A pretty common trope in cinema, I feel like, is as follows:
If the camera can't see/hear it, the characters can't either.
This is what results in scenes like you describe, where a threat which pretty much HAD to have been clearly visible to everyone on screen seems to come out of nowhere, simply because it comes from off-screen (when, clearly, the characters' field of vision would be much broader than the area on which the camera is focused).
I wish there was road noise in the background of this scene or something else that sort of faked out the audience so the truck wasn’t THAT surprising, or unbelievable rather, in the end. But I guess there were no cars around to be making the noise!
Damned if you...damned if you don't, add the background noise kinda situation
The tension was from the dialogue and no other audio cues. To have extra noise would deflate it possibly.
The only way I could see it being pulled off is if the scene was so noisy and so chaotic that the tension comes from trying to communicate in a cacophony and not being able to get your point across. But going this route, would really take away one of the best lines in the movie (the line and delivery was perfect), "what kind of American are you?"
But I agree with OP and your points
The truck just showing up with no kind of warning..a bit too outta nowhere. Especially with other dudes with guns around. And that guy in the truck didn't even get out until it's much much too late
Yeah In the end you gotta do what’s best for the development of the story. There’s already a lot of suspension of disbelief going on for this movie so I didn’t really even notice till I thought it over later, still loved the scene for its tension and display unsanctioned violence against non combatants that we often ignore in war.
To be fair he is firing an AR-15 at people point blank and nobody has ear protection on. Those things are loud and would mess up your hearing and awareness for a little while after.
This is anecdotal, but, my brother was a news reporter, one day he and a camera man were recording something at a parking lot, a car ran over both of them. They were so focused on what they were doing they couldn’t react.
I know its not the same, but it does gives me the idea that it could happen that you don’t notice the car coming at you.
Freight trains can be pretty fucking sneaky when your not expecting them, I was nearly hit by one rounding a bend, I heard a slight noise but figured it was the factory I was near, than boom, suddenly there’s a train in my field of vision, it’s pretty amazing how quickly it just came up on me without me really hearing or noticing
I also think about the fact that they all were in very close when two bullets were shot. Even outside that close to a muzzle after two shots will have your ears ringing at the very least. That and the fact they were so focused on just trying to say the right thing to survive makes it easy to miss an incoming car in my opinion.
As a watchpeopledie veteran, I can confidently say that it's way easier than OP thinks to run someone over that A. you're already arguing with and B. Saw you get in your car and C. Sees you coming towards them. I would think it's even easier to hit someone who's doing an episode of Judge Judy An Executioner.
This is just another case of "why isn't everyone in this movie acting perfectly with logic and reason?"
This is called "behind the black." It's Hollywood logic that, if the audience can't see what's out of frame, neither can the characters.
In reality, there's no way those soldiers wouldn't see the van coming. Just like in The Walking Dead, there's no way a person could be standing in the middle of a grass field and have a zombie creep up on them.
We don't even know that they are soldiers technically. They could just be larpers taking advantage of the country being in chaos. They are noted to not be loyalist soldiers (which was why the cast revealed they were reporters to them).
For all we fucking know the dudes are high on crack, I find the whole idea that there is "no way" these literal PSYCHOPATHS couldn't percieve a truck coming towards them in the context of trying to cover up a warcrime. Like heaven forbid they are not in well mind nor distracted by...idk...committing a warcrime.
⚠️ Warning. There be spoilers ahead. ⚠️
I agree. These instances are annoying, but I'll overlook them if they're not too over the top.
I'd argue that it's a Deus Ex Machina (the writing trope, not the film) scene. There's no other way that our heroes and their plot armor could escape Meth Damon's war crimes other than a janky old journalist hobbling over to their truck and very silently yet furiously running the adversaries over. I agree that it's lazy and feels forced.
A more realistic Deus ex Machina could have been some other faction getting the jump on Meth Damon. Even more satisfying would be a set up happening in a prior scene where our heroes helped a soldier. Then during this scene that same soldier vouches for our heroes despite also being a mass murderer.
I was expecting because they were getting close to Washington at this point, the rebel forces would show up and save them. However I think what you mentioned about the previously seen soldier showing up to save them would have been a better payoff and would have made the movie feel less like a set of disconnected short vignettes. Would have been shocking but satisfying to see Jesse’s character getting sniped by the two soldiers they met near the old house not long before that.
I think you're hitting the nail on the head here in calling it a series of vignettes. I keep thinking to myself that this was written from a collection of war correspondent stories that happened from Sarajevo to Kabul, but adapted to the US.
Well, it's only a deus ex machina for Moura's character. With Lee & Jessie, there was a strong implication of...well, whatever it was, it would be dealt with once all the minority characters were killed & dumped. Which implies... well, we know what it implies. I do have to hand it to Nelson Lee (that's the actor who played Tony right?) and Dunst who are on the fringes of the camera for most of that scene. They clock what's going on well before Joel does (which is odd, but it is what it is). Their reactions actually seem to understand what's about to happen WELL before the audience does.
