Unrealistic movie tropes and plot holes

From the era of the 555 prefix convention all the way to the sheer absurdity surrounding firearms...

It's all just one big collection of tropes we've come to expect.

To start things off, here is a little copy-paste I found on a site:

Silencers on revolvers

Only an idiot would ever attempt to put a silencer on a revolver. Silencers are designed for semi-automatic pistols where the gases vent through the barrel; with a revolver, the gas escapes from the cylinder gap, which is essentially wide open.

The empty gun

We have all sat through those scenes where the protagonist—or more often the villain—presses a pistol against someone's head after a long, completely unnecessary monologue, only to pull the trigger and hear a hollow 'click,' revealing the gun was empty. It's another tired cliché. When a semi-auto runs dry, the slide locks back in that position. Furthermore, the firing mechanism locks up, so you wouldn't get a rhythmic clicking sound upon pulling the trigger. Anyone with half a brain can tell if an automatic is empty just by looking at it.

Super-precise snipers

Movie snipers always aim directly for the head, with their crosshairs perfectly centered on the target. Sure, you could do that, but only if the target is within 100 yards. A real sniper has to account for windage, distance, air pressure, and humidity. Under ideal conditions, a sniper will actually aim slightly above the target rather than directly at it. And one more thing: actual snipers aim for the torso, almost never the head.

Clouds of gunpowder smoke

This is the kind of mistake that creeps into the work of writers. The phrase 'the stench of cordite' shows up constantly in cheap crime novels, but cordite has nothing to do with modern ammunition. Cordite was a component of gunpowder used in the late 19th century and hasn't been relevant for ages.

Pump-action shotgun repetition

We’ve all seen this one. After dropping a gritty line like 'Go ahead, make my day,' the hero pumps the shotgun and kills the villain, the monster, the alien, Little Red Riding Hood, or whatever else is standing in their way. This implies only one thing: there wasn't a shell in the chamber. By pumping the shotgun, they are chambering a round; if the hero had pulled the trigger before that, absolutely nothing would have happened.

Side-shooting

If you ever find yourself holding a handgun, try shooting while holding it out to the side of your body. You’ll miss the target by two miles. It looks great on screen, but it bears zero resemblance to reality. There is a reason we hold a gun at eye level and in front of us—it's the only way to actually hit anything. Shooting from the hip gives you about the same chance of hitting something as a long shot at a casino. Slim.

Pressing against the wall

Police officers creep along, guns drawn, scraping their backs against the walls. It doesn't work that way. Real cops fire a few shots and then immediately seek substantial cover. After that comes the shouting and the intimidation to get criminals to surrender. Walls, especially in the US, aren't thick enough to stop a bullet, and bullets have a nasty habit of ricocheting off walls and floors.

Regarding the whole situation with those phone numbers starting with 555... that convention was actually established because moviegoers would frequently try to call the specific numbers they saw on screen 🙄

And there is one more thing regarding caliber:

"What kind of caliber is that?

A detective arrives at a crime scene, takes one look at the victim, and immediately declares, 'Looks like they were killed with a 9mm.' That’s just impossible. A gunshot wound fills with bodily fluids almost instantly, and the tissue surrounding the entry point swells, making it fundamentally impossible to determine the caliber without an autopsy. Even determining the diameter of a bullet hole on a hard surface, like wood, is incredibly difficult—let alone on a human body."

Just another bit of nonsense that grates on my nerves...
People don't bother locking their cars. Why that is, I haven't the slightest clue. 🤷

Furthermore...

Person A is talking on the phone with Person B... Person B hangs up... Person A can't handle the rejection and slams the receiver down, acting as if pressing a button could somehow change the outcome... 😕
I find myself wondering where this cinematic trope even originated.

This is such a fascinating topic... But then again, movies can pull off just about anything—dead people coming back to life, humans taking flight, good triumphing over evil every single time... That’s exactly why they’re entertaining. They provide an escape from our harsh reality. 😁
It’s just as plausible in cinema that movie snipers possess supernatural precision, or that detectives instantly identify the exact make and model of a gun used in a crime.
But let's be realistic here and start splitting hairs for a moment...
For instance, one thing that always catches my eye is how, whenever someone turns on the TV in a movie, it’s invariably the exact news report they were waiting for. And wouldn't you know it, that news is perfectly timed right from the jump; you never see a scene where someone walks in and says, "Well, damn, we missed the broadcast, so now we have no idea what actually happened."
There's another thing. Whether someone is calling from a smartphone, a landline, outer space, or even a payphone, the person on the other end always picks up immediately. It's as if their sole purpose in life is to sit there staring at their device, waiting for it to ring just so they can answer instantly. In the real world, when you call someone's cell, you have to wait a few seconds just to establish a connection before the ringing even starts.

goldenhound32 said:From the era of the 555 prefix convention all the way to the sheer absurdity surrounding firearms...

