History DesignatedHero / LiveActionFilms

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** In ''Film/ManOfSteel'', some people thought of Superman as this in regards to the final battle, given that he seems to be more focused on defeating the Kryptonians instead of saving lives. Other viewers gave him a pass because he is shown to be inexperienced and outclassed, and his efforts to move the fight away from populated areas are repeatedly thwarted by Zod.

* In the StarWars prequels this falls somewhere between played straight and intentionally invoked for the Jedi as an organization. They are supposed to be an organization in decline, gradually being distracted from their true mission by politics (the invoked trope) but in real terms every single action they take, ever, is directly counter to their stated goals and basic common sense in the most obvious possible manner, to the point that the only heroic actions the Jedi actually attempt or accomplish are individuals acting directly against the order's directives. In no particular order:
** A powerful potential student shows up, with a master who has plenty of free time already offering to teach him? They block that as hard as possible, because apparently having the all-powerful sorcerers who already have powerful political connections at age nine be completely ignorant of the rules and not trained to control their power is better for both the kid and the order.
** The legally-elected prime minister of the democratic state you are supposed to serve is accused of something vaguely sinister-seeming which according to your order doesn't even exist? Immediately try to assassinate him.
** Some force-sensitive children still have parents who love them? Abduct them, isolate them in a temple, and indoctrinate them to dogmatically follow a simplistic moral code while teaching them to use plasma weapons against heathens at ages that would get you instantly branded a war criminal in any civilization since ancient Greece.
** Two secular states having a tense but peaceful-so-far conflict with strong potential to escalate? Force your religious "mediators" on one faction without either side's request. Make sure your mediators are blatantly biased toward one side, and that they're 'peacefully' more heavily armed than anyone else in the solar system.
** Illegal slave army thankfully uncovered before it could be paid for any put to use? Freeing slaves is for chumps, we'll just tell them they're our slaves instead and send them to their deaths against beige terminators by the hundreds.
** A student has achieved the secular rank of general and served constantly with distinction, as well as demonstrating skills well in excess of anyone on the council, while visibly and vocally disatisfied with the legitimately disdainful way he's treated? And all it would take to satisfy him is acknowledgement that he's a full member of the order, something that doesn't in practical terms even give him more influence? Deny that vociferously. Make sure to chide him for being uppity while openly acknowledging he technically earned the rank he seeks. That'll show him, and definitely end with all parties content and satisfied forever.

* Superman comes across this way in a number of films:
** In ''Film/SupermanII'', Superman gives up powers that will save millions of lives to be with someone who is TooDumbToLive, and after being re-powered and rendering Zod helpless he sadistically crushes his hand before casually executing him by throwing him to his death in an icy crevasse, then uses his regained powers to injure a human in an act of petty revenge (granted the guy was a Jerkass), and then gives Lois LaserGuidedAmnesia for his own convenience.
** ''Film/SupermanReturns'' follows on from ''Superman II'', where Superman promised that he would never abandon humanity again. He then left Earth four five years without telling any one where he was going, or that he was even leaving. He also leaves Lois pregnant from the tryst that he erased from her memory. And because he wasn't around to testify at Lex Luthor's trial, Luthor was acquitted.

** In ''Film/ManOfSteel'', some people thought of Superman as this in regards to the final battle, given that he seems to be more focused on defeating the Kryptonians instead of saving lives. Other viewers gave him a pass because he is shown to be inexperienced and outclassed, and his efforts to move the fight away from populated areas are repeatedly thwarted by Zod.

** In ''Film/ManOfSteel'', some people thought of Superman as this in regards to the final battle, given that he seems to be more focused on defeating the Kryptonians instead of saving lives. Other viewers gave him a pass because he is shown to be inexperienced and outclassed, and his efforts to move the fight away from populated areas are repeatedly thwarted by Zod. (Of course, this Superman has never shown any interest in saving lives - the one time he did it, Pa Kent told him he ''should'' have let them die to protect his non-secret.)