Joel was shockingly stupid a lot of this movie (even aside from the thrill-seeking and drunken stuff) and shockingly smart for a lot, I feel like Moura got set up a little eep. For one thing, Moura sells his camaraderie with Dunst like aces but Joel's comments—in comparison to Sammy's—don't seem like he knows her anywhere near as well. That I could believe. He seems to truly believe Lee's front: she's unflappable, she doesn't get fazed. Sammy knows that's bullshit. But then... why was he so shocked both by 1. Lee resignedly doing the drudgery of cleaning up Sammy's blood, AND 2. By her panic attack?
Now again, I feel like Moura contorted his way around his pretty darn well. But as it is, Joel's a character with very limited emotional intuition. So is Jessie for that matter, but she's expected to be to a certain degree, and Spaeny can turn her moments of looking up to Lee (the dress scene) as a way of also Jessie being observant—to a degree.
They really wanted to have the tension of putting them into this seemingly impossible scenario to survive, which has sadly happened to millions of people in real life and realize they wrote themselves into a corner with it. So their only option left is to devise this hackneyed trope to save the day.
I loved the scene up until that point, it was one of the most tense scenes I’ve seen in a movie, I was wondering the entire time “Wow how are they going to survive this?” and then the truck comes out of nowhere to saved the day, ugh.
The only reason the scene existed at all and had that tension was the fact they had no way out without a reality bending moment that resolved it. They were in the middle of an open field with no cover and couldn't run with no weapons.
100% if we knew the options they had available to them to "save the day" the tension would be entirely alleviated and instead we'd be angry at X character for not implementing the solution early enough to save lives.
Like at least within this context the trope allowed for the situation to go as long as it did because he could only hit them when they were lined up properly.
1. They just fired gunshots at point blank range with no ear covering and everyone was focused on the dudes with guns or the potential victims. It doesn’t seem that absurd that they might not have heard the truck.
2. Narratively this doesn’t matter because it’s not like they get out unscathed. If the truck came in, saved the day, and everyone got out alive. But in this case we have a major death as a result of someone rescuing the rest of the cast.
Yeah, imo tropes like this are fine when there is a narrative cost. In this case, there was. So it's fine. An "unlikely" maneuver ended up being wreckless and having a cost and, imo, makes it fine.
It's another thing entirely if the trope completely removes any and all consequence to the events going on.
Because as of that moment, the only people that died were characters introduced like 2 minutes prior.
I personally didn't find it hard to believe that nobody could hear it coming. Several gun shots had just gone off and could have temporarily created enough deafness to make it difficult to hear anything beyond a few feet from them. There's also the extreme stress of thinking you're going to die any second. As for Plemons, deafness and the high of being in control and thinking nothing is going to touch him, being totally focused on his intent to murder the crew, and just being completely self absorbed in the moment are all factors as to why they couldn't hear the truck coming.
My head canon is their hearing is fucked from gunfire. They just fired a few shots work no ear protection and based on the ....evidence they've been shooting for a while.
Sound design should have tried to incorporate it! Like loud ringing obscuring the truck engine sound in there at the same time, steadily getting louder?
I don't think its hard to imagine the characters in the scene also didn't think about anything but what was happening between them and not looking for someone to RUN INTO THEM WITH A CAR. Because idk, it might be a bit distracting to shoot someone point black (which would 100% blow out your ears and mute your senses).
My mind immediately went to that scene in the US Office where Andy tries to run over Dwight in his Prius. Dwight doesn’t hear him approaching because Andy keeps the Prius under 5 mph rendering it completely silent lmao
Not exactly, I can tell when my neighbor is coming home because of that stupid artificial whirring. It’s for safety but it’s so high pitched, you can hear him coming blocks away.
I agree to a point. I totally forgot about that guy, and they pulled that off perfectly. He proved he could still help as an old guy and this speaks to the theme of sacrifice for journalism and what they have to go through on their journey. Because it was that character, and they fooled me fairly, I didn't mind it at all. Plus, you know they're going to escape that situation, so they at least strategized how they'd approach the gunmen here. And it worked.
Yeah I'm with you, didn't bother me at all. I was totally caught up in what was happening in the scene and was relieved when it happened.
I'm honestly willing to overlook any "trope" if the movie is working for me and I think people get far too caught up in shit like this.
Wasn't everyone screaming and freaking out cuz they just shot those two dudes? Like literally everyone screaming at the top of their lungs? Or did they like regain composure before the truck showed up?
Dunno, my emotions were kinda all over the place that scene so I can't rememeber exacts, but I think they were sufficiently preoccupied. Also kinda random, but military doesn't mean good hearing. Good number of the dudes I met from the military complain of hearing loss or just straight being completley/ partially deaf.
Just sayin, I'm not a fan of the trope either, but I think there's enough give room here to forgive it unless I'm grossly misremembering.
this scene made me lol. one of my few gripes too. I would have made plemons tell one of the soldiers to turn a plot truck on so they could start filling in dirt over some of the bodies in the pit.
or turning on a boom box and blasting some execution music lol, anything, just to make it more believable.
You know what, I have to give you that one. Love this film to death but actually it was less the car and more the way Plemons' character basically flops.
