Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: Difference between revisions

== Films -- Live-Action[[Film]] ==

* Cleverly done in ''[[Sleepy Hollow (Film)|Sleepy Hollow]]'', where the main character, already investigating a crime, is introduced to the town's most important men and the audience is already looking for the guilty among them. They are all played by "vaguely famous" actors: former Maigret (and later Dumbledore) Michael Gambon as the leader, Jeffrey Jones from ''[[Amadeus]]'' as the reverend, Ian "Palpatine" McDiarmid as the doctor; Michael Gough, formerly Batman's butler and a usual in Burtons's films, as the notary; and Richard Griffiths from ''Naked Gun 2'' as the magistrate. The guilty party is... {{spoiler|A conspiracy among all of them!}} But wait: {{spoiler|The real villain behind the ghost is the leader's wife, played by Miranda Richardson.}}

** [[Lost|Mark]] [[Supernatural (TV series)|Pellegrino]] guest-stars as a helpful neighbor giving eyewitness evidence of the killer leaving the scene of the crime, in hopes of getting a reward. {{spoiler|He did it, and framed the other guy for a past murder to boot.}}

** Subverted in the SVU episode Wet which had David Krumholtz from Numb3rs and [[The Santa Clause (film series)|The Santa Clause]] as an [[Absent-Minded Professor]] who grow poisonous mushrooms and was obsessed with water right seemed like a slam dunk as a perp. Plus it also hade Rosemary Harris who played Aunt May in the [[Spider-Man]] movies as a [[Rich Bitch]] who ran the charity were victim was given the poisoned Mushrooms. Add to that the special guest ADA for the episode was played by Paula Patton from [[Precious]] and the defense attorney was played by Michael Boatman from [[Spin City]]. Yet none of them was the kill, however one of them came off as more of a [[Complete Monster]] then the actual murderess, and was responsible for her behavior.

** There were [[Homicide: Life Onon the Street|Reed Diamond]] {{spoiler|he did it}} in the season 7 episode ''Forensics'', [[JAG|Steven]] [[Desperate Housewives|Culp]] {{spoiler|who also did it}} in the episode ''Jurisprudence'', and [[Eli Stone|Loretta Devine]] in ''Soul'', {{spoiler|and yes, she did it too}}, among others.

** Ironically, an episode of it ''seems'' like [[Homicide: Life Onon the Street|Reed Diamond]] did it, but in the end Allison finds out that the 'victim' is still alive and a few years younger than in her dreams, so she understands he ''might'' do it, despite being anything but a killer to this point, and warns him so hopefully he won't do it.

** Also been subverted quite a bit as [[Star Trek: Voyager|Robert Picardo]], Debi Mazar, [[The Simpsons (animation)|Dan Castellaneta]] and [[Pulp Fiction|Phil LaMarr]] have all popped up as being allies rather than killers.

* ''[[Homicide: Life Onon the Street]]'' was usually pretty good at averting this trope... whenever a famous guest star appeared, he/she was either a relative of the victim (like [[Robin Williams]], [[Mystic River|Marcia Gay Harden]] or [[Lost|Terry O'Quinn]]), or his identity as the killer was made intentionally clear from the beginning and the episode actually focused on the detectives' attempt to ''prove'' that he was guilty (like [[The Lord of the Rings (film)|Elijah Wood]], [[Reservoir Dogs|Steve Buscemi]] or [[Lethal Weapon 4|Chris Rock]]).