* The so-called heroes in ''Film/TheLostWorldJurassicPark'' are directly or indirectly responsible for every death that occurs in the movie. They free the captured dinosaurs from their rightful owners so they can live in their "natural" habitats - despite the fact that the dinosaurs were created by completely unnatural means, shouldn't even be around anymore to begin with, and are legally the property of [=InGen=]. The dinosaurs then proceed to destroy all the [=InGen=] hunting party's equipment, cars, and communications, leaving them stranded on an island full of lethal, genetically-engineered predators. In the end, most of the crewmen end up getting killed by them, after they risk their lives to save them for no benefit. This also means that the hunters are forced to bring the T-Rex to San Diego instead of the herbivores they caught in an attempt to recoup their losses. Thus our heroes (and the CorruptCorporateExecutive who organized the hunting party and brought the Rex to San Diego) are responsible for all the deaths and destruction in San Diego as well. However, the "heroes" are never held responsible for their actions.

** In ''Film/ManOfSteel'', some people thought of Superman as this in regards to the final battle, given that he seems to be more focused on defeating the Kryptonians instead of saving lives. Other viewers gave him a pass because he is shown to be inexperienced and outclassed, and his efforts to move the fight away from populated areas are repeatedly thwarted by Zod.

* ''NowYouSeeMe'' gives us the Four Horsemen, a team of con-artist magicians who act JustLikeRobinHood, robbing the rich and giving to the poor...because they were ordered to by a shadowy mastermind- The Fifth Horseman- who promises them a place in a secret society of ''real'' magicians called The Eye if they do what he says. But they are morally ambiguous from the outset, and the main character is arguably the [=FBI=] agent Dylan who is chasing them. The ''real'' example of this trope is [[spoiler: Dylan himself, who is in fact The Fifth Horseman, because- while its implied he really does work for The Eye and his offer is serious- its established that the victims of the Horsemen were people / organizations he held responsible for his fathers death, so it was all really a revenge scheme; and worse, while each person did have some role in his father's death, ultimately the man died performing an extremely reckless magic trick, so arguably the main person at fault is the father himself.]] What pushes this beyond AntiHero and into "villain in any other story" territory is that many of the tricks of the Horsemen involved theft, assault, kidnapping and extremely reckless behaviour that could have gotten innocent people hurt or killed, such as the pre-arranged car chase throughout New York, as well as [[spoiler: the framing and apparent abduction of Thaddeus Bradley, strongly implied to now be a prisoner of The Eye for the rest of his life, despite being little more than a {{Jerkass}}.]]

* The British teen movie ''Film/Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging''. The main character, Georgia is whiny 90% of the time, critical, spoilt, selfish, insulting and insensitive, and goes out of her way to steal another girl's (a bitchy girl, yes, but still) boyfriend, treating her friends badly when they stand up to her, and using loads of boys along the way, and yet we are for some unknown reason, supposed to support her. Fair play, by the end of the story, she has became slightly more palatable, but still...

* The British teen movie ''Film/Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging''. The main character, Georgia is whiny 90% of the time, critical, spoilt, selfish, insulting and insensitive, and goes out of her way to steal another girl's (a bitchy girl, yes, but still) boyfriend, and yet we are for some unknown reason, supposed to support her. Fair play, by the end of the story, she has became slightly more palatable, but still...

** Griffin from ''Film/RedZoneCuba'' is one of the best (worst?) examples of this trope in all of media. He was intended to come across as a mix of an AntiVillain and an UnscrupulousHero, a Tragic, mostly decent man, who, despite being a criminal, would have been a very nice person were it not for his anger issues. Unfourtunately, he just comes off as a straight up villain. All sympathy is lost for him when he [[MoralEventHorizon rapes a blind girl after throwing her father down a well]]. Over the course of the film, he kills many people, steals from a friend of his after whipping him with a belt, and beats up and strangles his friends. To cement his status as one of the most defining examples of this trope, Griffin is so far the only DesignatedHero to be listed as a CompleteMonster.