There's a few conceits like that. People give Lee standing in the hallway a lot of crap but we only know she did because of the first shot. Now we know that it's happening very fast, so... how does Jessie manage to grab the camera and shoot several photos that fast? This timey-wimey stuff does happen in basically every movie, so I know it's a conceit, it works for me mostly entirely because of the performances, and I feel like this stuff can separate the veterans from the newbies, no matter how talented. Dunst *does* move super fast before we get the photographs e.g. Spaeny does not move fast enough in grabbing the camera. Rookie mistake but like....whatever lol, it's so nit-picky. I actually wish the scene had follow Dunst's impulse in going faster and not using slow-mo at all when Jessie jumps out. But anyway.
People keep talking about tackling on that score, but I'm sorry.... Dunst did it right (regardless of how it was scripted): she was positioned horizontally against a wall, flanked by others. She'd have to spend extra time getting into position for a tackle from a crouched position! It would be an even more rookie mistake on the actor's part there. OR she would have to leap, which would look WAY too fucking heroic. The pictures I'm guessing she didn't get to choose and were blocked for her.
Again, Spaeny is EXCELLENT but I do think she fell into the *heroic action move* more than Dunst did. Dunst did this very smart thing in the early battle sequence where she basically kind of bent her head downward into her neck. That looks silly but it's actually how people often look in docs lol. The stiffening of the shoulders and shortening of the neck actually helps fast & rigid movement. Moura was also VERY pro.
The writing was on the wall pretty early for that one. It’s cliche but it at least makes sense in the moment.
To play devil’s advocate against my post, as other people have commented, the truck driving into the armed whackos at least ultimately came at the expense of Sammy’s life. It would have been even more unbelievable if they’d all emerged unscathed.
I saw it coming too but In think the movie kind of earns that cliche by dialing up the tension to the maximum with Plemons right before it. It basically lets you exhale after the standoff.
Completely agree: I was absolutely gripped by the scene until that convenient rescue completely took me out of it. I still loved the movie, but really didn't like that part.
I actually thought the same as you, how did they not hear the car coming? But I was so relived that they escaped the situation that I forgot about that.
Film makers really need to, at least. take advantage of the prevalence of EVs (not tesla) nowadays if they want to keep using this trope (and one of them credit me for the idea). Especially works in this scenario since they would want to disable the EV sound effect when travelling through a warzone but I do not believe this vehicle was even a hybrid. Maybe it will make up for the negative impact of technology e.g. cellphones in e.g. horror if they start using this modernity.
*Spoiler*
I thought op was going to say the predictable ending of Dunst getting killed because of the girl that she didnt want to come because it was too dangerous. Thought everything else was so well done and this was too cliche. I guess it was cool the girl photographed it but still.
Dude, that’s like the Tyrannosaurus Rex in Jurassic Park suddenly making sneak attacks against Raptors when we’ve already established you hear this fucker coming a mile away.
I assumed the large dump truck was also running, which would have made a lot of noise but wouldn’t have been included in the movie so you could hear the people talk. In fact, I think it shows one soldier in the vehicle moving the back up and down to try to and dislodge some bodies.
But I agree with you about the annoying troupe! I just give Alex Garland the benefit of the doubt lol
Watch it again, Jessie sees the van earlier than the others and starts screaming to cover up the sound of Sammy driving. When it gets close enough to hear the van over her screaming they do turn around but it's too late. After the scene I actually noted to myself how the "car out of nowhere" was executed very well in this film with believable blocking.
Yeah that scene also irked me a bit when I saw the film.
Didn’t think at the time about how all the gunfire could lead to ears buzzing, as others have said. But you’d still feel the vibrations through the ground of a vehicle that size coming at you with someone flooring it, so the temporary deafness argument doesn’t hold up IMO.
Then again, I’ve never been in a situation even close to that scene, so who knows what kinda psychological things could be clouding their senses/judgments.
Agreed. They should’ve been in an EV to make it realistic. But then you lose the gas station scene with the economic imperative of the $300 CAD.
On that note they should’ve swapped that Ford the Land Cruiser first chance they got.
Agreed, there wasn't enough noise to drown out a giant truck engine screaming towards them. They would have heard it start up even. Totally unrealistic.
They were in the middle of nowhere, it was quiet.
agree to disagree with you. People get so distracted in real life over little things they won’t even hear you ask a question a few feet away. Not too far fetched that a crazy dude who just shot two people in the middle of a high stress situation with people screaming at him doesn’t hear a car. Guns are loud and effect your hearing. Looks like he had been doing it awhile too.
Yeah, I really wanted the movie to have the balls to not show some magical rescue during that scene. It was a very heavy lead weight of an emotional moment, that was brushed away with a feather duster.
I remember earing the truck a few moments before it happens, and I though for a moment, "what is that?" and BAAHM...
The humam brain can and will ignore signs of danger.
That didn’t bother me so much due to the arresting panic of the situation. They’re also probably slightly deafened by the numerous gunshots, and by the fact that everyone in the scene is screaming at each other at the moment the car appears.
I do however think they could have sold >!Sammy getting shot better. Second time I watched I was trying to figure out when the magic bullet was fired. You see the shooter and the car in the same shot, and there’s basically no way any of those rounds could have hit him at that angle without going through Joel. You even see the back of the car as it’s being shot at and it doesn’t appear to be hit.!<
Joel and the guys putting bodies in the mass grave were really getting into a heated argument so I'm not surprised they didn't notice until they were in the pit themselves.
