There are countless movies that hinge on an obsessively detailed master plot, whether it be the ultimate bank heist or a plan to make Chris Rock president. But sometimes the characters responsible for that plot throw caution to the wind for no apparent reason, endangering (or flat-out ruining) the plans they had so intricately laid and leaving the rest of us to wonder what the hell they were thinking about. It makes for great drama, but baffling logic.
#5. Inception -- Cobb Blows the Mission for No Reason
Inception is about international fugitive Dom Cobb (Leo DiCaprio) hacking into other people's dreams in order to steal and/or implant information, which the movie explains by finding hilarious ways for Cobb and his team to lie down and sleep next to their targets while connected to a forest of complicated electrodes and somehow still be incognito.
"Just having a nice sleep EKG, nothing strange here."
The movie focuses on Cobb's big final heist, wherein he and his operatives must reach the deepest level of a tycoon's subconscious and implant an idea. This is actually the least complicated part of the film.
Throughout the movie, the big problem lurking below the surface is that Cobb is haunted by the memories of his dead wife, Mal, which threatens to screw up the whole operation. To make sure this doesn't happen, much of the final plan is hidden from Cobb himself. So Ellen Page's character, Adriadne, knows a way into the mind fortress of the tycoon, but Cobb doesn't. It's for their own protection -- if Cobb knows, his memories of Mal will fuck everything up.
Phantom dream women, right?
The Scene:
Once Cobb and his Dream Bandits make it inside the tycoon's subconscious, they get intercepted by a bunch of dudes on snowmobiles trying to keep them out of the mountain bunker where the tycoon's innermost secrets are stored (because without question, this is how everyone's mind is organized). With everything going to hell, Cobb demands that Adriadne tell him the one thing he can't be allowed to know: the way into the complex. This exchange happens:
ARIADNE: I don't think I should tell you. If Mal finds out ...
COBB: We don't have time for this! Did he add anything?
ARIADNE: He added an air duct system that can cut through the maze.
COBB: Good. [points to her radio] Explain it to them.
COBB: We don't have time for this! Did he add anything?
ARIADNE: He added an air duct system that can cut through the maze.
COBB: Good. [points to her radio] Explain it to them.
"Don't explain anything to the audience, though. They like being kept in the dark."
The Problem:
First, Cobb silences her entirely justified objections by shout-screaming "There's no time for this!" Maybe you could justify this if, in fact, they were in a position where they had no way of succeeding unless Cobb knew. But then he doesn't even use that information. He immediately has her tell it to the other members of the team so they can do all that air-duct-scuttling bullshit while he watches through binoculars.
Predictably, Mal appears and shoots one of Cobb's team members, effectively ruining the mission (or at least making it a lot more difficult and confusing). Had Cobb not insisted that Ariadne tell him about the secret way into the base, Mal would never have shown up (because Mal is Cobb's evil subconscious, so she only knows what he knows). There wasn't even any reason to tell him about it, either -- Cobb could've just asked, "Hey, is there another way into the base? There is? Good, tell them about it while I plug my ears and sing 'Black Hole Sun' to myself for a minute."
Hemera Technologies/PhotoObjects.net"Black Hole Sun, dreams are dumb, dreams are duuuuuumb ..."
His "There's no time for this!" outburst is especially ridiculous because he's asking Ariadne to take an extra step explaining everything to him, making the whole thing take longer. She could've just relayed the information directly to the rest of the team in less time than it took to unnecessarily involve Cobb, and they would've avoided the "murderous wife ghost" factor in the process.
#4. Die Hard With a Vengeance -- Simon Gruber Involves the One Man He Knows Can Ruin His Plan
Die Hard pitted shoeless New York detective John McClane against bearded German murder-thief Hans Gruber. Hans had a delicately intricate plan to steal millions of dollars of bearer bonds and fake his own death via skyscraper explosion, but McClane foils it step by step before ultimately shooting Hans out of a window. Die Hard With a Vengeance continues the saga by throwing John McClane against Hans' younger brother, Simon, who is similarly engaged in an epic super-robbery. However, this time it's personal, and Simon goes out of his way to drag McClane into the plot so he can send him on pointless riddle-infused errands around New York City before ultimately killing him in some spectacularly hilarious fashion.
"Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the ... ah, shit, you've already killed me."
The Scene:
By using McClane to stage a citywide distraction, Simon is able to tie up the resources of the entire NYPD and literally steal a boatload of gold from the Federal Reserve Bank. In fact, his plan was so good that the FBI questioned the film's writers to see if they were actually planning to rob the joint, because the FBI evidently had very little to do in 1995.
