There are plenty of these tropes—and not just in American detective stories and action movies. Productions sometimes display staggering idiocy too—but I’ve picked out five that simply make me laugh.

1. The hero is a loser who’s been fired or demoted. His wife has left him. He’s drinking himself to death. He’s a psychopath. A total piece of work. Yet, we’re shown this pathetic specimen suddenly pulling off twenty-six heroic feats in a row, taking out every single villain. It seems the screenwriters are drinking themselves to death, too.

2. The hero invariably keeps a stash of newspaper clippings in a special drawer. Close-ups of the headlines: «Horrific Murder in the Bronx,» «Mysterious Disappearance,» «God Knows What Happened, But Let’s Make the Audience Worry.» He holds onto these clippings and hauls them around his whole life; he has absolutely no other treasures.

3. The hero learns the most important information from the TV. He walks into a bar to down a whiskey with his last few bucks, and behold!—the TV announces the very news the plot hinges on. The news anchor might as well be looking right at the hero and saying, «Oh, you made it? Here’s a news item just for you!» All the other characters—the bad guys included—find everything out from the TV too, like the fact that they’re wanted by the police and need to get out of town. It’s nothing but television.

4. The hero suddenly discovers he has a long-lost child or an elderly father—someone he hasn’t spoken to in years. The dad is handy for the finale, of course: the hero gives him a hug and realizes the value of family. And the kid is a total gem, because he’s convenient for the bad guy to take hostage (having obviously learned the address from TV)—allowing the hero not only to realize the value of family but also to articulate it to the child: «I’ve wronged your mother, your grandmother, and your dog; and I’m also guilty of spouting all this crap instead of just putting a bullet in the screenwriter.»

5. A mini psychoanalysis session. It invariably features the line: «You know what your problem is?» Usually, the bad guy delivers this while the good guy is bleeding out with a gun pointed at his face. The bad guy then identifies the problem—typically some utter nonsense like «You love your job too much, John»—but the scene simply wouldn't work without that «problem.» I feel the problem should be something like: «You kept those newspaper clippings too carefully, John.» That alone should be enough for the hero to pull himself together and kill the bad guy, avenging the desecrated newspaper clippings.

I gave Scary Movie 6 a shot. Lasted about 15 minutes before I had to kill it. It’s just pure, cringe garbage.

At first, I wondered if I was just getting old—you know, the «old man yelling at clouds» thing. But then I realized I still go back and watch the first four movies all the time. The difference is simple: the old Scary Movie films were built on actual, decent movies.

Back then, the films they were parodying were actually iconic. They were movies people were watching, quoting, and obsessing over. When the source material is good, the satire works because you recognize what they’re making fun of.

But that formula only works if the movies coming out today are worth watching. Since about 2010, the «blockbusters» have been pretty much «swing and a miss», and a lot of them just feel like soulless, corporate woke garbage. If the movie you’re trying to make fun of is already boring or unwatchable, the parody is going to be even worse.

The Scary Movie franchise didn’t lose its touch because the comedy changed; it lost its touch because the movies it’s supposed to be mocking stopped being entertaining. You can’t make good satire out of shit content.

I mean, what the fuck is this annoying, ugly shit??? Maybe you have to be a 𝕏 junkie to know this waste.

1. Shoot at the gas tank of the car and it will explode, turning into a huge fireball. Although, if you shoot from a rocket launcher, then yes.

2. Enter several commands into the computer and magically hack extremely complex systems.

3. Living in a huge apartment in Manhattan, while you work as a bicycle courier, and your roommate works in a coffee shop. And you don't deny yourself anything.

4. 100 bad guys against a hero. The bad guys are coming at him one at a time. Always.

5. The villain is wasting his time instead of killing the main character right now.

6. Knock down the lock with a pistol. Unless it's made of very cheap non-hardened steel, a bullet hit will simply deform it from the inside, and it won't be able to be opened with a key.

7. A random person without any prior training, etc. is selected to perform a special task, which he subsequently successfully copes with.

8. The hawk makes noises every time it is shown.

9. Shooting a gun in a car or small enclosed space, and no one will get long-term hearing damage. Guns, especially pistols, are very loud, and when the sound bounces off walls or objects, it is greatly amplified.

10. You turn on the fire alarm, and the sprinklers start pouring water. Also, the water inside these sprinklers is disgusting.

11. A policeman staged a 30-minute violent shootout in the city center, which killed 7 suspects, blew up 5 cars and destroyed two buildings. The only consequence? The captain is very, very angry!!! «If this happens again, I'll take your badge!»

12. Turning on the news exactly at the moment when the corresponding part of the story is going on.

13. Women with perfect makeup, regardless of whether they cross the Amazon River, wake up after a stormy night, or stay in a cell for several weeks.

14. When I chase someone in a car and he walks, he usually doesn't run in the middle of the road like in the movies.

15. Parking is available in front of the building the character is supposed to enter. This. Never. Not. Happens. Never.

16. Sometimes, very rarely, women lie because they are sick, not just because they are pregnant.

17. The absence of significant paperwork typical of any police action movie.

18. You walk into a bar and say, «I'll have a beer.» And the bartender just pours you a beer without asking what brand you want.

19. Someone dies, they resuscitate him with a defibrillator, and after that he feels great, even without going to the doctor for an examination.

20. Fired 20 times from a revolver without reloading.

Obnoxious movies Every movie is a fucking sexy model superhero with unreal abilities and what not. Whenever someone needs to be saved, it's a model looking woman. Or a lonely looking guy, somehow gets million bucks and walks in to the sunset with model. Never there was a hero movie, where a guy said — «You know what? No body is going to stop me, from saving MY FAT FUCKING UGLY BITCH WIFE!».

Unless it's a comedy.

Have you ever wondered why teenage mutant ninja turtles wear masks over their eyes? It's just that there's no point in hiding your face if you're a big green turtle with nunchucks standing on two legs. It's unlikely that anyone will look at you and say, «Oh, that's either Donatello, or my classmate.» I hate all these superhero movies because they're always based on the same script. For example, have you noticed that a superhero and a supervillain appear in the same city? There is no such thing as a superhero appearing in New York, and a supervillain in Tolyatti. And they're just talk on a phone for half a movie.

They call up: «They don't give me a visa, bitch, send me an invitation.»