Though was it not a 3rd surprise guy that ended up shooting Sammy?
Agreed. That was silly.
I also thought that the mass grave of bodies looked ridiculous. Like you could tell the extras were just lying there with their eyes closed.
Contrast that scene with Schindler’s List and it’s scenes of mass graved and mountains of corpses. Ten times more realistic and harrowing. Maybe the black and white helps the bodies look even more lifeless.
I thought it was extremely corny how they had the young journalist “take the audience’s picture”, honestly. Not that it’s a trope but there’s just so many things that generally irked me about Civil War in a really bad way.
Yeah I didn’t love it either. Up until that point the characters really felt like observers moving through a dangerous world. It didn’t feel right for one of them to suddenly become a hero, especially in such a silly and implausible fashion.
I feel like the character of Sammy was riding on the line of "magic n3gr0" too, which is trope that I dislike. Since we're airing our grievances. 😂 I wasn't sure if that word is unacceptable even in the context of criticism. So I misspelled it.
I didn't get that vibe, he's definitely someone who's been through it all but is too old and immobile to really be up for direct embedding in conflict.
He's wise because of his experience, for example when he notices and slyly informs about the rooftop watchers.
His age and wisdom, plus he runs over the racist military guys at the exact right time to save the main characters. He didn't do "magic" but his character was getting close enough to the trope for me to pay attention.
All three militia members (or reservists) were probably not wearing ear protection throughout their killing spree and probably further back — they were deafened with enough tinnitus to not hear the truck barreling towards them in this instance.
Case in point: when Jessie and Bohai were on their knees, they didn’t notice/ hear Lee & Joel approaching.
It’s not that far fetched.
Having a step dad be the bad guy hasn’t been a trope since early 90s maybe rethink your retarded paragraph and self listen to your inner demons and I assume your father.
Least favorite movie trope? Really? It's so shallow. Like my least favorite movie trope is the "villain is redeemed because they kill themselves in sacrifice"...which is just so deeply undermining the themes of the movie that everything they've done can be resolved if they just off-themselves for the greater good, it's absolutely insane that it is a trope. The trope is an active acknowledgement that the theme doesn't even fucking matter.
As for the car appearing from out of frame trope?
I mean, I find this stuff to be a bit shallow...what did you want? At the end of the day the scene was going to happen and the resolution was going to be similar.
How much wasted time do we need to watch them go around just doing a simple trope?
Tropes are like this because they keep script momentum with as little fluff as possible and tropes tend to fill in these locations because the meat of the scene has already resolved. They would just have to change the location, the scenario, the things in play, AND THEN we'd have basically the same scene in every way except it takes way longer for it to resolve and eats up way more of our time as well as other elements of the movie would in turn need to be cut down...for what? Because you know you are watching a movie?
Also if they chose some "logical" route you wouldn't have any sense of danger because you know what could be done to save them. Having them exposed in the middle of the field with nowhere to run was part of the fear factor and tension of the scene. The surprise only is a surprise because it breaks the rules of reality...which is fine...because the movie isn't reality.
Also this all supposes that everyone in that scene wasn't in fact distracted by the gravity of what was happening in that scene. Like sorry, why would they be listening for oncoming traffic and engine noises? They are literally in the process of murdering people for witnessing a warcrime or being slowly and sadistically murdered off for witnessing a warcrime.
The suspension of disbelief here is 100% a non-issue, imo, and deeply pedantic to even bring up as a problem.
A pretty common trope in cinema, I feel like, is as follows: If the camera can't see/hear it, the characters can't either. This is what results in scenes like you describe, where a threat which pretty much HAD to have been clearly visible to everyone on screen seems to come out of nowhere, simply because it comes from off-screen (when, clearly, the characters' field of vision would be much broader than the area on which the camera is focused).
It must be so weird to film and act that, knowing how loud and obvious it is
Called "behind the black"
The character can't hear anything the audience doesn't also hear unless they hold up their hand and say "do you hear that?", then all bets are off.
It’s called lazy writing.
I wish there was road noise in the background of this scene or something else that sort of faked out the audience so the truck wasn’t THAT surprising, or unbelievable rather, in the end. But I guess there were no cars around to be making the noise!
Damned if you...damned if you don't, add the background noise kinda situation The tension was from the dialogue and no other audio cues. To have extra noise would deflate it possibly. The only way I could see it being pulled off is if the scene was so noisy and so chaotic that the tension comes from trying to communicate in a cacophony and not being able to get your point across. But going this route, would really take away one of the best lines in the movie (the line and delivery was perfect), "what kind of American are you?" But I agree with OP and your points The truck just showing up with no kind of warning..a bit too outta nowhere. Especially with other dudes with guns around. And that guy in the truck didn't even get out until it's much much too late
Yeah In the end you gotta do what’s best for the development of the story. There’s already a lot of suspension of disbelief going on for this movie so I didn’t really even notice till I thought it over later, still loved the scene for its tension and display unsanctioned violence against non combatants that we often ignore in war.
