History DisproportionateRetribution / FIlm

* In ''AlienVsPredator: Requiem'', main human Dalas' little brother delivers pizza to a girl he likes. Her boyfriend is inside and jokes about the uniform with his friends; he jokes back 'I guess who ordered the sausage lovers pizza', insinuating that he's gay with his friends. His retaliation is to follow him out of the house, beat the shit out of him, and throw his keys into a sewer, meaning he has to walk home and use the window to get in. Point, its implied that the reason Dalas was in Jail was beating this guy up as retribution for something he did, but still for the incident it was a little cold.

** That's a highly questionable assumption. He knew Derek was a neo-Nazi and understandably had great resentment for him. He didn't know Derek was on the verge of reforming.

*** It doesn't just mark a theif, it makes the person a social outcast because the right hand is the "clean" hand due to the left being used for toilet paper. How would you like to eat with the "dirty" hand?

* ''LawAbidingCitizen'' could have been called Disproportionate Retribution: The Movie. Clyde Shelton's (Gerard Butler) wife and child are murdered and the prosecutor Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) cuts a deal against Clyde's wishes, the result of which is that the accomplice gets the chair while the man who actually committed the murders gets to walk. Ten years later, Clyde wreaks revenge (including a bonus punishment for the already condemned man), then sets about destroying the entire US legal system, leaving Nick alive so that he can witness the devastating consequences of a difficult, justifiable decision he made 10 years ago. He also [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope kills a lot of people]] [[MisplacedRetribution who had little to nothing to do with the deal]], including Nick's assistant.
* Harry from the ''{{Film/Spider-Man}}'' movies clearly knew what led to his father's end -- specifically, that he was the Green Goblin -- from the conclusion of the second film on, yet needed the majority of the third to forgive Peter for stopping a homicidal maniac... multiple rounds of EasyAmnesia helped this along.
** Also Eddie Brock in ''Spider-Man'' 3. Peter exposed Eddie's fraud against Spider-Man (which in itself was the result of Peter in the Venom Suit wrecking a camera that contained a legitimate picture of Venom Suit Spider-Man). Eddie's response? To go into a church and pray to God for Him to kill Peter. [[ItGotWorse Then he got]] [[FromNobodyToNightmare the Venom suit...]] Guess God doesn't like Spider-Man either. Which explains a lot, to be honest.
* Lil Ze in ''CityOfGod'' shot a member of his gang for irritating him with incessant talking.
** This is the same [[CompleteMonster Lil Ze]] who, after he asked a woman to dance at a club and she turned him down, [[spoiler:humiliated her boyfriend by forcing him to strip naked on the crowded dance floor at gun point, followed them home, raped her while the boyfriend was made to watch and then murdered the boyfriend's brother and had his gang shoot up his home, killing his uncle]]. He's not much for restraint.
* In ''{{Murder in the First}}'' Henri Young (Kevin Bacon) is sent to prison for stealing $5 from a post office to feed his hungry sister.
* ''{{Unforgiven}}'' uses this a few times. A prostitute is left scarred for life after being slashed all over her face and body with a knife for laughing at a client. He and his companion are both assassinated by Will Munny for the deed, even though the slasher's companion was only marginally involved and felt remorse. Later, Munny's companion is killed, so he slaughters everyone in the bar displaying his body. Munny also did things like that before he retired: "Remember that drover I shot through the mouth and his teeth came out the back of his head? I think about him now and again. He didn't do anything to deserve to get shot, at least nothin' I could remember when I sobered up."
* ''Film/{{Chicago}}''. One woman murdered her husband for popping gum. This might have just been the one thing on top of many others that made her snap, or she might simply be crazy.
* In ''{{Trainspotting}}'' Begbie beats a man round the head with his pool cue. The man's crime? Eating his crisps loudly.

