What do you think of the hero wimping out in a lot of thrillers? (MOVIE SPOILERS)

A lot of times a suspense thriller will get really good until the climax when the hero decides to completely chicken out in the end, often illogically even, and it takes me out of the suspense. It's hard to judge those types of movies cause you don't know if a downer of a climax should ruin an excellent rest of the movie beforehand. Here's a good example from Lakeview Terrace:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dvy34R0abs0

As you can see the good guy had several chances to shoot the villain, but every second he wasted resulted in him and his wife nearly being shot to death, more than once. So you wonder, 'why didn't you just shoot him, you idiot!'

A lot of movies do this. Die Hard did it near the beginning, where McClane has a gun pointed at the side of thugs head. The bad guy refuses to put down the gun, and instead of shooting, McClane decides to hit him and wrestler a machine gun out of his hand, heavily risking his own life. Since he had no back up, or handcuffs, what did he expect to do with the bad guy anyway? In Die Hard, at least he learned earlier on in the movie though, but a
lot of thrillers, will save the chickening out for the ending, of all places, such as the example.

Does this bother anyone in serious thrillers, that are really good in other ways, or not really? For me, it makes a lot of them hard to judge, compared to other genres.
 
Typically a good person won't kill another person in cold blood. John wouldn't have simply shot the guy if he didn't have to. Plus.. wasn't he a cop?
 
They are explanations for reasons why the protagonist would not kill the antagonist, if you follow the movie and understand it.
 
If a cop is shooting at your innocent wife as she is driving away for her own safety though, does it count as cold blood to shoot him in order to save her? And so what if he's a cop? He's a cop trying to murder you and your innocent wife, so worry about save your own lives first, and worry about that later. This happens in a lot of movies.
 
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It all depends on the character development and what's been built up as an expectation for the viewer.

In writing having the hero have a moral dilemma is often a good thing and shows the characters true values and/or growth.

But in direct answer to your question: At the end, the general rule of thumb is no. Most successful stories you see are about a protagonist growing up into a hero instead of a hero growing into an every day normal whimpy human.

However... it does depend on your objectives in what you're making. As an independent you need to consider this: Independents usually don't have a budget to promote so word of mouth is so important. Is your story that well crafted to let you break tradition and audience expectations and still benefit from word of mouth?

Writers really need to be careful in how a story is crafted so they don't lose the audience from relating with the protagonist/main characters. It takes a lot of talent from the writer and/or actor for an audience to bond with a villain or continue to bond with the hero after they do actions that normally only a villain would do.
 
Movies - most especially bang-bang-shoot-em-ups - are not driven by logic, they are driven by the action. What happens after McClane doesn't shoot? Why, more action, of course!!!

I mean, c'mon, how many of any of those types of movies are anything close to reality? They have nothing to do with reality, they are entertainment, pure and simple. That may not be your cup of tea, but obviously it appeals to millions, and makes millions, which is why there is a fifth "Die Hard" installment coming out soon.

"We suspend our disbelief, and we are entertained."
 
Yes, that is true... however, is it wise to do this at the climax of a movie with the risk of leaving the audience unsatisfied?
 
That's true about Die Hard. Movies like Lakeview Terrace though are all about build up and drama, so you think by the end, it is more acceptable than Die Hard to do that. But that's just what I think about slow build up suspense thrillers.
 
The Lakeview Terrace example seemed to be relatively unjustified tension. It wasn't awful, but it certainly felt like I wanted to tell the main character not to be an idiot. Die Hard I completely disagree with you on, though. Detective McClane was a police officer, his first instinct isn't going to be wanton murder. That's why the self-imposed restriction was at the beginning. Afterwards things began to escalate, as any good movie should.

Tension's a tough tightrope to walk. You need to introduce an element of opposition, and make that opposition or danger real and present, but you can't resolve it. The difficulty comes in in avoiding the resolution in a way that feels real and human.
 
Okay, wait...

You're complaining about the hero not pulling the trigger? You're complaining that they won't just finish what they're supposed to do?

:weird:
 
Yeah... Is that bad? It's okay if the writers intended it, but it creates a character flaw, or character weakness sometimes that comes off as overlooked. Is the hero suppose to be hesitant and/or foolish in the moment of truth, or are the writers making him or her, that way without even realizing it sometimes?
 
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