wasn’t either. (I don’t remember who was who.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-movies-where-the-characters-are-absurdly-incompetent-or-just-flat-out-idiots/784624.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-movies-where-the-characters-are-absurdly-incompetent-or-just-flat-out-idiots/784624.md?page=5)