* Griffin from Film/RedZoneCuba is one of the best (worst?) examples of this trope in all of media. He was intended to come across as a mix of an AntiVillain and an UnscrupulousHero, a Tragic, mostly decent man, who, despite being a criminal, would have been a very nice person were it not for his anger issues. Unfourtunately, he just comes off as a straight up villain. All sympathy is lost for him when he [[MoralEventHorizon rapes a blind girl after throwing her father down a well]]. Over the course of the film, he kills many people, steals from a friend of his after whipping him with a belt, and beats up and strangles his friends. To cement his status as one of the most defining examples of this trope, Griffin is so far the only DesignatedHero to be listed as a CompleteMonster.

** Probably the worst one of the bunch is Adam Chance from ''Film/AgentForHARM''. Adam does nothing for the first ''45 minutes.'' He spends most of the movie hanging around the beach house, trying to act cool, and failing every single time. What he does do is kill people, and is very nonchalant about it. In fact, [[DownerEnding he fails the mission entirely]]: He didn't find the antidote to SPORE, couldn't save the man he was assigned to protect, [[FailedASpotCheck and missed an obvious mole]] until after the mole killed two people. Mike and the Bots were all over him about this, with them believing that the only thing he did was to call the Archery Convention in Vienna, which revealed who the mole was... and then he revealed he knew all along. Loser!

** Probably the worst one of the bunch is Adam Chance from ''Film/AgentForHARM''. Adam does nothing for the first ''45 minutes.'' He spends most of the movie hanging around the beach house, trying to act cool, and failing every single time. What he does do is kill people, and is very nonchalant about it. In fact, [[DownerEnding he fails the mission entirely]]: Not finding the antidote to SPORE, couldn't save the man he was assigned to protect, [[FailedASpotCheck and missed an obvious mole.]] Mike and the Bots were all over him about this, with them believing that the only thing he did was to call the Archery Convention in Vienna, which revealed who the mole was...and then he reveals he knew all along. Loser!

** In the episode ''Wild Rebels'', Joel & The Bots point out the only remotely heroic thing the protagonist does is flash his lights at some cops, which actually only gets the cops killed.

* The movie ''Cheaters'' was based on the true story about a group of students and their teacher who cheated their way through the United States Academic Decathlon. The cheaters were portrayed as heroes who had no choice except to cheat while the one student who did the right thing in outing them was portrayed as [[TheComplainerIsAlwaysWrong a disgruntled, rat-faced snitch]]. In addition, the movie also tried to play up the biased assumption that they had cheated because they came from a less than stellar school, regardless of the fact that 1.) ''[[ShutUpHannibal They had cheated]]'' and 2.) A sudden, unexplained spike in scores would naturally raise a few eyebrows.

* Neil Shaw in the ''Art of War'' films, to more and more of an extent as the series goes on. In the first film he's a competent enough agent, though kind of a {{Jerkass}}. In the second film he makes numerous basic errors of logic and judgement, and at the end he [[spoiler:casually murders his love interest]] just in the name of getting the villain to frame himself. The third film takes it UpToEleven, as he unknowingly takes the bad guy [[spoiler:or rather bad girl]] into his confidence, then ends up [[MoralEventHorizon killing at least a dozen or so South Korean intelligence agents]], before unwittingly facilitating the assassination of South Korea's U.N. representative and nearly getting the Secretary-General of the U.N. herself killed. After all that you'd think the Secretary-General would be only too happy to hand Shaw over to the South Korean authorities and let them hang him out to dry, but she instead ends the film by telling Shaw that he's the only person the U.N. can trust with their lives.

* Michael Douglas' character, Oren Little, in the 2014 movie "And So It Goes" is a sexist, racist, nasty jerk who is never shown being nice to people.... but because he is the lead in a romantic comedy the audience is meant to find him endearing and even though he softens up by the end of the movie, he is never called out on his previously awful behaviour.

