The Cliché: Despite being ruthless murderers, a lot of action movie villains are surprisingly sentimental when it comes down to it. How else to explain their obsessive need to be the one who fires the bullet that kills the hero? Despite having billions of dollars / world domination within their sights, most of them will risk it all just to ensure the hero gets a poetic send-off at their own hand. What price a little perspective?
Examples: This happens twice in Die Hard, with both Gruber and Karl calling off various underlings in their eagerness to finish McClane themselves. The climactic fight in The Matrix Revolutions sees Agent Smith take on Neo one on one, despite the presence of millions of clones, whilst Darth Vader likes to handle things personally throughout the Star Wars series.
Heroes don't tend to be quite so precious about who takes down the villain, although Hook does see Peter Pan order the Lost Boys to leave the Captain to him. They don't listen and Rufio ends up dead, proving once again that it's one rule for the good guys, and quite another for the forces of darkness…
If It Was Real Life: Law enforcement would be a fairly arduous affair if individual criminals and coppers were embroiled in such one-upmanship…
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ASmileSoDevious
Apr 18th 2012, 7:34
Passenger 52? Is this a prequel to Passenger 57? lol :P
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Hadouken76
Apr 18th 2012, 11:03
A villain will never shoot the unarmed hero immediately, even when the hero is at his mercy, but instead choose to start blathering on... Lucius summed in this up perfectly in the 'The Incredibles' : "Yammering! I mean, the guy has me on a platter and he won't shut up! " See : Cohagen in Total Recall; "Blow this thing and be back in time for cornflakes" and every Bond villain.
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2Dglasses
Apr 18th 2012, 11:11
Obvious really, but another one is the 'usually office bound by the book j*****s boss', who hinders as much as he helps. Usually in cop movies -Lorenzo in die hard, the boss from lethal weapon..or just some weaselly politician who threatens to pull the plug on the whole thing or is universally hostile while being on the 'good' side.
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2Dglasses
Apr 18th 2012, 11:14
"yippie kay ay motherf.......r" is printed, but "jack ss" gets asterisked. This is just bizarre. Its not even a swearword. What if i wanted to talk about breeds of penguin?
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writerdave87
Apr 18th 2012, 13:09
To be fair, 'We were Soldiers' the guy that gets killed with the new baby was a real life person :p Ice Cube's speech in 21 Jump Street deconstructing the 'angry black police captain' stereotype is priceless.
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Heisenberg
Apr 18th 2012, 14:56
A Cliche i've noticed, although not only in movies, but TV shows aswell, is that if someone falls down a set of stairs, they are immediately unconscious. No matter how they fall or land, unconscious.
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2Dglasses
Apr 19th 2012, 9:06
if the brakes are cut-it only becomes apparent at the worst possible moment. Also no one ever shifts down a gear to use engine braking, the car just picks up even more speed.
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FBFPerondi
Apr 19th 2012, 15:04
Hey! "Cool guys don't look at explosions, they walk away in slow motion..."
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MrScary
Apr 19th 2012, 18:30
Similar to the Double Tap, but more of a genre cliche; how about the Killer in every horror movie jumping back up for one more scare?
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