"Bruce Willis wearing flannel represents a clear and present danger to our national security."
So, the robbery is obviously brilliant and very carefully orchestrated. Simon then meticulously covers his tracks by blowing up a decoy boat in the middle of the harbor, staging it to look like an international terrorist attack on the wealth of America by burying all of the gold at the bottom of the sea. Only the gold wasn't blown up -- it was on a different ship with Simon. He is a Gruber, after all. Disguising thievery as a terrorist explosion is pretty much what they do.
Jupiterimages/liquidlibrary/Getty Images"We're a German family. Compared to their grandparents, Hans and Simon are angels."
The Problem:
Does Simon's plan seem a little familiar? It should, because it is the exact same plan Hans had in the first film: steal a bunch of money, pretend to blow it up, escape with aforementioned money to Rum-and-Sex Island.
Now, what went wrong with Hans' plan?
And what does Simon deliberately introduce into his plan?
That's right -- Simon executes a slightly jazzier version of the same scheme his brother pulled, and then goes out of his way to bring in the exact same man who systematically dismantled that plan and made Simon an only child. This also happens to be the one man likely to recognize what's really going on. Because, you know, he was there the first time around.
We understand that Simon wants revenge for Hans, but why did both killing McClane and robbing the bank have to be done at the same time? Was Simon only in town for the weekend? Did he have a bus transfer ticket that was about to expire? He could've spread that agenda out over at least a year if he wanted to. Rob the bank, dye your hair and wait for your beard to grow in, then go back and kill McClane. Or do the killing first, whatever. You've got time, Simon.
As a wise man once said, buying a yacht full of prostitutes is the best revenge.
Instead, he mashes them both together, which to the surprise of absolutely no one results in McClane foiling the robbery and cheerfully executing Simon in public. We assume subsequent generations of Grubers will spend their formative years looking under their beds for John McClane.
On a similar note ...
#3. Aliens -- The Evil Corporation Hires Alien-Killing Ripley to Not Kill Their Aliens
We've previously discussed how ridiculous it was for Ripley to accept another job from Weyland-Yutani despite all of the bullshit they pulled on her in the first Alien (you know, what with them intentionally sending her down to a planet to get eaten by space monsters).
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, shame on the whole damn franchise."
But now look at it from the company's point of view. Why in the possible hell did they want to involve her a second time?
In Aliens, Ripley wakes up from hypersleep after half a century, and her bosses say they don't believe a goddamn word of her frenzied babbling about a murderous space creature. Moreover, the flight computer from her original ship (the one she set to self-destruct in the first film in an attempt to kill the alien) claims that she blew the whole thing up for no apparent reason. She spends her hearing with the Weyland-Yutani board members shouting and flinging papers around like a lunatic.
"How could you botch a suicide mission this badly?!"
The Scene:
In the very next scene, Weyland-Yutani sends Mad About You's Paul Reiser to convince Ripley to escort a team of marines down to one of their colonies, which they think may be overrun with the same aliens that they refused to acknowledge even existed in the previous scene. Ripley agrees to accompany the marines as an adviser, because she's having trouble adjusting to civilian life due in large part to the PTSD we mentioned earlier, and because marines apparently need advice on how to shoot monsters.
"We point the barrel at them? Sacred Dancing Moses, that's genius."
The Problem:
Let's go over what happened the last time Weyland-Yutani sent Ripley into outer space with a bunch of expensive equipment and an alien -- she blew everything up, all of it, and floated around in the stars for six decades.
Seriously, Ripley's personnel file must just be a list of things she has done in direct opposition to the Weyland-Yutani business model. Also, they already know she's crazy -- they spent an entire board meeting telling her so. But the moment they find out that their colonists may have come into contact with some aliens, they trip over themselves in their rush to put Ripley back on the payroll so she can oversee another operation involving billion-dollar equipment and nightmare space creatures. And guess what happens this time:
That's right -- the same fucking thing. Ripley's entire testimony (containing every piece of knowledge that would have been useful to the marines) was available in a written report, which the marine lieutenant specifically mentions as being available for the entire team to read. They already have everything she could possibly tell them safely written down in a folder that can't blow anything up. There is literally no reason to send her along on the mission, yet Weyland-Yutani does so anyway, presumably as an exercise to keep their insurance division on their toes.
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