What the Hell, Hero?/Film

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Mama Lucas: You don't shoot cops. Even I know that. Eva knows it. The only one who DOESN'T seem to know is you.
Frank Lucas: [ignores her pleas as he escorts her outside] All right, Mama. I'm not going to, I promise you. I'm not going to shoot anyone.
Mama Lucas: I never asked you where all this stuff came from, because I didn't want to hear you lie to me. Please...
Frank Lucas: [talking over her] Ma, I understand. I don't want you to worry about it. Now come on, I have to go...
Mama Lucas: Don't LIE to me! [slaps Frank roughly] Don't... don't do that. Do you want to make things so bad for your family that they'll leave you? Because they will.
Frank Lucas: [dismissively] No. No, Ma, I understand...
Mama Lucas: [points towards his wife] She will leave you. I will LEAVE you!

Joker: I wanted to see what you'd do, and you didn't disappoint. You let five people die. Then you let Dent take your place. Even to a guy like me, that's cold.

    • In the same way, during the Joker's "social experiment", the Scary Black Man calls the leader of the police officers on not throwing away the detonator immediately.

""Give it to me, and I'll do what you should have done ten minutes ago."

    • Prior to this, Batman pulls this on Harvey Dent after Dent hijacked an ambulance where the gunman who apparently killed Gordon was awaiting transport, tied him up in a chair, and threatened to shoot him if a coin landed on tails the longer he didn't talk. The coin turns out to have two heads, but he still abducted and threatened at gunpoint a mentally ill man--and no matter whether or not you intend to shoot someone with it, no gun is 100% safe unless it's not loaded (Even then, are you sure it's not loaded?). Batman calls him out on this breach of ethics, saying that Gotham deserves better from its "White Knight", and asks him what would happen if it got out.
    • Batman himself receives one of these from Lucius Fox concerning the sonar technology he secretly circumvents into a mass-spying device designed to catch the Joker.
    • While the hero part is debatable, Harvey does this to Ramirez after she delivers Rachel to the Joker.

Harvey: (interuppting Ramirez in her excuse) "You didn't know what they were going to do to me. You're the second cop to say that to me. What exactly did you think they were going to do?

  • James Bond in the reboot often catches a lot of flak from M and MI6 for using his License to Kill a little too liberally. In Casino Royale, he is nearly suspended for the unnecessary killing of a terrorist in a foreign embassy (or more accurately, being caught on tape doing it). In Quantum of Solace, M nearly arrests Bond when his reckless actions results in the death of Mathis and another MI6 agent.
    • Vesper Lynd also asks Bond at one point if he was ever disturbed by the fact he'd had to kill a number of people to complete his mission. Earlier, Bond comforts her when she is greatly disturbed following the brutal killing of a warlord and his minions by Bond.
    • In Dr. No, Honey all but says the trope name after witnessing Bond (again somewhat unnecessarily) knifing a guard. This moment actually stands as the only time in the original film series (and the last until the Vesper moment described above) that someone is shown being upset at witnessing Bond using his license to kill.
  • Zoe calls Mal out near the beginning of Serenity after he kicks a colonist off the mule during the Reaver attack on Lilac. She agrees that he had good reason, but that there were alternatives and it wasn't something they would have done back when they were in the war... to which he replies, "Maybe that's why we lost."
  • In Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, Prince Nuada tells Hellboy that the nature elemental is the last of its kind; should Hellboy kill it, the world will never see its like again. (Then again, the elemental is only in danger because Nuada used it as a weapon in a crowded city. What the hell, villain?)
    • In the first film, Tom Manning accuses Hellboy of causing several BPRD Red Shirt deaths with his poor field leadership, and hits Red's Berserk Button by calling him a monster.
  • Though not exactly a Hero, in The Godfather Part II Don Corleone is called out when he plans to assassinate Hyman Roth - despite the fact that he's run out of places to run to and killing him is an unnecessary risk to business.
  • Kirk gets a big one in Star Trek the Motion Picture when McCoy calls him out - forcefully - for forgetting the fact that it's been two-some years since he commanded a starship, and that his unfamiliarity with the Enterprise's refitted systems is putting the whole ship in jeopardy. Surprisingly, Kirk actually listens. Apparently, even the greatest captain in Starfleet history isn't immune to hubris.
    • Of course Kirk didn't relinquish command and instead assigned Decker, the rightful captain of the ship, to an advisory role. Decker remains rather bitter about it throughout the rest of the film.
    • In Star Trek VI the Undiscovered Country, Kirk blazes with Ahabesque fury, "Let them die!" when told by Spock the Klingons will be extinct in 50 years; Spock's reaction is one of such grave incredulity that it even forces Kirk to collect himself and change the subject. William Shatner was disturbed by Kirk's Face Heel Turn, and had Meyer shoot the scene again with Kirk being more reasonable. Meyer went to the original take in the final cut. Spock gets his own "What the hell" when he mind rapes Valeris. Of course, Kirk getting called out for hating the Klingons makes him look even worse when you consider that, back in The Original Series, he called out an Enterprise lieutenant for expressing very similar opinions toward the Romulans. Hell, both of them were motivated by loss of family (the lieutenant lost several family members in the Earth-Romulan War).
      • Spock gets this from Kirk and most of the crew when he "volunteers" them to meet for the first peace talks with the Klingons. This seems exceptionally stupid considering the Klingons had earlier accused Kirk of developing the Genesis device as a superweapon and had killed his son. The conspirators have no problem leveraging Kirk's reputation to derail the peace process.
  • And then in Star Trek First Contact, Lily confronts Picard over his fight with the Borg, asking how many people had to die for him to save the ship? She invoked Moby Dick, comparing him to Captain Ahab... though when he did finally come to his senses, she admitted she never actually read the entire book.
  • The Guns of Navarone. Miller blasted Mallory for giving Franklin false info about the mission which he hoped he would feed to the Nazis in case they torture him.
  • In the B rated movie The Expert, the main character, disappointed by the justice system, decides to break in a maximum security prison and kill a convicted felon. His partner calls him out on this when he decides to share and go through with it, but the "hero" immobilizes him quickly. Conveniently enough, the guy he's going to kill has organized an escape and has taken hostages. The result? Hero walks out as a Karma Houdini for saving everyone, nobody asks him what was he doing sneaking around in a camouflage suit, and all the characters that were defending the rights of felons were turned into strawmen.
  • In one scene of Babylon AD, when the protagonists are attacked, a wrestler (motivated mostly because of an attraction to Aurora) steps in and helps them. Right after the thugs are taken out, Vin Diesel savagely beats and murders the wrestler for no reason other than to be a dick. Aurora calls him out on it, "He was trying to protect me!"
    • Ah no, Vin did it because he was trapped in a cage with a punch-drunk boxer.
  • In The Other Guys a reporter asks Highsmith and Danson if it was worth the remarkable amount of property damage to capture a few men who, after a spectacular car chase, turned out to only have committed the crime of possession of a very small amount of marijuana.
    • The same thing happens at the beginning of the Starsky and Hutch remake, when Starsky chases a purse-snatcher halfway across town, through rooftops, and landing on the roof of a car.
  • In Avatar, immediately after Jake learns he's "bonded" with Neytiri for life the camera cuts to his pod, with his voiceover saying, "What the hell are you doing Jake?"
  • Loomis himself realizes what an asshole he's become in Zombie's Halloween 2.
  • Jason is given this treatment on several occasions by his friends in Mystery Team.
  • In the 2005 Will Ferrell movie Kicking & Screaming, Phil Weston (played by Ferrell) starts employing draconian measures in the training of his Little League soccer team in order to get them into the finals, including sending his own son Sam onto the bench and preventing him from contributing (an act his own father pulled on him in his childhood). Weston's wife Barbara finally gets fed up and calls him out on his newly-acquired Jerkass behavior.