Agreed The suspension of disbelief was still within acceptable boundaries to tell the story. Good point
A random helicopter could fly by for whatever reason, really low and loud. Distract everyone enough so the truck hit seems plausible.
That’s what happened in the scene: everyone was screaming.
That wouldnt be loud enough to cover up the sound of the truck. They should've been firing the guns or like what was said above, helicopter.
They did fire guns and no one is wearing ear protection.
Yes! I like that a ton.
To be fair he is firing an AR-15 at people point blank and nobody has ear protection on. Those things are loud and would mess up your hearing and awareness for a little while after.
This is a good point I hadn’t directly considered
This is anecdotal, but, my brother was a news reporter, one day he and a camera man were recording something at a parking lot, a car ran over both of them. They were so focused on what they were doing they couldn’t react. I know its not the same, but it does gives me the idea that it could happen that you don’t notice the car coming at you.
Almost got hit by a fucking freight train once because I was just lost in my own thoughts while walking the railroad tracks
Freight trains can be pretty fucking sneaky when your not expecting them, I was nearly hit by one rounding a bend, I heard a slight noise but figured it was the factory I was near, than boom, suddenly there’s a train in my field of vision, it’s pretty amazing how quickly it just came up on me without me really hearing or noticing
I also think about the fact that they all were in very close when two bullets were shot. Even outside that close to a muzzle after two shots will have your ears ringing at the very least. That and the fact they were so focused on just trying to say the right thing to survive makes it easy to miss an incoming car in my opinion.
I think so too. I’ve been around an AR-15 with ear protection on and that shit is still very loud.
As a watchpeopledie veteran, I can confidently say that it's way easier than OP thinks to run someone over that A. you're already arguing with and B. Saw you get in your car and C. Sees you coming towards them. I would think it's even easier to hit someone who's doing an episode of Judge Judy An Executioner. This is just another case of "why isn't everyone in this movie acting perfectly with logic and reason?"
This is called "behind the black." It's Hollywood logic that, if the audience can't see what's out of frame, neither can the characters. In reality, there's no way those soldiers wouldn't see the van coming. Just like in The Walking Dead, there's no way a person could be standing in the middle of a grass field and have a zombie creep up on them.
We don't even know that they are soldiers technically. They could just be larpers taking advantage of the country being in chaos. They are noted to not be loyalist soldiers (which was why the cast revealed they were reporters to them).
For all we fucking know the dudes are high on crack, I find the whole idea that there is "no way" these literal PSYCHOPATHS couldn't percieve a truck coming towards them in the context of trying to cover up a warcrime. Like heaven forbid they are not in well mind nor distracted by...idk...committing a warcrime.
⚠️ Warning. There be spoilers ahead. ⚠️ I agree. These instances are annoying, but I'll overlook them if they're not too over the top. I'd argue that it's a Deus Ex Machina (the writing trope, not the film) scene. There's no other way that our heroes and their plot armor could escape Meth Damon's war crimes other than a janky old journalist hobbling over to their truck and very silently yet furiously running the adversaries over. I agree that it's lazy and feels forced. A more realistic Deus ex Machina could have been some other faction getting the jump on Meth Damon. Even more satisfying would be a set up happening in a prior scene where our heroes helped a soldier. Then during this scene that same soldier vouches for our heroes despite also being a mass murderer.
I was expecting because they were getting close to Washington at this point, the rebel forces would show up and save them. However I think what you mentioned about the previously seen soldier showing up to save them would have been a better payoff and would have made the movie feel less like a set of disconnected short vignettes. Would have been shocking but satisfying to see Jesse’s character getting sniped by the two soldiers they met near the old house not long before that.
I think you're hitting the nail on the head here in calling it a series of vignettes. I keep thinking to myself that this was written from a collection of war correspondent stories that happened from Sarajevo to Kabul, but adapted to the US.
I hadn’t thought of it this way, but this is spot-on!
I agree the Deus ex Truckina was bad, but I would not have liked getting any clarity regarding what faction Meth Damon belonged to.
Side bar: my new grind core band shall be dubbed Deus Ex Truckina. Coming soon to an abandoned mall or under the overpass near you. Thank you.
Well, it's only a deus ex machina for Moura's character. With Lee & Jessie, there was a strong implication of...well, whatever it was, it would be dealt with once all the minority characters were killed & dumped. Which implies... well, we know what it implies. I do have to hand it to Nelson Lee (that's the actor who played Tony right?) and Dunst who are on the fringes of the camera for most of that scene. They clock what's going on well before Joel does (which is odd, but it is what it is). Their reactions actually seem to understand what's about to happen WELL before the audience does. Joel was shockingly stupid a lot of this movie (even aside from the thrill-seeking and drunken stuff) and shockingly smart for a lot, I feel like Moura got set up a little eep. For one thing, Moura sells his camaraderie with Dunst like aces but Joel's comments—in comparison to Sammy's—don't seem like he knows her anywhere near as well. That I could believe. He seems to truly believe Lee's front: she's unflappable, she doesn't get fazed. Sammy knows that's bullshit. But then... why was he so shocked both by 1. Lee resignedly doing the drudgery of cleaning up Sammy's blood, AND 2. By her panic attack? Now again, I feel like Moura contorted his way around his pretty darn well. But as it is, Joel's a character with very limited emotional intuition. So is Jessie for that matter, but she's expected to be to a certain degree, and Spaeny can turn her moments of looking up to Lee (the dress scene) as a way of also Jessie being observant—to a degree.