It's all just one big collection of tropes we've come to expect.

To start things off, here is a little copy-paste I found on a site:

Silencers on revolvers

Only an idiot would ever attempt to put a silencer on a revolver. Silencers are designed for semi-automatic pistols where the gases vent through the barrel; with a revolver, the gas escapes from the cylinder gap, which is essentially wide open.

The empty gun

We have all sat through those scenes where the protagonist—or more often the villain—presses a pistol against someone's head after a long, completely unnecessary monologue, only to pull the trigger and hear a hollow 'click,' revealing the gun was empty. It's another tired cliché. When a semi-auto runs dry, the slide locks back in that position. Furthermore, the firing mechanism locks up, so you wouldn't get a rhythmic clicking sound upon pulling the trigger. Anyone with half a brain can tell if an automatic is empty just by looking at it.

Super-precise snipers

Movie snipers always aim directly for the head, with their crosshairs perfectly centered on the target. Sure, you could do that, but only if the target is within 100 yards. A real sniper has to account for windage, distance, air pressure, and humidity. Under ideal conditions, a sniper will actually aim slightly above the target rather than directly at it. And one more thing: actual snipers aim for the torso, almost never the head.

Clouds of gunpowder smoke

This is the kind of mistake that creeps into the work of writers. The phrase 'the stench of cordite' shows up constantly in cheap crime novels, but cordite has nothing to do with modern ammunition. Cordite was a component of gunpowder used in the late 19th century and hasn't been relevant for ages.

Pump-action shotgun repetition

We’ve all seen this one. After dropping a gritty line like 'Go ahead, make my day,' the hero pumps the shotgun and kills the villain, the monster, the alien, Little Red Riding Hood, or whatever else is standing in their way. This implies only one thing: there wasn't a shell in the chamber. By pumping the shotgun, they are chambering a round; if the hero had pulled the trigger before that, absolutely nothing would have happened.

Side-shooting

If you ever find yourself holding a handgun, try shooting while holding it out to the side of your body. You’ll miss the target by two miles. It looks great on screen, but it bears zero resemblance to reality. There is a reason we hold a gun at eye level and in front of us—it's the only way to actually hit anything. Shooting from the hip gives you about the same chance of hitting something as a long shot at a casino. Slim.

Pressing against the wall

Police officers creep along, guns drawn, scraping their backs against the walls. It doesn't work that way. Real cops fire a few shots and then immediately seek substantial cover. After that comes the shouting and the intimidation to get criminals to surrender. Walls, especially in the US, aren't thick enough to stop a bullet, and bullets have a nasty habit of ricocheting off walls and floors.

Why is this unrealistic? I don't know much about firearms, but according to this logic, the hero didn't even miss.🤷

It really depends on what kind of movies we're talking about. Personally, those logic gaps haven't bothered me much because I've noticed they mostly happen in the same types of flicks—the ones made purely for entertainment. Honestly, most of these "mistakes" just make me laugh rather than making me cringe... like, how could it possibly be any more realistic?

Dennis Doyle3 As specified by:
Why exactly is this considered unrealistic? I’ll be the first to admit that I don't know the first thing about firearms, but based on what I've seen here, it seems like the protagonist didn't actually commit a mistake.🤷

Why are you taking things out of context?
If that were actually realistic, he would have spent his entire career repeating the same tired clichés, only to turn around and punch the villain in the face the moment they appeared on screen.

Jerry Martin19 said:It really depends on what kind of movies we're talking about. Personally, those logic gaps haven't bothered me much because I've noticed they mostly happen in the same types of flicks—the ones made purely for entertainment. Honestly, most of these "mistakes" just make me laugh rather than making me cringe... like, how could it possibly be any more realistic?

Even in high-quality cinema, you find stuff like that.

It’s not that I’m outraged, but if you're asking if I enjoy it, the answer is a resounding no.

Furthermore...

A character walks up to someone's house, rings the doorbell, and within five seconds, the person is opening the door as if they were standing right at the entrance waiting for them. It's very similar to that instant phone response issue someone else mentioned earlier.

but seriously... if there’s nothing in the chamber before he practices, and then he goes through the motions and shoots whatever happens to be in his way, where's the mistake?