* ''{{Hancock}}'' likes to use this, particularly during his drunken super-{{jerkass}} phase.
* ''Film/TheMask'': Stanley, when wearing the mask, indulges in this trope a few times. Mechanics who price gouged him apparently get [[spoiler:[[AssShove car parts stuck where the sun don't shine.]]]] (In [[ComicBook/TheMask the original comic]], the scene is much more violent and quite fatal.) In another scene, he honks a horn [[CuteButCacophonic so loud]] at an impatient motorist that the car's windows all shatter.

* Professor Ratigan of ''Disney/TheGreatMouseDetective'' feeds a well meaning drunk minion to his pet cat for calling him [[ComplimentBackfire the world's greatest]] [[BerserkButton rat]].

* Horton of ''HortonHearsAWho'' is outcast, tied down, and caged by the animals in the jungle he lives in, and his clover is taken away and nearly tossed into boiling mud, all because he thinks that some people live on a speck that is located on the clover. [[SarcasmMode How unforgivable]], because, ThinkOfTheChildren!

* ''{{Chicago}}''. One woman murdered her husband for popping gum. This might have just been the one thing on top of many others that made her snap, or she might simply be crazy.

** The {{Interquel}} ''[[BeautyAndTheBeastTheEnchantedChristmas The Enchanted Christmas]]'' introduced the castle decorator and several staff members who have unfortunately become ornaments. Because he dislikes Christmas and was actually cursed on that day, the Beast has them ''imprisoned in the attic''. They couldn't have learned to do paperwork? Decorate for the New Year instead? Something?

* ''LawAbidingCitizen'' could have been called Disproportionate Retribution: The Movie. Clyde Shelton's (Gerard Butler) wife and child are murdered and the prosecutor Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) cuts a deal against Clyde's wishes, the result of which is that the accomplice gets the chair while the man who actually committed the murders gets to walk. Ten years later, Clyde wreaks revenge (including a bonus punishment for the already condemned man), then sets about destroying the entire US legal system, leaving Nick alive so that he can witness the devastating consequences of a difficult, justifiable decision he made ten years ago.
** He also [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope kills a lot of people]] [[MisplacedRetribution who had little to nothing to do with the deal]], including Nick's assistant.
* Harry from the ''{{Film/Spider-Man}}'' movies clearly knew what led to his father's end -- specifically, that he was the Green Goblin -- from the conclusion of the second film on, yet needed the majority of the third to forgive Peter for stopping a homicidal maniac... of course, multiple rounds of EasyAmnesia helped this along.

* Syndrome in ''TheIncredibles'' was basically just a geeky kid who wanted to be a super-sidekick using his gadgetry. After he's rather roughly dismissed by his hero, Mr. Incredible (who was trying to deal with multiple disasters at that particular moment, one of which had been caused by the kid's clumsy attempt to help, and was also on the verge of being late to his own wedding), he goes to the dark side and spends his life designing technology so he can ''kill off all the world's superheroes'', take their place, and then eventually sell his inventions so that ''everyone'' can be super, depriving everyone of their uniqueness. He takes special glee in his attempts to kill/abduct Mr. Incredible's wife and kids.

** As another person pointed out on this wiki, ''he was also eleven at the time.'' Remember how the rose was supposed to die on the Beast's twenty-first birthday, and when Mrs. Potts said they'd been cursed for ten years? Yeah. Pretty disproportionate.

** That's a highly questionable assumption. He knew Derek was a neo-Nazi and understandably had great resentment for him. Of course, he didn't know Derek was on the verge of reforming.

* Pretty much any character played by [[HairTriggerTemper Joe Pesci]]. In ''{{Casino}}'' his character Nicky Santoro stabs a guy a dozen times in the throat with a pen because he was rude. In ''{{Goodfellas}}'' his character Tommy [=DeVito=] beat a guy to death for mentioning how he used to shine shoes and then telling him to go get his shine box.

* And of course, the classic line from ''TheUntouchables'': "You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. ''That's'' the ''Chicago'' way!"

* In ''DragMeToHell'', an old gypsy woman gets back at the main character for denying her a loan extension by ''cursing her to Hell for all eternity''. It should also be noted that the loan extension she was denied was her ''third'' extension, implying that she never even bothered to pay off her previous two loan extensions before and thus ended up got her just desserts by ''not'' being granted a third one.