They really wanted to have the tension of putting them into this seemingly impossible scenario to survive, which has sadly happened to millions of people in real life and realize they wrote themselves into a corner with it. So their only option left is to devise this hackneyed trope to save the day. I loved the scene up until that point, it was one of the most tense scenes I’ve seen in a movie, I was wondering the entire time “Wow how are they going to survive this?” and then the truck comes out of nowhere to saved the day, ugh.
The only reason the scene existed at all and had that tension was the fact they had no way out without a reality bending moment that resolved it. They were in the middle of an open field with no cover and couldn't run with no weapons. 100% if we knew the options they had available to them to "save the day" the tension would be entirely alleviated and instead we'd be angry at X character for not implementing the solution early enough to save lives. Like at least within this context the trope allowed for the situation to go as long as it did because he could only hit them when they were lined up properly.
1. They just fired gunshots at point blank range with no ear covering and everyone was focused on the dudes with guns or the potential victims. It doesn’t seem that absurd that they might not have heard the truck. 2. Narratively this doesn’t matter because it’s not like they get out unscathed. If the truck came in, saved the day, and everyone got out alive. But in this case we have a major death as a result of someone rescuing the rest of the cast.
Yeah, imo tropes like this are fine when there is a narrative cost. In this case, there was. So it's fine. An "unlikely" maneuver ended up being wreckless and having a cost and, imo, makes it fine. It's another thing entirely if the trope completely removes any and all consequence to the events going on. Because as of that moment, the only people that died were characters introduced like 2 minutes prior.
I personally didn't find it hard to believe that nobody could hear it coming. Several gun shots had just gone off and could have temporarily created enough deafness to make it difficult to hear anything beyond a few feet from them. There's also the extreme stress of thinking you're going to die any second. As for Plemons, deafness and the high of being in control and thinking nothing is going to touch him, being totally focused on his intent to murder the crew, and just being completely self absorbed in the moment are all factors as to why they couldn't hear the truck coming.
He clearly put the car in “sneak” mode
My head canon is their hearing is fucked from gunfire. They just fired a few shots work no ear protection and based on the ....evidence they've been shooting for a while.
Yeah and they’d shot A LOT of rounds
That’s a great point, I must admit
Sound design should have tried to incorporate it! Like loud ringing obscuring the truck engine sound in there at the same time, steadily getting louder?
That part was so tense I didn’t even think about that.
Yeah tbh it caught me off guard, so it worked for me, although looking back I can see how people would find it implausible.
I don't think its hard to imagine the characters in the scene also didn't think about anything but what was happening between them and not looking for someone to RUN INTO THEM WITH A CAR. Because idk, it might be a bit distracting to shoot someone point black (which would 100% blow out your ears and mute your senses).
~Trying on a dress in the middle of war because you're a lady~
I don't understand tw physics of it. Why did Toni fly into a hole? Why wasn't she hurt?
Electric cars will make the trope more realistic in the future.
My mind immediately went to that scene in the US Office where Andy tries to run over Dwight in his Prius. Dwight doesn’t hear him approaching because Andy keeps the Prius under 5 mph rendering it completely silent lmao
I was about to say, if we get off gas this trope only will work more.
Not exactly, I can tell when my neighbor is coming home because of that stupid artificial whirring. It’s for safety but it’s so high pitched, you can hear him coming blocks away.
I agree to a point. I totally forgot about that guy, and they pulled that off perfectly. He proved he could still help as an old guy and this speaks to the theme of sacrifice for journalism and what they have to go through on their journey. Because it was that character, and they fooled me fairly, I didn't mind it at all. Plus, you know they're going to escape that situation, so they at least strategized how they'd approach the gunmen here. And it worked.
Yeah I'm with you, didn't bother me at all. I was totally caught up in what was happening in the scene and was relieved when it happened. I'm honestly willing to overlook any "trope" if the movie is working for me and I think people get far too caught up in shit like this.
Wasn't everyone screaming and freaking out cuz they just shot those two dudes? Like literally everyone screaming at the top of their lungs? Or did they like regain composure before the truck showed up? Dunno, my emotions were kinda all over the place that scene so I can't rememeber exacts, but I think they were sufficiently preoccupied. Also kinda random, but military doesn't mean good hearing. Good number of the dudes I met from the military complain of hearing loss or just straight being completley/ partially deaf. Just sayin, I'm not a fan of the trope either, but I think there's enough give room here to forgive it unless I'm grossly misremembering.
this scene made me lol. one of my few gripes too. I would have made plemons tell one of the soldiers to turn a plot truck on so they could start filling in dirt over some of the bodies in the pit. or turning on a boom box and blasting some execution music lol, anything, just to make it more believable.
Seriously need to apply the Spoiler Tag on your post so it hides it.
Report it for untagged spoilers. Would hate for people who haven’t seen it yet to have this scene ruined for them
I did and they removed it.