Jerry Martin19 said:but seriously... if there’s nothing in the chamber before he practices, and then he goes through the motions and shoots whatever happens to be in his way, where's the mistake?

The error lies in the timing. Suppose you’re chasing someone armed with a shotgun, sprinting after them. They hit a dead end, which means they have to face you. It would be far better for you if you had already cycled the slide; otherwise, you might not get the shot off in time. In those moments, seconds are the difference between life and death—just ask Janica Kostelic.🙂

goldenhound32 said:

Dennis Doyle3 As specified by:
Why exactly is this considered unrealistic? I’ll be the first to admit that I don't know the first thing about firearms, but based on what I've seen here, it seems like the protagonist didn't actually commit a mistake.🤷

Why are you taking things out of context?
If that were actually realistic, he would have spent his entire career repeating the same tired clichés, only to turn around and punch the villain in the face the moment they appeared on screen.

What do you mean, "realistic"?

goldenhound32 said:Even in high-quality cinema, you find stuff like that.

It’s not that I’m outraged, but if you're asking if I enjoy it, the answer is a resounding no.

Furthermore...

A character walks up to someone's house, rings the doorbell, and within five seconds, the person is opening the door as if they were standing right at the entrance waiting for them. It's very similar to that instant phone response issue someone else mentioned earlier.

I used to get hung up on those mistakes too. Eventually, I realized I was watching movies way too shallowly back then because I was constantly "hunting" for errors instead of actually following the plot or the point. A massive error for me is a script hole—like when a character suddenly knows something they shouldn't. Everything I just listed is just minor stuff...

furthermore...

A guy shows up at someone's house, rings the bell, and the door opens in five seconds flat, like he was standing right there. It's basically that instant phone answer thing someone already mentioned.

You know how movies can just skip over the boring parts, like a character waiting around after making a phone call?
🙂
Did you notice how Fox Mulder and Dana Scully sometimes zip through a couple of cities in just 42 or 43 minutes before they crack a case?
😁

goldenhound32 said:The error lies in the timing. Suppose you’re chasing someone armed with a shotgun, sprinting after them. They hit a dead end, which means they have to face you. It would be far better for you if you had already cycled the slide; otherwise, you might not get the shot off in time. In those moments, seconds are the difference between life and death—just ask Janica Kostelic.🙂

If you’re lugging a damn shotgun while chasing someone and you corner them in an alley, isn't the unarmed guy running for his life actually more dangerous than you? You can just reload in a second and blast him ten times before he even reaches you... 🙂

Great, suddenly I have the urge to be an unarmed fugitive (😎)

Especially if you're some kind of badass motherfucker (:Clint🙂 style. Wouldn't it be way cooler to unload that shotgun with your right hand while holding a kid you just caught falling from the 7th floor in your left? Just drop a tough line in his face and splatter his brains all over the wet pavement... 😎

Of course they do. These kinds of movies don't try to mirror reality; they build their own. If you're chasing some fugitive, it’s totally logical that something goes sideways with your gun—if it didn't, it wouldn't feel like a movie. That last action flick might be a bit dumb, but it actually does a decent job explaining why movies are packed with so many clichés and logic gaps.
Sometimes it bugs me, sometimes it doesn't—I don't mind it at all in action flicks, but in realistic dramas, it definitely hits differently.

By the way, I bet maybe 1% of gunshot wounds in movies are actually realistic. If someone shoots you in the head from six inches away, half your skull should be gone, but in movies, it’s usually just a tiny little hole. Remember the kid's head in In the Bedroom? Now *that* was a real wound.

"The 555 prefix convention started when phone companies began nudging TV and movie producers to use those specific numbers back in the day. You can see one of the earliest examples in Panic in Year Zero! (1962) with 555-2106. Back in the 50s and 60s, shows would use stuff like 'Klondike 5' because phone exchanges used letters and numbers. Modern media conventions still lean on this style too. For example, Dr. Emmett Brown's phone number in Back to the Future is 'Klondike 5-4385'."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_(telephone_number)

There are at least two or three different levels being conflated here.

1. Technical impossibility due to the very nature of reality. Most of the examples in the first post are well-supported, but what about confirmed "miracles"? There was a hero from Appalachia back in the 1930s who supposedly pulled a locomotive with his teeth; during WWII, two or three American soldiers, fueled by pure panic, actually flipped a military truck 180 degrees because they ran into Germans and were being kidnapped.
Even more sophisticated works scream about this—novels by Honoré de Balzac, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Stendhal are riddled with technical impossibilities. For example, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once pointed out that in a certain Fitzgerald novel, it would be impossible for a narrator sitting in a bar to see an entire person entering the room; at most, they’d see them up to the waist.

