What Are Some Good Movies Where The GOOD GUY Fails?*

[BlackBark]

Does "Gattaca" count? I certainly felt the ending was a downer.

Also, "Memories of Murder" and "Chaser" are a couple of Korean films which had pretty dark endings. To be honest, I think all Korean films I have seen have had quite horrible endings.

I know this one has already been said, but "Grave of the Fireflies" is probably the only one I will never watch again, because of that ending. It was really good, though.

 

[Frezzato]

Spoiler: click to expand

The other day I was in line at the grocery store, and a couple "bros" were in line ahead of me. One of them said "Blackhawk Down is like, the best movie ever made." If he'd looked behind him, he'd have seen my eyebrows go so high they popped off my forehead. I mean don't get me wrong, it was a decent movie, and some of the military action was "realistic", but it's mostly hollywood-ized military action. The story... well there really isn't much of one. I'm not saying you can't like the movie, but I can think of a dozen military-themed movies off the top of my head that are better films than Blackhawk down... I wanted to yell at this frat guy HAVE YOU NOT SEEN APOCALYPSE NOW, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, or PLATOON???

Anyways, yes go see Blackhawk Down, it's good. Thanks to the stupid leg-surgery scene though it falls into the category of military films I don't really like watching a second time though. I get really squeamish about that stuff. Saving Private Ryan has a few scenes like that for me as well... I usually change the channel when they're coming up.

ON TOPIC I'll nominate "The Road" movie as a film where the good guy (Viggo Mortensen) fails pretty horribly. Also a great post-apocalyptic film.

Actually, a great deal of the events in the movie were mentioned in the book. I think even the 'Grimes' character did get shot at three times with RPGs and lived to tell the tale. No mention of coffee-making expertise though.

Obviously a great deal had to be cut from the novel to make the film, but the set piece battles, kinda straight out of the book. The one stupid mistake that comes to mind is Eversmann having to mark the building with a strobe. Didn't happen that way from what I recall. SEALs were also there, as well as Air Force PJs, but they were never shown in the movie. And Marines were there initially. And what the hell was the deal with Tom Sizemore's character strolling through gunfire? That was stupid.

 

[Belaam]

Repeating the 1984, Memento, Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, and Cabin in the Woods already mentioned, and adding.

Dr. Strangelove

Spoiler

I mean, everyone on earth dies

Idiocracy

Spoiler

The doom situation at the beginning was that the dumber people are having more kids... exactly the same situation as the end of the movie

The Road

Spoiler

Sure, the kid lives to the end of the movie/book, but it's not like he has any sort of future to look forward to

Frankenstein

Spoiler

Everyone's lives are ruined, and it's just a matter of time until the remaining people are either dead, or living out the rest of their lives with everything they cared about gone

 

[talker]

Van Ryan's Express, almost all of them got out but some where shot while escaping (and the Germans shot the wounded when they where caught again), and Van Ryan died in the final scene, just when he was about to escape over the border. sad, so sad.

 

[Murrdox]

Is it fair to mention "Grave of the Fireflies"? Probably the most horrible, sad movie of all time, in spite of the fact that it's animated?

 

[lee1287]

I Think it's called "Grave of the fireflies" Wow, that movie ending is just brutal. It's an animation aswell.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

You do realize that "good guy" is not synonymous with "protagonist," right?

 

[SideSmash]

Cabin in the Woods counts, right...?

 

[ProbabilityZero]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424205/

The protagonists are the low officers and soldiers who hate the war and it ends with the germans being shipped off to the Russian front with the general saying "maybe even you will find it difficult to humanise them" or something to that effect.

 

[Grottnikk]

*****OBVIOUSLY SPOILERS AHEAD*****


Episode 5. Bad guys win at every turn there, pretty much.

They Live. Kinda iffy here, because though the good guy dies, but he wins in the process.

The Manchurian Candidate. Another iffy one. Denzel can't completely overcome his conditioning, but he's able to add Meryl Streep to the body count.

Braveheart. Ouch

Hero(Jet Li). Iffy, he fails to kill the emperor and dies, but he kinda chooses that route himself.

Mystic River. They end up killing an innocent man. (At least innocent of the crime THEY think he committed)

Bubba Hotep. Both Elvis and JFK die, but the mummy is stopped, so kinda iffy.

Sin City. Lots of "good guys" die here, and none of the stories end "happily".

The Ring. Can't stop the girl in the well.

Night of the Living Dead. Boom, headshot

Basic Instinct. The "good guy" doesn't get the killer, instead he bangs her .

Things to do in Denver When You're Dead. Buck-fucking-wheats!

All's Quiet on the Western Front. Oldie but a goodie.

Resevoire Dogs. Pretty much everyone bites the dust in this one.

 

[Elemorea]

The Outer Limits tv series (the one from 1990s) would often end badly for the good guys. Very unnerving to watch as a child.

 

[Xaryn Mar]

I would say "Stalingrad" from 1993 fits the bill. It is about the battle of Stalingrad during WW2 as seen by some German soldier.

 

[darkcalling]

Falling Down

Ninja'd again! argh

But yes. More people should see this one. He really thinks he's the hero.

 

[Tumedus]

There are quite a bunch actually. Attempting to pull a few not already listed from multiple genres and avoiding horror (too easy):

The Departed
Donnie Darko
Braveheart
Moulin Rouge
Gladiator
300
Pan's Labrynth
Jacob's Ladder
American History X
Sommersby
The Notebook
Phenomenon
Carlito's Way
Scarface
Leon/the Professional
Matrix part 3
Armegeddon
The Prestige
Inception (depending on your view of the ending)
Saving Private Ryan
Road to Perdtion
I am Legend (all incarnations)
Titanic



And some more obscurely fail endings:

Green Mile

Spoiler

cursed so that he may never die

Blade Runner

Spoiler

bad guy saves him, implication is he's a replicant and may only live a short while

Shane

Spoiler

many agree he is dead/dying at the end

The Natural

Spoiler

metaphorical ending, most agree he died

 

[Signa]

I feel like I'm saying too much just by posting the title, but Arlington Road.

Seriously, if you haven't seen it, look it up.

 

[Breaker deGodot]

Well, not to spoil it, but I'd say that the James Bond film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" is an excellent example of this. Sure, Bond saves the world, but the bad guy gets away and does something utterly awful to Bond himself, so he ends up paying a hell of a price. I'd really recommend that one.

 

[Spiritmaster]

Operation Valkyrie I suppose. They didn't kill Hitler.

 

[Tom_green_day]

I didn't notice this but The Road features this I guess as the man dies? Oh and Wayne's World could possibly qualify as the original endings are always super-bad and then they're like 'oh wait we don't want to end the movie like this, let's do the scooby doo ending!' or something. Great films.

 

[The Hero Killer]

Surprised nobody mentioned Glory.

Spoiler

The 2 stars, Matthew Brodrick and Denzel Washington died at the beginning of the final battle and the rest of the platoon did a triumphant charge into a line of cannons and soldiers and got wiped out.

 

[Liham]

Infernal Affairs comes to mind, it's pretty good, also: beneath the planet of the apes which is terrible, but fun.