* ''BruceAlmighty''. A punk that harasses Bruce gets hunted down and ''raped''. With a monkey. Twice. Considering that at this point Bruce could have done pretty much anything else, the fact he chose to rape the man...

* Those poor thieves in ''HomeAlone''. Especially the second movie.

* The ending text in ''ILoveYouPhillipMorris'' pretty much states this is the reason for Steven's unprecedentedly harsh sentence: his ability to fake his own death from AIDS was an embarrassment to the State of Texas and to Governor George Bush, plus the prosecuting DA was the sister in law of one of the men Steven conned. Which might explain why Steven got a life sentence with a 23-hour a day lockup for fraud and prison escapes. A LOT of fraud and MANY prison escapes, but really? Harsh, dude.

** There's also Bartleby's and Loki's ''entire plot'' in the movie, as well as what CAUSED it. See, angels were never given free will, so when Loki at one point questions God whether a proclaimed judgement ''might be'' a little excessive and resigns as the Angel of Death, thanks to Bartleby egging him on while they were drunk, God strips them of their semi-divinity and banishes them to Wisconsin forever. (Note that this is a few centuries before even the Native Americans get a chance to show up.) So their plot? Abuse a loophole in Catholic doctrine that would get them back into heaven! The downside is that this would destroy Creation. As in, ''everything''. To quote [[AlanRickman the Metatron]], "Was Wisconsin really that bad?"

* ''LaPielQueHabito'' is ''DisproportionateRetribution: TheMovie''. Yes, the guy had had sex with his daughter who then went insane and [[spoiler: was DrivenToSuicide by that]] but [[spoiler: kidnapping the guy, [[GenderBender turning him into a woman]] ''identical to his dead wife]]'', not to mention using him [[spoiler: as a Guinea Pig for his experiments on skin resistant to fire]] and trapping him in more ways than one more than earned him [[spoiler: [[KarmicDeath his death by shooting]] at the hands of [=Vicente/Vera=].]].

* A graphic designer shows Millennium a series of new logos to choose from. Millennium refuses to use one logo but soon changes its mind. The designer's response? He files a lawsuit that could potentially ban several of its films, including ''DriveAngry'', ''ElephantWhite'', ''ConanTheBarbarian'' (already facing a ban due to a separate ongoing lawsuit filed by Stan Lee Media on the grounds that they technically still own the rights to ''{{Conan}}'' because the deal that led to Conan Sales Company and then Paradox Entertainment, the film's producer, acquiring the rights to the franchise was never valid due to SLM's bankruptcy protection), ''{{Trespass}}'', and ''TheSonOfNoOne'', as well as a few other future Millennium productions, just for using the logo in question.

