Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking/Film

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"First Floor Dungeon: Assorted simple tortures. Molten lead, chopping blocks, and hot boiling oil.
Second Floor Dungeon: Jewelry Department."

    • But subverted with the very next line: "Leg chains, ankle chains, wrist chains, neck chains, thumb screws and nooses of the very finest rope!"
  • This line from Kent Mansley's "goldarned security" rant in The Iron Giant:

Kent Mansley: You think this metal man is fun, but who built it? The Russians? The Chinese? Martians? Canadians? I don't care!

"All right, you're in a heap of trouble now: armed robbery, kidnapping of an army officer, and speeding!"

  • At the beginning of This Is Spinal Tap, Marty DiBergi, describing the eponymous band, says: "I remember being knocked out by their, their exuberance, their raw power... and their punctuality."
  • At the end of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, the bailiff is reading out the (long) list of charges that Jack Sparrow has been found guilty of, including "impersonating a cleric of the Church of England", which prompts a fond little smile of remembrance from Jack.
  • Gary Oldman's terrorist character in Air Force One: "When you talk to the President, you might remind him that I am holding his wife, his daughter, his chief of staff, his national security adviser, his classified papers - and his baseball glove!"
  • Ivan Ooze in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie announces the evil things he'd missed while he was Sealed Evil in a Can: "The Black Plague! The Spanish Inquisition! The Brady Bunch reunion!" This was an ad-lip.
  • Helen Sharp (Goldie Hawn) talking about Madeline Ashton (Meryl Streep) in Death Becomes Her: "She was a homebreaker. She was a man-eater. And she was a bad actress."
  • On Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Vinny Santorini says that "we've done a lot of things we're not proud of: robbing graves, plundering tombs, double parking..." In the same movie, by the same person, a lil earlier, "Gunpowder, nitroglycerin, notepads, fuses, wicks, glue, and paperclips. Big ones. You know, just office supplies."
  • In the So Bad It's Good film Pootie Tang, the titular character's dying father, where worked at a steel mill where he was suddenly beaten to near death by a gorilla man in a gorilla suit, tells his son about the horrors of the world: Drugs, crime, and gorillas.
  • Moral Guardians' attempts to give us a measure of some or other work against their serious verified and absolute morale standards all too often include funny items:
    • The IMDB parental guides have a lot of these. Laundry lists of terrifying violence and brutality followed by 'A man and a woman argue about parking tickets.' A great example is for Caligula, where the Violence section has, along with gems such as "A man is suffocated with a cloth and he dies." and "A machine with huge blades cuts peoples heads off lots of blood and heads roll"... "A woman is slapped."
    • Critics have fun with this when writing good reviews:

This was a brilliant film, one of my all time favourites as it had everything, rebellion, violence, horror, adventure, religion, death, slavery and bad language.

    • Nothing can beat CAP-Alert for this: This film contains murder, blasphemy, and bare male chests.
    • The MPAA is similarly ridiculous when rating films.
      • Sydney White is rated PG-13 for "some language, sexual humor and partying". 17 Again lists similar reasons.
      • Screenit.com also judges whether films are family-friendly using categories like Sex/Nudity, Violence, Blood/Gore, and Suspenseful Music. They also consider an unclothed female mannequin to belong in the Sex/Nudity section.
      • Their rating of Star Trek had the last entry under imitative behavior, including swearing and driving a car over a cliff, as:

Some kids might imitate the Vulcan hand gesture of spreading apart the two adjacent fingers on each side of the hand.

      • Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland could give it a run for its money. Its official MPAA rating is PG, for "fantasy action and violence including scary images and situations and a smoking caterpillar." Well, alright then.
        • They might get in even more of an uproar if they knew what he was smoking. Give you a hint: It's not tobacco.
  • In Blazing Saddles, Hedley Lamarr gives out a long list of evil people that he wants to recruit as mooks, topping it off with a triumphant, "...and Methodists!". There's no given reason why Methodists are lumped in with such villains. This coincides with a later line where the people of Rock Ridge announce they will accept "the niggers and the chinks, but we don't want the Irish!" pointing out archaic prejudices against seemingly generic groups. Or even earlier in the movie, when addressing the townspeople:
  • Dogma
    • Rufus the 13th Apostle is talking to Bethany about Jesus Christ, and lists off some of the things being done in his name that he doesn't like. "Wars! Bigotry! Televangelism!"
    • Loki kills a bunch of board members for (among other things) adultery, disowning a gay son, incest, and he tried to kill one woman for not saying "God Bless You" when he sneezed, and he almost shoots her before Bartleby pulls him away.
  • In The World Is Not Enough, "R" concludes his run-down of the features of Bond's car with "six beverage cup holders".
  • Ghostbusters: The warning of the dire consequences of their being incarcerated as Gozer prepares to manifest:

Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"?
Dr. Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr. Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

  • In the Spice Girls' movie Spice World, the group is about to be late for their first major live show. Their driver is nowhere to be found, so Posh Spice frantically drives their tour bus across London and jumps across Tower Bridge as it is rising to let a boat through. When they arrive at the venue, they are confronted by a policeman who wants to arrest them for "dangerous driving, criminal damage, flying a bus without a license ... and frightening the pigeons!"
  • Played with in Conan the Barbarian. As far as he is concerned, these offenses are in the proper order:

Thulsa Doom: You broke into my house, stole my property, murdered my servants, and my PETS! And that is what grieves me the most! You killed my snake. Thorgrim is beside himself with grief!
(Cut to Thorgrim, who is making a narmy little frown.)
Conan replies in kind: "You killed my mother! You Killed My Father, you killed my people! You TOOK MY FATHER'S SWORD!!."

Emily Cratchit: I suppose that on the blessed day of Christmas one must drink to the health of Mr Scrooge. Even though he is odious...
The twins: Mm-hm!
Emily Cratchit: ...and stingy...
The twins: Mm-hm!
Emily Cratchit: ...and wicked...
The twins: Mm-hm!
Emily Cratchit: ...and unfeeling...
The twins: Mm-hm!
Emily Cratchit: ...and badly dressed...
The twins gasp in horror

  • Inverted in Clue, when the guests locked up the police officer who asked to use the phone.

Cop: Let me outta here! Let me outta here! You have no right to shut me in! I'll book you for false arrest, and wrongful imprisonment, and obstructing an officer in the course of his duty... and murder!
Wadsworth: [Wadsworth opens the door, feigning innocence, while other guests gather around] What do you mean... murder?
Cop: I just said it so you would open the door.

  • Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird has it when the Sleaze Brothers are pulled over while trying to escape after kidnapping Big Bird (who they realized had escaped thanks to Big Bird jumping off the truck onto Gordon and Olivia's car... just watch the movie):

Sam Sleaze: What seems to be the problem, officer? What's the charge?
State Trooper: [looks through his notebook] What about counterfeiting, extortion, fraud, impersonating a dentist, stealing an apple from a kid? (The latter occurred earlier in the movie)
Sam Sleaze: Oh, about that apple, officer, I can explain that. We was just holding it for a friend.
Sid Sleaze: Yeah, for a friend.
State Trooper: You can tell that to the judge.

  • In Shrek 3, The Witches run people down on their broomsticks, the living trees knock stuff over, and the cyclops... pulls letters out of mailboxes, peels off the stamps, and puts them back.
  • From Shrek 2 the Fairy Godmother's tirade:

Let's see... P-p-p-p-p, Princess. Cinderella... Handsome prince, lived happily ever after... oh, no ogres! Sleeping Beauty... handsome prince, no ogres. Thumbelina, no! Hansel and Gretel, no! The Golden Bird, The Little Mermaid, Pretty Woman... no, no, no, no, NO! You see, ogres don't live happily ever after.

  • In The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Tuco's rap sheet goes from murder and rape down to transporting a minor across state lines for immoral purposes, and "contrary to the laws of this state, the accused has been found guilty of using marked cards in a poker game!"
  • Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves:

Sheriff of Nottingham: Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings, and call off Christmas!