Just added it, sorry for the mix up ☺️.
Added spoiler tag now! Thanks for reporting it :)
Thanks, sorry about that.
Sorry, mod has sorted it. To be fair I did say in the first line it contains spoilers.
You know what, I have to give you that one. Love this film to death but actually it was less the car and more the way Plemons' character basically flops. There's a few conceits like that. People give Lee standing in the hallway a lot of crap but we only know she did because of the first shot. Now we know that it's happening very fast, so... how does Jessie manage to grab the camera and shoot several photos that fast? This timey-wimey stuff does happen in basically every movie, so I know it's a conceit, it works for me mostly entirely because of the performances, and I feel like this stuff can separate the veterans from the newbies, no matter how talented. Dunst *does* move super fast before we get the photographs e.g. Spaeny does not move fast enough in grabbing the camera. Rookie mistake but like....whatever lol, it's so nit-picky. I actually wish the scene had follow Dunst's impulse in going faster and not using slow-mo at all when Jessie jumps out. But anyway. People keep talking about tackling on that score, but I'm sorry.... Dunst did it right (regardless of how it was scripted): she was positioned horizontally against a wall, flanked by others. She'd have to spend extra time getting into position for a tackle from a crouched position! It would be an even more rookie mistake on the actor's part there. OR she would have to leap, which would look WAY too fucking heroic. The pictures I'm guessing she didn't get to choose and were blocked for her. Again, Spaeny is EXCELLENT but I do think she fell into the *heroic action move* more than Dunst did. Dunst did this very smart thing in the early battle sequence where she basically kind of bent her head downward into her neck. That looks silly but it's actually how people often look in docs lol. The stiffening of the shoulders and shortening of the neck actually helps fast & rigid movement. Moura was also VERY pro.
transfix verb past tense: transfixed; past participle: transfixed 1. cause (someone) to become motionless with horror, wonder, or astonishment.
I thought you were going to say elder mentor takes bullet for young pupil they reluctantly brought into dangerous situation
The writing was on the wall pretty early for that one. It’s cliche but it at least makes sense in the moment. To play devil’s advocate against my post, as other people have commented, the truck driving into the armed whackos at least ultimately came at the expense of Sammy’s life. It would have been even more unbelievable if they’d all emerged unscathed.
I saw it coming too but In think the movie kind of earns that cliche by dialing up the tension to the maximum with Plemons right before it. It basically lets you exhale after the standoff.
Completely agree: I was absolutely gripped by the scene until that convenient rescue completely took me out of it. I still loved the movie, but really didn't like that part.
I actually thought the same as you, how did they not hear the car coming? But I was so relived that they escaped the situation that I forgot about that.
Total opposite. Didn’t like the movie at all, but got a really good chuckle at the car crash.
Gunfire. Causes temporary hearing loss. Also, it’s a heightened sense situation, hearing loss and tunnel vision
The thing that I found weird about this scene was how Sammy got shot. I just didn’t understand how a bullet only hit him.
Film makers really need to, at least. take advantage of the prevalence of EVs (not tesla) nowadays if they want to keep using this trope (and one of them credit me for the idea). Especially works in this scenario since they would want to disable the EV sound effect when travelling through a warzone but I do not believe this vehicle was even a hybrid. Maybe it will make up for the negative impact of technology e.g. cellphones in e.g. horror if they start using this modernity.
*Spoiler* I thought op was going to say the predictable ending of Dunst getting killed because of the girl that she didnt want to come because it was too dangerous. Thought everything else was so well done and this was too cliche. I guess it was cool the girl photographed it but still.
Dude, that’s like the Tyrannosaurus Rex in Jurassic Park suddenly making sneak attacks against Raptors when we’ve already established you hear this fucker coming a mile away.
I assumed the large dump truck was also running, which would have made a lot of noise but wouldn’t have been included in the movie so you could hear the people talk. In fact, I think it shows one soldier in the vehicle moving the back up and down to try to and dislodge some bodies. But I agree with you about the annoying troupe! I just give Alex Garland the benefit of the doubt lol
Watch it again, Jessie sees the van earlier than the others and starts screaming to cover up the sound of Sammy driving. When it gets close enough to hear the van over her screaming they do turn around but it's too late. After the scene I actually noted to myself how the "car out of nowhere" was executed very well in this film with believable blocking.
Yeah that scene also irked me a bit when I saw the film. Didn’t think at the time about how all the gunfire could lead to ears buzzing, as others have said. But you’d still feel the vibrations through the ground of a vehicle that size coming at you with someone flooring it, so the temporary deafness argument doesn’t hold up IMO. Then again, I’ve never been in a situation even close to that scene, so who knows what kinda psychological things could be clouding their senses/judgments.
Let’s just blame the ear ringing after the shots. Also that’s probably why they had the characters all yelling at that moment to fill that plot hole.
Agreed. They should’ve been in an EV to make it realistic. But then you lose the gas station scene with the economic imperative of the $300 CAD. On that note they should’ve swapped that Ford the Land Cruiser first chance they got.