* In ''{{Murder in the First}}'' Henri Young (Kevin Bacon) is sent to prison for stealing $5 from a post office to feed his hungry sister.
* ''{{Unforgiven}}'' uses this a few times. A prostitute is left scarred for life after being slashed all over her face and body with a knife for laughing at a client. He and his companion are both assassinated by Will Munny for the deed, even though the slasher's companion was only marginally involved and felt remorse. Later, Munny's companion is killed, so he slaughters everyone in the bar displaying his body. Munny also did things like that before he retired: "Remember that drover I shot through the mouth and his teeth came out the back of his head? I think about him now and again. He didn't do anything to deserve to get shot, at least nothin' I could remember when I sobered up."
* ''{{Chicago}}''. One woman murdered her husband for popping gum. This might have just been the one thing on top of many others that made her snap, or she might simply be crazy.
* In ''{{Trainspotting}}'' Begbie beats a man round the head with his pool cue. The man's crime? Eating his crisps loudly.
* Syndrome in ''TheIncredibles'' was basically just a geeky kid who wanted to be a super-sidekick using his gadgetry. After he's rather roughly dismissed by his hero, Mr. Incredible (who was trying to deal with multiple disasters at that particular moment, one of which had been caused by the kid's clumsy attempt to help, and was also on the verge of being late to his own wedding), he goes to the dark side and spends his life designing technology so he can ''kill off all the world's superheroes'', take their place, and then eventually sell his inventions so that ''everyone'' can be super, depriving everyone of their uniqueness. He takes special glee in his attempts to kill/abduct Mr. Incredible's wife and kids.
* ''{{Hancock}}'' likes to use this, particularly during his drunken super-{{jerkass}} phase.
* ''Film/TheMask'': Stanley, when wearing the mask, indulges in this trope a few times. Mechanics who price gouged him apparently get [[spoiler:[[AssShove car parts stuck where the sun don't shine.]]]] (In [[ComicBook/TheMask the original comic]], the scene is much more violent and quite fatal.) In another scene, he honks a horn [[CuteButCacophonic so loud]] at an impatient motorist that the car's windows all shatter.
* Disney's version of ''Disney/BeautyAndTheBeast'': "I'm going to transform you into a monster, and your entire household of innocent bystanders into sentient household appliances, and impose an arbitrary time limit on all of you because you don't give out handouts." Granted, she was disguised as a freezing old woman at the time, but honestly, would it have hurt her to ''at least leave the servants alone?''

** Gaston's opinion on Belle rejecting his advances: "Bah, Belle rejected me. I'm so humiliated! I'm going to forcibly get her father committed, blackmail her into marrying me, and - if that doesn't work - lead an angry mob to kill the guy she ''does'' like. Even if this guy has lost the will to live and won't fight back."

** The {{Interquel}} ''[[BeautyAndTheBeastTheEnchantedChristmas The Enchanted Christmas]]'' introduced the castle decorator and several staff members who have unfortunately become ornaments. Because he dislikes Christmas and was actually cursed on that day, the Beast has them ''imprisoned in the attic''. They couldn't have learned to do paperwork? Decorate for the New Year instead? Something?

** This theme is subverted in ''[[EnchantedForestChronicles Dealing With Dragons]]'', when the princess Alianora was brought up to deliberately be thrown into princessy situations but none of them worked out properly. When she was born, her parents forgot to invite a wicked fairy, in the hopes of getting her a christening curse. Instead, when the fairy shows up she ends up eating cake and ice cream and dancing and ultimately has so much fun she forgives everyone and leave without cursing the princess.

* In ''KillBill'':

** In the campfire flashback in Part 2, Bill tells the story of Pai Mei:

* In the Lindsay Lohan remake of ''TheParentTrap'', two twins who do not yet know they are twins are fencing. Girl 1 accidentally pushes 2 into a water trough. 2 walks back to her cabin and changes and in total all damage done is that she spends 30 seconds being wet. She then gets her vengeance by winning a poker game (royal flush beating a straight flush), taking all of 1's allowance and winning an additional bet that forces her to skinny dip in an ice cold lake at night, inviting the whole camp who watch her about to dive nude while teasing her as much as possible, and then telling those girls to steal and hide her clothes. Ouch.
** The retribution for the lake incident was to somehow move the offending twin and her roommates' beds and dressers onto the roof of their cabin. Words cannot describe the retribution for that.

* ''ConAir'' character William "Billy Bedlam" Bedford: "He caught his wife in bed with another man, left them alone, drove four towns over to his wife's family's house. Killed her parents, her brothers, her sisters, even her dog."
* ''{{Hitch}}''. The title character's love interest Sara has a friend who slept with a guy who dumped her the morning after. On the way out the door, he makes an offhand comment, "Date doctor my ass." Sara makes it her mission to find the date doctor and expose him, blaming him for enabling the scumbag to use her friend. [[spoiler: When she finds out it's none other than Hitch, the guy she's been seeing and whom she likes, she trashes him and his completely innocent client in her gossip column. This effectively ruins his reputation and livelihood.]] And then Hitch ''[[WhyWouldAnyoneTakeHimBack takes her back.]]''
** For those who aren't aware, [[spoiler: Hitch had explicitly ''refused'' to work with the guy ''because'' he was a scumbag who only wanted to get laid, making Sara even more horrendously unlikable and making it even more enraging when Hitch takes her back.]]