  • Somewhat Lampshaded in Last Action Hero: Jack Slater, upon rescuing his daughter from thugs and escaping several attempts on his life, including the destruction of a good part of his ex wife's house, breaks into the antagonist Mr. Benedict's mansion, and begins kicking him around, listing a reason for every blow he lands, with the exception of his ex-wife's house, during which, he stands Mr. Benedict up, straightens out his suit, takes his hand, and gently slaps him on the wrist.
  • Clerks: A mother and small child come into the video store to order "Happy Scrappy Hero Pup". Randal phones the distributors and orders a long list of increasingly disturbing porn titles, ending by turning to the mother and saying "Uh, what was that called again?"
  • The opening scene of Romancing the Stone comes from the romance novel that Kathleen Turner's character is writing:

That was the end of Grogan... the man who killed my father, raped and murdered my sister, burned my ranch, shot my dog, and stole my Bible!

  • In a deleted scene of Tenacious D And The Pick Of Destiny, Jack Black and Kyle Gass are checking out at an army/navy supply store with a grocery cart full of items that make it increasingly apparent that they intend to do some Hollywood-style breaking and entering, including walkie talkies, grappling hooks, smoke bombs, a pair of spy catsuits, poison darts... and a bag of Funyuns. The Funyuns are actually the second-to-last item though.
  • Woody Allen's Take the Money and Run uses this trope twice in the same way. At the beginning, the narrator says that Virgil is wanted for robbery, attempted murder, and illegal possession of a wart. Later, as Virgil assembles a gang to rob a bank, the narrator reveals what each of them has served time for. One was "bank robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, murder, and getting naked in front of his in-laws," another was just "dancing with a mailman," and the third was "arson, robbery, assault with intent to kill, and marrying a horse."
  • American Gangster: Frank Lucas wants to get heroin directly from the producers, who live deep in the South Asian jungle. His cousin really doesn't want to go: "There's snakes, Viet Cong, and mosquitoes that'll fuckin' kill yo' ass!"
  • One of the taglines for the film of A Clockwork Orange was "Being the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are rape, ultraviolence and Beethoven."
  • A Fish Called Wanda was marketed as "a tale of murder, lust, greed, revenge, and seafood."
  • When he learns Dr. Evil has hijacked nuclear weapons, Austin Powers says that only two things scare him, and one is nuclear war. When asked what his second fear was, he says "carnies."
  • Used and toyed with in Addams Family Values when the family comes to Debbie's house to visit Fester:

Morticia: You have gone too far. You have married Fester. You have destroyed his spirit. You have taken him from us. All that I could forgive. But Debbie?
Debbie: What?
Morticia (reproachfully, eying the decor): Pastels?

  • This shows up in Who's the Woman, Who's the Man in the form of a tirade directed by Fish against a woman whom O, the lesbian he has a crush on, is flirting with:

Fish: If you go with a lesbian, you'll break your parents' hearts, and your grandparents'; your friends will look down on you, relatives will avoid you, society will give up on you, you can't have children... and you won't be able to find a seat on the subway!

  • One of the taglines for the movie Sneakers was;

"A burglar, a spy, a fugitive, a delinquent, a hacker, and a piano teacher... and these are the good guys."

Sean: Rubies!
Hannah: Emeralds!
Trevor: Feldspar!

  • In the Disney Channel movie Minutemen, several government officials run in flashing badges and screaming the name of their respective organizations. "FBI!" "CIA!" "Bureau of Weights and Measures." They tell the last guy that he should go in first next time.
  • In National Treasure, the film's antagonist is arrested on the charges of "kidnapping, attempted murder, and trespassing on government property."
  • In Yellowbeard, the eponymous pirate has committed a long list of heinous crimes, but he was finally convicted for tax evasion. This is almost certainly a reference to Al Capone.
  • In Brazil, arrested Sam Lowry is presented with a long and painstakingly accurate list of his transgressions, from high treason to overexpenditure of stationery. Because he lives in a dystopia of bureaucracy gone mad, it's actually played for drama.
  • The Watchmen movie has the line "Toys, lunchboxes, genetic engineering." One of These Things Is Not Like the Others.
  • Kentucky Fried Movie segment "United Appeal for the Dead".

Henry Gibson: ...everyone can acquaint himself with the three early warning signs of death: one, rigor mortis; two, a rotting smell; three, occasional drowsiness.