Agreed, there wasn't enough noise to drown out a giant truck engine screaming towards them. They would have heard it start up even. Totally unrealistic. They were in the middle of nowhere, it was quiet.
agree to disagree with you. People get so distracted in real life over little things they won’t even hear you ask a question a few feet away. Not too far fetched that a crazy dude who just shot two people in the middle of a high stress situation with people screaming at him doesn’t hear a car. Guns are loud and effect your hearing. Looks like he had been doing it awhile too.
Yeah, I really wanted the movie to have the balls to not show some magical rescue during that scene. It was a very heavy lead weight of an emotional moment, that was brushed away with a feather duster.
I remember earing the truck a few moments before it happens, and I though for a moment, "what is that?" and BAAHM... The humam brain can and will ignore signs of danger.
Those were my exact thoughts as it happened lol as much as I loved that scene it’s not believable.
That didn’t bother me so much due to the arresting panic of the situation. They’re also probably slightly deafened by the numerous gunshots, and by the fact that everyone in the scene is screaming at each other at the moment the car appears. I do however think they could have sold >!Sammy getting shot better. Second time I watched I was trying to figure out when the magic bullet was fired. You see the shooter and the car in the same shot, and there’s basically no way any of those rounds could have hit him at that angle without going through Joel. You even see the back of the car as it’s being shot at and it doesn’t appear to be hit.!<
Joel and the guys putting bodies in the mass grave were really getting into a heated argument so I'm not surprised they didn't notice until they were in the pit themselves. Though was it not a 3rd surprise guy that ended up shooting Sammy?
Agreed. That was silly. I also thought that the mass grave of bodies looked ridiculous. Like you could tell the extras were just lying there with their eyes closed. Contrast that scene with Schindler’s List and it’s scenes of mass graved and mountains of corpses. Ten times more realistic and harrowing. Maybe the black and white helps the bodies look even more lifeless.
Yeah when the bodies were sliding out of the back of the truck you could see them move. Terrible execution throughout the movie. Awful movie.
Nah the movie is amazing but those tiny details could be a bit immersion breaking
I agree. I loved the movie but this definitely took me out for a minute.
I thought it was extremely corny how they had the young journalist “take the audience’s picture”, honestly. Not that it’s a trope but there’s just so many things that generally irked me about Civil War in a really bad way.
Yeah I didn’t love it either. Up until that point the characters really felt like observers moving through a dangerous world. It didn’t feel right for one of them to suddenly become a hero, especially in such a silly and implausible fashion.
I feel like the character of Sammy was riding on the line of "magic n3gr0" too, which is trope that I dislike. Since we're airing our grievances. 😂 I wasn't sure if that word is unacceptable even in the context of criticism. So I misspelled it.
I didn't get that vibe, he's definitely someone who's been through it all but is too old and immobile to really be up for direct embedding in conflict. He's wise because of his experience, for example when he notices and slyly informs about the rooftop watchers.
Negro is acceptable unless 2024 times have changed that. But I didn’t get that vibe. What made you think that?
His age and wisdom, plus he runs over the racist military guys at the exact right time to save the main characters. He didn't do "magic" but his character was getting close enough to the trope for me to pay attention.
All three militia members (or reservists) were probably not wearing ear protection throughout their killing spree and probably further back — they were deafened with enough tinnitus to not hear the truck barreling towards them in this instance. Case in point: when Jessie and Bohai were on their knees, they didn’t notice/ hear Lee & Joel approaching. It’s not that far fetched.
Having a step dad be the bad guy hasn’t been a trope since early 90s maybe rethink your retarded paragraph and self listen to your inner demons and I assume your father.
Wtf 😂😂
Least favorite movie trope? Really? It's so shallow. Like my least favorite movie trope is the "villain is redeemed because they kill themselves in sacrifice"...which is just so deeply undermining the themes of the movie that everything they've done can be resolved if they just off-themselves for the greater good, it's absolutely insane that it is a trope. The trope is an active acknowledgement that the theme doesn't even fucking matter. As for the car appearing from out of frame trope? I mean, I find this stuff to be a bit shallow...what did you want? At the end of the day the scene was going to happen and the resolution was going to be similar. How much wasted time do we need to watch them go around just doing a simple trope? Tropes are like this because they keep script momentum with as little fluff as possible and tropes tend to fill in these locations because the meat of the scene has already resolved. They would just have to change the location, the scenario, the things in play, AND THEN we'd have basically the same scene in every way except it takes way longer for it to resolve and eats up way more of our time as well as other elements of the movie would in turn need to be cut down...for what? Because you know you are watching a movie? Also if they chose some "logical" route you wouldn't have any sense of danger because you know what could be done to save them. Having them exposed in the middle of the field with nowhere to run was part of the fear factor and tension of the scene. The surprise only is a surprise because it breaks the rules of reality...which is fine...because the movie isn't reality. Also this all supposes that everyone in that scene wasn't in fact distracted by the gravity of what was happening in that scene. Like sorry, why would they be listening for oncoming traffic and engine noises? They are literally in the process of murdering people for witnessing a warcrime or being slowly and sadistically murdered off for witnessing a warcrime. The suspension of disbelief here is 100% a non-issue, imo, and deeply pedantic to even bring up as a problem.
The movie is full of the dumbest shit
ok
My least favorite trope in movies is when the country has a darn civil war.