* The second adaptation of ''Film/ThePunisher''. When the BigBad's son is killed during a bust that Frank took part in, he and his wife decide to take his revenge by killing Frank's ''entire extended family''. This becomes worse when you realize that ''Frank wasn't the one who shot him'', and he was only shot ''because he was stupid enough to pull a gun out when he had a dozen SWAT surrounding him''. The Punisher could also be accused of this, because, despite his protests, he's driven more by vengeance than punishment.
* ''TheUsualSuspects''. In response to an attack on his family and the murder of his son, the BigBad's response is to [[spoiler: kill the rest of his OWN family, kill the hostage takers, their families, their friends and ''anyone who owed them money''. Ouch]].
** [[spoiler: [[UnreliableNarrator Considering the source]] he was probably just [[ShroudedInMyth increasing his own legend]].]]
* In the horror film ''DarknessFalls'', the monster is the "original" Tooth Fairy that the stories are based on, and she'll kill any child who sees her at work. The movie's tagline was "An Eye For an Eye. Your Life For a Tooth..."
* In ''{{Oldboy}}'', Oh Dae-Su is abducted off the street and held prisoner for 15 years while his family is murdered and he is blamed for it. When he is finally released, he learns that [[spoiler:an old schoolmate, Woo-Jin, performed the deed as well as hypnotized him into unknowingly sleeping with his daughter. This is all in retaliation for Oh Dae-Su idly mentioning that he saw Woo-Jin's sister sleeping with another student, who unknown to Oh-Dae Su was actually Woo-Jin. The rumors that followed caused her to kill herself.]]
* And of course, the classic line from ''TheUntouchables'': "You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. ''That's'' the ''Chicago'' way!"

* ''PiratesOfTheCaribbean'': Captain Teague, Keeper of the Code, shoots Sri Sumbhajee's spokesman mid-sentence for merely conveying ''his master's'' dissent for following the code.
** Barbossa sees the curse on him and his crew as this.

*** Barbossa saying "disproportionate" should count as comic relief, much like his "disinclination to acquiesce to your request... means No."
* In ''SerialMom'', most of the murders committed by the protagonist, Beverly Sutphin, were done for entirely inane reasons. For example, beating a woman to death because she wore white shoes after Labor Day.
* In ''DragMeToHell'', an old gypsy woman gets back at the main character for denying her a loan extension by ''cursing her to Hell for all eternity''. It should also be noted that the loan extension she was denied was her ''third'' extension, implying that she never even bothered to pay off her previous two loan extensions before and thus ended up got her just desserts by ''not'' being granted a third one.

* ''Film/StarTrek'''s Nero decides to wait 25 years for Spock to come through the same black hole that pulled him into the past, makes Spock watch [[spoiler:Vulcan get destroyed, and then moves on to systematically destroy the other planets of the Federation. All of this is because Spock turned up mere minutes too late to save Romulus from a super nova.]] (Countdown's backstory doesn't count as the film's writers have established it as non-canon material).

* In ''Film/FridayThe13th: A New Beginning'' the psychotic Vic brutally murders manchild Joey with an axe due to finding him too talkative.
** [[spoiler: [[JackTheRipoff That manchild's father]] attempts to ''kill everyone'' at the institution he and Vic were at because of this... and that is after Vic himself is shipped safely to prison.]]
* In the ''Film/OceansEleven'' remake Danny Ocean and his band of thieves are afraid of their target, Terry Benedict, because of his reputation for disproportionate retribution: the story the thieves tell is that he not only terrorized the guy he caught but bankrupted his brother's tractor dealership too, which goes against the band of thieves' casino-owning ally's sense of justice: "In the old days they'd just whack you." The sequel shows Terry and his thugs turning up at one of the Malloy brothers' wedding and threatening them in front of their family.