Phil: (Sam) can play if he wants to...
Barbara: He'd love to play for you! But every time he tries, you end up putting him on the bench. (gives Phil a look) Sound familiar?
Phil: But I just wanted to get us into the finals.
Barbara: Well, congratulations. You made it. (walks away in disgust)

Fozzie: Shame on you! I thought we were in this thing together. I'm just as scared as you are, but this has to be done! We don't want the bad guys to win. We gotta do this... f-f-f-for justice! For freedom! For honesty!

  • In Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, Tommy Jarvis demands to know why the sheriff didn't incinerate Jason when they recovered his remains. The sheriff gives him this reply in a very curt manner toward Elias Voorhees:

Sheriff: Well, we were gonna, but some asshole paid to give him and his mother a proper burial.

  • The whole plot of Orgazmo involves Elder Joe Young, the protagonist and a Mormon missionary, getting involved with porn acting to make enough money to pay for a temple wedding for himself and his painfully wholesome fiancee, Lisa, as well as get them a nice place when they're married. Lisa herself unfortunately finds out about his acting in pornos when she decides to pay him a surprise visit. She is not happy about it and tells him so.
  • Contagion Everybody jumps on Cheever for alerting his wife to get out of Chicago before the quarantine goes into effect, even though if she was sick, she'd have infected a lot of others.
  • Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
    • Played for Laughs with Henry and Indy.
    • Played straight near the end of the film, when Jones Sr. gets free in the Nazis' tank, then takes control of one of its cannons and blows up a pursuing Jeep full of Nazis. Brody is horrified at this, but Jones Sr. curtly replies that "this is war".
    • Also, an instance of "What The Hell, Anti-Villain?" when Indy confronts Elsa in Berlin:

Elsa: You came back for the book? Why?
Indy: My father didn't want it incinerated.
Elsa: Is that what you think? I believe in the Grail, not the swastika.
Indy: And yet you stood up to be counted with the enemy of everything the Grail stands for. Who gives a DAMN what you think?!
Elsa: You do!

  • In Kamen Rider x Kamen Rider Fourze & OOO: Movie War Megamax, Kengo gets one from the Kamen Rider Club when he willingly calls up Foundation X to give away the SOLU that had taken the form of Nadeshiko Misaki... whom Gentarou had fallen in love with.
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