It's poetic license, even when those instances fall flat.

2. The second issue is the low or non-existent probability of small details—like the 555 prefix. But I maintain that this argument doesn't hold water. Life is full of incredible coincidences and things that "shouldn't happen." For instance, two of my classmates from high school died on the exact same day. They had different illnesses, nothing to do with one another, and they were far too young to be dying, let's put it that way. One funeral was at 11:00 AM, the other at noon. They sat bench to bench.

So, what exactly makes something believable or not?

3. The third point is more important to me: the sheer improbability and lack of realism in how environments are portrayed. If we compare The Sopranos to godfather 1,2, The Sopranos show us somewhat realistic mobsters, whereas The Godfather is an idealization. Then there is the general lie found in clichés—in war movies, all Germans are either villains, idiots, or die in wagons. Or take the average American TV show—everyone is a supermodel, yet when you take a documentary camera out onto the street, everyone is overweight or unattractive.

I find it pretty interesting to look through the goofs on IMDb for any movie.
Take Titanic 🙂

Jerry Martin19 said:If you’re lugging a damn shotgun while chasing someone and you corner them in an alley, isn't the unarmed guy running for his life actually more dangerous than you? You can just reload in a second and blast him ten times before he even reaches you... 🙂

Great, suddenly I have the urge to be an unarmed fugitive (😎)

Especially if you're some kind of badass motherfucker (:Clint🙂 style. Wouldn't it be way cooler to unload that shotgun with your right hand while holding a kid you just caught falling from the 7th floor in your left? Just drop a tough line in his face and splatter his brains all over the wet pavement... 😎

You clearly aren't reading closely enough. I specifically wrote 'armed.'

Jerry Martin19 said:I used to get hung up on those mistakes too. Eventually, I realized I was watching movies way too shallowly back then because I was constantly "hunting" for errors instead of actually following the plot or the point. A massive error for me is a script hole—like when a character suddenly knows something they shouldn't. Everything I just listed is just minor stuff...

furthermore...

A guy shows up at someone's house, rings the bell, and the door opens in five seconds flat, like he was standing right there. It's basically that instant phone answer thing someone already mentioned.

You know how movies can just skip over the boring parts, like a character waiting around after making a phone call?
🙂
Did you notice how Fox Mulder and Dana Scully sometimes zip through a couple of cities in just 42 or 43 minutes before they crack a case?
😁

Of course a glaring script error bothers me more than an unlocked car. But that doesn't mean I should just overlook the car. Every detail in a film matters to me.

You realize you can just skip over the filler scenes, right? Like when a character is just sitting around waiting for someone else after a phone call? 🙂

Have you noticed how Fox Mulder and Dana Scully sometimes zip through several cities in just a few minutes while trying to crack a case? 😁

Those two aren't the same thing. You don't see Scully eating or using the restroom, but a scene involving a phone call is vital—even if it's brief—and therefore needs to happen in real time.

Emily Thomas3 said:Of course they do. These kinds of movies don't try to mirror reality; they build their own. If you're chasing some fugitive, it’s totally logical that something goes sideways with your gun—if it didn't, it wouldn't feel like a movie. That last action flick might be a bit dumb, but it actually does a decent job explaining why movies are packed with so many clichés and logic gaps.
Sometimes it bugs me, sometimes it doesn't—I don't mind it at all in action flicks, but in realistic dramas, it definitely hits differently.

By the way, I bet maybe 1% of gunshot wounds in movies are actually realistic. If someone shoots you in the head from six inches away, half your skull should be gone, but in movies, it’s usually just a tiny little hole. Remember the kid's head in In the Bedroom? Now *that* was a real wound.

"The 555 prefix convention started when phone companies began nudging TV and movie producers to use those specific numbers back in the day. You can see one of the earliest examples in Panic in Year Zero! (1962) with 555-2106. Back in the 50s and 60s, shows would use stuff like 'Klondike 5' because phone exchanges used letters and numbers. Modern media conventions still lean on this style too. For example, Dr. Emmett Brown's phone number in Back to the Future is 'Klondike 5-4385'."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_(telephone_number)

Hmm, I had always assumed that caliber played a significant role in that equation.
If you are insisting that the outcome remains the same regardless of the caliber used, do you happen to have any actual evidence or perhaps a link to back that up?