  • Near the end of W. C. Fields' The Golf Specialist, we briefly see J. Effingham Bellweather's wanted poster which includes such things as manslaughter and homicide. The next shot is a ten-second pan down a list of his other offenses:

Bigamy,
Passing as the Prince of Wales,
Eating spaghetti in public,
Using hard words in a speakeasy,
Trumping partner's ace,
Spitting in the Gulf Stream,
Jumping board bill in seventeen lunatic asylums,
Failure to pay installments on a strait-jacket,
Possessing a skunk,
Revealing the facts of life to an Indian.

  • The Tagline on posters for Fight Club was "Mischief. Mayhem. Soap." This, however, is a subversion: the soap is made out of discarded fat from liposuctions.
  • In The Incredibles Edna Mode does this twice while demonstrating the new super suits she designed for Helen Parr and her children:

"I cut it a little roomy for the free movement, the fabric is comfortable for sensitive skin...and it can also withstand a temperature of over 1000 degrees. Completely bulletproof, and machine washable, darling. That's a new feature."
"Your suit can stretch as far as you can without injuring yourself, and still retain its shape. Virtually indestructible, yet it breathes like Egyptian cotton."

  • Scary Movie 3: The Architect is discussing with Cindy the evil of his daughter Tabitha. "We loved our daughter but she was evil. Made the horses crazy. Killed our puppies. Hid the remote. Really sick shit."
  • The Naked Gun: "Burglary, arson... and sexual assault with a concrete dildo?!" In the Italian dub, it's: "Burglary, arson... and sexual harassment to a concrete statue?!"
  • The tagline for Army of Darkness: "Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas."
  • In The Empire Strikes Back:

Han Solo: ...you didn't see us alone in the south passage. She expressed her true feelings for me.
Leia Organa: My...! Why, you stuck up, ...half-witted, ...scruffy-looking... nerf-herder!
Han: Who's scruffy-looking?

  • In Meet the Robinsons, Wilbur Robinson's Robot Buddy Carl lists the negative consequences that arose from Wilbur's careless failure to shut the garage door properly: One of the family's time machines (a prototype, only two currently in existence) got stolen by the villain, the time stream could be altered forever, and someone took Carl's bike. Later in the film, Wilbur gives Lewis three objections to Lewis' suggestion that the Robinsons adopt Bowler Hat Guy, who is actually Lewis' old roommate Mike Yagoobian - "He stole our time machine, tried to ruin your future, and he smells like he hasn't had a shower in thirty years!"
  • In Fathom, Ms. Harvill describes her problems as: "Treason, arson, murder and a parking ticket."
  • Heavy Metal featured a segment with Captain Sternn on trial for heinous crimes, including: 12 counts of murder in the first degree, 14 counts of armed theft of Federation property, 22 counts of piracy in high space, 18 counts of fraud, 37 counts of rape,..and one moving violation.
  • Sudden Impact. Dirty Harry delivers a long monologue about all the rotten things he sees as a homicide cop (babies abandoned in dumpsters, etc) but says the thing that really gets to him, that really makes him sick to his stomach, is the fact that his partner puts ketchup on his hot dog!
  • In the opening scene of Raw Deal Arnold Schwarzenegger is seen chasing an apparent motorcycle cop, who turns out to be a crook dressed up as one so he can shake down speeders. The man claims to be on his way to a fancy dress party and merely stopping the motorist to ask for directions. Arnie charges him with extortion, resisting arrest, reckless driving, impersonating a police officer, and lying to the sheriff.
  • Kent in Hot Shots doesn't trust Topper because his father bailed on Kents during flight. Yet offhandedly forgives the other members of the team who were more involved in his death, including one who ate him for dinner after he was mistaken for game and shot.
  • From What's Up, Tiger Lily?:

"Gangsters have stolen my secret recipe for egg salad. And not only that, they kill, they maim, and they call Information for numbers they could easily look up in the phone book."

