Recently, u/fudgiethequail asked r/moviecritic, “What’s the most unrealistic portrayal of a profession in a movie?” And we thought we’d share some of the best responses:
1.
“Significantly less than 1% of the work that lawyers do is the actual work done in court, and in civil cases, there are virtually never surprises. You have almost certainly violated a discovery rule, lied in a deposition, or failed to fully answer a discovery request if something surprising happens in a civil trial.”
2.
“I don’t think James Bond represents MI6 at all.”
3.
“Airport security officers in Carry-On – they seem to run the whole search lane single handed and wander off whenever they feel like it.”
4.
“Indiana Jones – I’ve been doing amateur archaeology for a few years now and I’ve never got to explore a temple full of death traps.”
5.
“Ductwork in any movie/tv show where anyone crawls around inside it. I’ve been a sheet metal worker for 28 years and laugh at the lack of screws, sealers, dampers, etc that a HVAC system would have. Sorry Die Hard.”
6.
“Any time I see a journalist in a major city with a super-swank high-rise apartment, I cringe.”
7.
“No one who works IT in movies ever uses a mouse. They just dramatically type on keyboards while green text flies across the screen.”
8.
“Chef with Jon Favreau. A chef in Los Angeles who speaks no Spanish and even has a Cuban ex-wife.”
9.
“Every movie about a teacher has like eight kids per class and they seem to be free to wander the building whenever they want.”
10.
“Whenever they use defibrillators on people without a pulse.”
11.
“The Thomas Crown Affair. The main curator of the gallery mistook watercolours for an oil painting. I haven’t stopped being mad about this.”
12.
“Military personnel in pretty much any movie where the military isn’t the primary focus. Like in Transformers, you’ll have really young people in senior level positions and ranks, and older people in lower ranks. You’ll have someone gain three ranks for taking part in an important operation, whereas in the real world it takes years before you’re considered for it.”
13.
“Hackers. No, they do not type away at ferocious speeds and crack a system’s security in under a minute: it can take hours or days.
14.
“Archers. They were not lithe men with small arms – chances are they had the largest arms and shoulders in the military on average. They also couldn’t hold a bow at full draw for ages like we see in film/TV stand offs: two to three seconds and it gets too painful to hold.”
When else have you seen a profession misrepresented in film? Let us know in the comments below!