* Jackie [=DiNorscio=] in ''Film/FindMeGuilty''. Though based on actual events and people, the movie, rather than show an honest portrayal of the gangster trial the film is based on, goes out if its way to present Jackie (and by extension, his fellow gangsters) as victims of oppression [[InsaneTrollLogic because the government obviously hates everyone who's name ends in a vowel (something that actual gangsters ferevently believe).]] Despite clearly being a remorseless sociopath who expertly manipulates the jury into making the gangsters look innocent, he never actually offers up any evidence that they ''are'' innocent other than....[[NiceToTheWaiter they sometimes tip people whom they see everyday.]] He's racist, insensitive, misogynistic, loves indulging in LogicalFallacies while [[MoralDissonance crying foul whenever far better evidence is used against him]], and despite the other gangsters wanting nothing to do with him, [[MarySue he still somehow manages to get them all to come around.]] His rival, [[DesignatedVillain D.A. Sean Kierney]], is completely accurate in his assessment of why Jackie and his associates are horrible people, and the movie completely glosses over this with borderline [[StrawCharacter straw arguments.]] In the end, Jackie pulls a KarmaHoudini, and we're expected to cheer on the fact that the gangsters were acquitted, despite them all clearly being assholes who deserve no sympathy. What makes it worse is that this trope could've been avoided completely if the film had just bothered being objective in its views rather than glamorize it to such absurd amounts.

* Griffin from Film/RedZoneCuba is one of the best (worst?) examples of this trope in all of media. He was intended to come across as a mix of an AntiVillain and an UnscrupulousHero, a Tragic, mostly decent man, who, despite being a criminal, would have been a very nice person were it not for his anger issues. Unfourtunately, he just comes off as a straight up villain. All sympathy is lost for him when he [[MoralEventHorizon rapes a blind girl after throwing her father down a well]]. Over the course of the film, he kills many people, steals from a friend of his after whipping him with a belt, and beats up and strangles his friends. To cement his status as one of the most defining examples of this trope, Griffin is so far the only DesignatedHero to be listed as a Complete Monster.

** Joe Don's character in ''Film/FinalJustice'' is a [=Jerkass=] CowboyCop who ignores every rule in the book - including violating the sovereignty of foreign nations and threatening blameless individuals for information - in order to hunt down criminals. The word "hunt" is used literally - Geronimo doesn't give a damn about arresting the crooks, instead challenging them to {{TheWildWest Old West}}-style gunfights. Oh yeah, and in the end, he kills the main villain by challenging him to a gunfight...and then shooting on "two". [[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 Our hero, a big stinky cheater.]]

** Joe Don's character in ''Film/FinalJustice'' is a [=Jerkass=] CowboyCop who ignores every rule in the book - including violating the sovereignty of foreign nations and threatening blameless individuals for information - in order to hunt down criminals. The word "hunt" is used literally - Geronimo doesn't give a damn about arresting the crooks, instead challenging them to OldWest-style gunfights. Oh yeah, and in the end, he kills the main villain by challenging him to a gunfight...and then shooting on "two". [[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 Our hero, a big stinky cheater.]]

* KeanuReeves's character Johnny in ''Film/JohnnyMnemonic'' is a selfish antihero who is only interested in himself, but finds that he has the cure to save millions of people stuck in his head. Ultimately Johnny manages to get the cure to the people, but never without putting his own life first.

*** Note that this ''only'' applies to the movie. The book's Glinda doesn't appear until the very end, and the Witch of the North has no idea what they actually do.

* Griffin from Film/RedZoneCuba is one of the best (worst?) examples of this trope in all of media. He was intended to come across as a mix of an AntiVillain and an UnscrupulousHero, a Tragic, mostly decent man, who, despite being a criminal, would have been a very nice person were it not for his anger issues. Unfourtunately, he just comes off as a straight up villain. All sympathy is lost for him when he [[MoralEventHorizon rapes a blind girl after throwing her father down a well]]. Over the course of the film, he kills many people, steals from a friend of his after whipping him with a belt, and beats up and strangles his friends. To cement his status as one of the most defining examples of this trope, Griffin is so far the only DesignatedHero to be listed as a CompleteMonster.