  • In How High, the black supremacist Reparation Technical Institute offers students a wide variety of courses, such as Hatred Towards the White Devil, ADVANCED Hatred Towards the White Devil, and Volleyball.
  • The King's Speech has one which doubles as a Crowning Moment of Funny:

Albert:"Fuck. FUCK! Fuck, fuck, fuck AND FUCK! Fuck, fuck AND BUGGER! Bugger, bugger, BUGGERTY BUGGERTY BUGGERTY, fuck, fuck, ARSE! Balls, balls, FUCKITY, shit, shit, FUCK AND WILLY. WILLY, SHIT AND FUCK AND...tits."

  • In The New Guy, Dizzy tries to get himself expelled from school to go to a new one. His first attempt is to reveal his teacher is wearing a toupee, yell the answers to the test out loud and bribery. The school therapist responds by giving him more medication. His second attempt is to film the school's principal going to the bathroom. That does not work either. Finally, Dizzy remembers what Luther the inmate told him. Dizzy then gets ready to break the mop and use it against the principal. As soon as he breaks it, however, the principal turns around and expels him for destroying school property.
  • Undercover Brother. Smart Brother's description of his interrogation of White She-Devil. He starts by analyzing her brainwaves, then unlocks her subconscious with hypnosis, gently brushes her hair, and finally finds the information on a list in her pockets.
  • In Trading Places Winthorpe's descent into criminality is summarized as: "pilfering in our club, embezzling funds, selling drugs, and now he's dressing up like Santa Claus."
  • In Good Will Hunting, Sean is planning on traveling.

Jerald: Where will you go?
Sean: India, China....and Baltimore.

Q: Need I remind you, 007, that you have a license to kill, not to break traffic laws.

  • In CB4, politician Virgil Robinson says of the titular rap group "Their record of incitement, lewdness, and poor grammar will see them jailed, banned, and- and- and with their feelings hurt".
  • Men in Black has Agents Jay and Kay accosting an alien pawnbroker/armsdealer about dealing illegal alien weapons and tech, and some stolen Rolexes.

Kay: All right... That's confiscated. All of it. And I want you on the next transport off this rock or I'm gonna shoot you where it don't grow back.
Jay: Yeah and... and... and I'm gonna be back to talk about them Rolexes.

  • A composite quote from the Inspector Gadget trailer and the film proper: "Robo-Gadget apparently has gone berserk in the downtown Riverton area. Reports indicate that he's already caused a major traffic accident, destroyed private property... and set fire to an elderly man's beard." (Cue the Evil Laugh from Robo-Gadget)
  • In Napoleon Dynamite, Napoleon angrily orders Uncle Rico to get out of their house because, "You've been ruining all our lives and eating all our steak!"
  • After giving Derek a long list of what he's supposed to do as an assassin in Zoolander, Mugatu adds: "Obey my dog!"
  • Tank Girl.

Tank Girl: The Rippers are a demonic army of bloodthirsty, human-eating, purse-snatchin', mutant creatures.

  • The Reefer Madness movie musical has this trope at the start of the song "Mary Jane/Mary Lane".

There's blood on my hands
And mud on my name
My Id threw a party and everyone came
My innocence ravaged
My virtue devoured
I can't count the strangers with whom I have showered!

  • A wordless example from The Dark Knight, when Gordon observes of the Joker that there was "nothing in his pockets but knives and lint", we see a cop laying out various sizes and shapes of knife on a table. The last is a potato peeler, emphasised by a perfect piece of silent comedy as the handler does a brief double-take.
  • In Dumb and Dumber:

Lloyd: We've got no food! We've got no jobs! Our pet's heads are falling off!

  • In Hocus Pocus: As they prepare for battle against the witches, Max and his girlfriend Allison go to get a container of salt. They look at the label on the container and Allison reads that salt protects against "zombies, witches and old boyfriends." (To which Max quips, "What about new boyfriends?")
  • In The French Connection, after his partner's been stabbed, Popeye Doyle wants to run the suspect in for that, for drug possession, "and for picking your feet in Poughkeepsie!"
  • In Hugo, Hugo's crimes are listed as: "Trespass, theft, pilfering, littering... mmmmlering... walking about... playing..."
  • Smallfoot has one when Percy is arrested.

You're under arrest for disturbing the peace, destruction of public property, discharging fireworks within the city limits...internet fraud, loitering, looking weird...

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