What Are Some Good Movies Where The GOOD GUY Fails?*
- Thread starter Tanis
- Start date
Does The Devil's Rejects count? I mean, the cop trying to stop the Firefly family went off the rocker and Tiny killed him.
There was a sci-fi show I remember watch as a kid (80s) called Blake's 7. It was set in the future about a bunch of rogues/smugglers taking on the evil federation.
In the final episode the federation catches up with the rebels, shoots the lot of them and in the final scene they line up the main character (Blake) in front of a firing squad and shoot him.
Kind of an old one, but Chinatown. Holy fuck, Chinatown.
Also, Godard isn't for everyone, but Breathless and My Life to Life are pretty big downers as well.
Edit: And if anime is your thing, anything by Niitsu Makoto (though it's kinda only "downer" by Western standards... his films bleed "mono no aware," a sort of wistfulness or soft sadness toward the impermanence of things, recognizing that loss can be depressing but also beautiful.) Voices of a Distant Star, The Place Promised in Our Early Days, and 5 Centimeters Per Second. All three are great; if I had to pick a fave, prolly the third one.
Edit2: Aaaand for a literal "fails to stop the nuke," Dr. Strangelove! One of the most hilarious movies I've ever seen.
Also, Godard isn't for everyone, but Breathless and My Life to Life are pretty big downers as well.
Edit: And if anime is your thing, anything by Niitsu Makoto (though it's kinda only "downer" by Western standards... his films bleed "mono no aware," a sort of wistfulness or soft sadness toward the impermanence of things, recognizing that loss can be depressing but also beautiful.) Voices of a Distant Star, The Place Promised in Our Early Days, and 5 Centimeters Per Second. All three are great; if I had to pick a fave, prolly the third one.
Edit2: Aaaand for a literal "fails to stop the nuke," Dr. Strangelove! One of the most hilarious movies I've ever seen.
Seven
The good guy most certainly fails there, and how, and the bad guy wins.
Also, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Fly.
The good guy most certainly fails there, and how, and the bad guy wins.
Also, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Fly.
the original ending to Dodgeball had this. when test audiences complained they put in a deus ex machina (literally called the deus ex machina lottery) to satisfy the plebs
****Spoilers ahead. Don't read this if you don't want to be spoiled****
Aside from the ones everyone else posted, here's a couple:
On The Beach - Based off the book of the same name, it's set in Southern Australia after the world is ravaged by nuclear explosions. The fallout is washing over Northern Australia and is moving further down. The story accounts the lives of the people knowing full well these are their final moments, and that they will die.
Right At Your Door - This is another nuclear movie. Set in Los Angeles, a dirty bomb is set off and a man tries to get his wife. Unfortunately the cops stop him and he is forced to return home, only hoping his wife wasn't in the blast. He ends up barracading his entire home. Unfortunately for our protagonist, it turns out by barracading his home so well, and unfortunately having left a hole in that let the toxic air in but not out, he in essence irradiated himself beyond repair. Gov't comes in and induces a heart attack on him, as he's too contaminated to be let out. It's kind of stupid, but kind of awesome.
Rampage - Probably the only semi-decent Uwe Boll movie. This is about a kid who goes on a rampage in his town, killing many people. He ends up framing his best friend for the crimes and makes it look like his friend committed suicide. Technically the protagonist lives, the guy on the rampage, but seeing as he's also the antagonist of the film/the most evil, evil has won in the case of this film.
Twelve Monkeys - Movie about time travel. Bruce Willis is a convict sent back in time as part of a deal to earn his freedom. The job is to figure out how to stop a viral outbreak that caused the earth's population to be forced underground to survive. Willis finds the source of the outbreak, but just as he's about to kill the man, he is fatally shot. At the same time, a younger version of him watches his future self die.
Buried - Ryan Reynolds plays a man locked in a coffin, buried six feet under. He manages to get contact to the outside and the cops listen to the man who buried Reynolds to find his location. By the end of the movie, the cops find a coffin...Without Reynolds in it. They realize they'll never be able to get to him in time, and he's last seen screaming as dirt caves in on the coffin, burying Reynolds alive.
Knowing - Nicolas Cage finds a bizarre piece of paper written with random numbers. He find out these correspond to previous and upcoming dates. Cage deciphers these events, but is always too late. By the end of the movie, it turns out a massive solar flare is going to hit the Earth, killing everyone. Cage spends his last minutes with his family, waiting for the end.
Aside from the ones everyone else posted, here's a couple:
On The Beach - Based off the book of the same name, it's set in Southern Australia after the world is ravaged by nuclear explosions. The fallout is washing over Northern Australia and is moving further down. The story accounts the lives of the people knowing full well these are their final moments, and that they will die.
Right At Your Door - This is another nuclear movie. Set in Los Angeles, a dirty bomb is set off and a man tries to get his wife. Unfortunately the cops stop him and he is forced to return home, only hoping his wife wasn't in the blast. He ends up barracading his entire home. Unfortunately for our protagonist, it turns out by barracading his home so well, and unfortunately having left a hole in that let the toxic air in but not out, he in essence irradiated himself beyond repair. Gov't comes in and induces a heart attack on him, as he's too contaminated to be let out. It's kind of stupid, but kind of awesome.
Rampage - Probably the only semi-decent Uwe Boll movie. This is about a kid who goes on a rampage in his town, killing many people. He ends up framing his best friend for the crimes and makes it look like his friend committed suicide. Technically the protagonist lives, the guy on the rampage, but seeing as he's also the antagonist of the film/the most evil, evil has won in the case of this film.
Twelve Monkeys - Movie about time travel. Bruce Willis is a convict sent back in time as part of a deal to earn his freedom. The job is to figure out how to stop a viral outbreak that caused the earth's population to be forced underground to survive. Willis finds the source of the outbreak, but just as he's about to kill the man, he is fatally shot. At the same time, a younger version of him watches his future self die.
Buried - Ryan Reynolds plays a man locked in a coffin, buried six feet under. He manages to get contact to the outside and the cops listen to the man who buried Reynolds to find his location. By the end of the movie, the cops find a coffin...Without Reynolds in it. They realize they'll never be able to get to him in time, and he's last seen screaming as dirt caves in on the coffin, burying Reynolds alive.
Knowing - Nicolas Cage finds a bizarre piece of paper written with random numbers. He find out these correspond to previous and upcoming dates. Cage deciphers these events, but is always too late. By the end of the movie, it turns out a massive solar flare is going to hit the Earth, killing everyone. Cage spends his last minutes with his family, waiting for the end.
...has a pretty famous downer ending.
Generally speaking, every crime film made from the '30s into the late '60s that focused on the criminal/s (i.e. as a protagonist, and because the audience might root for the guy, the "good guy") could be considered to have a downer ending, since it was Hollywood's policy to show that crime never paid. It was bound by the Hays Code to either kill every criminal or send him to jail by the end of the movie, hence Bonnie and Clyde were doomed by the production code (and historical accuracy, fair enough) from the get-go.
Funny Games - the "good guys" mom, dad and son are killed by home invaders.
Unthinkable - depending on the cut you're watching, either the heroes deactivate every nuclear bomb or miss one. That's just ridiculous.