* In ''{{Swordfish}}'', JohnTravolta's character explains that this is the entire point of the secret government organization he works for. Whenever someone commits an act of terrorism, their organization responds with an extremely escalated response. This is done so terrorists will think twice before striking, lest they find themselves at war with a shadow organization fully willing to vaporize entire towns in response to a few dead American hostages.
* The ending of ''{{Extract}}''. Sure, the neighbor was annoying and talked too much, but [[spoiler:did he really have to ''die''?]]

* ''RatRace'' has some. Taxi driver lost some money after a botched football game. When the referee of said game enters his cab, the driver goes into the desert, takes the referee's shoes and socks and abandons him there. Cheating on a helicopter pilot leads to [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1MxtNFdd4s this]]. And God helps [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfgELYaSYhMif you don't buy a squirrel.]]
* Subverted in ''PeeWeesBigAdventure''. Pee-wee hitchhikes with a guy on the run from the law, and helps him sneak through ''a police roadblock''. When asked what his crime was, he begins to talk about doing something terrible with a knife, then realizes that he's frightening Pee-wee, so he claims that [[MattressTagGag he cut the tag off his mattress]]. The naive Pee-wee nods in sympathy, saying, "I always thought that was the dumbest law."
* Probably the ''only'' funny joke in ''SuburbanCommando'' parodies this trope:

* The ''{{Saw}}'' saga is ''full'' of these.
* Do NOT spit on Film/SherlockHolmes in a boxing match. Especially after he's willingly conceded the fight. There are consequences.

* ''Film/PhoneBooth'' is essentially a depiction of one of these.

* So is ''SheDevil''.
* ''Faces of Death IV'' depicts a Russian peasant being drawn and quartered by horses for tax evasion.

* Used for humor in ''ScaryMovie 3'' when the architect (played by the late GeorgeCarlin) described Tabitha's punishment:

* In ''{{Spaceballs}}'', parodying the scenes in ''[[TheEmpireStrikesBack Empire Strikes Back]]'' when Darth Vader telekinetically strangles his men for their failures in battle, Dark Helmet laser-castrates his men for the most trivial of mistakes.

** He also kills a lot of people who had little to nothing to do with the deal, including Nick's assistant.

* In ''Murder in the First'' Henri Young (Kevin Bacon) is sent to prison for stealing $5 from a post office to feed his hungry sister.

* When you're a king or queen planning your daughter's christening, be sure you ''don't'' forget to send an invitation to [[Disney/SleepingBeauty Maleficent]], [[NightmareFuel the Queen of Nightmare Fuel]]. No matter how uneasy you are to have her around the baby, you'll thank yourself when she doesn't barge in halfway through and condemn the child to die at the age of sixteen because you unintentionally insulted her. Then again, even if that did happen, it's also likely that Maleficent would have cursed her anyway for the heck of it.

* In ''{{Spaceballs}}'', parodying the scenes in ''[[TheEmpireStrikesBack Empire Strikes Back]]'' when Darth Vader telekinetically strangles his men for their failures in battle, Dark Helmet laser-castrates his men for the most trivial of mistakes.

* In ''{{Spaceballs}}'', parodying the scenes in ''[[TheEmpireStrikesBack Empire Strikes Back]]'' when Darth Vader telekinetically strangles his men for their failures, Dark Helmet laser-castrates his men for the most trivial of mistakes.

* In ''WarINC'', Hauser asks some kids for directions. They demand candy as payment. Hauser explains that he doesn't have candy, but gives them a ''lot'' of money. Later, Hauser finds his truck is on fire. One of the kids yells, "Next time, bring some ''candy'', asshole!" and [[FlippingTheBird flips him off]] before running away.

* ''LaPielQueHabito'' is ''DisproportionateRetribution: TheMovie''. Yes, the guy had had sex with his daughter who then went insane and [[spoiler: was DrivenToSuicide by that]] but [[spoiler: kidnapping the guy, [[GenderBender turning him into a woman]] ''[[BeyondTheImpossible identical to his dead wife]]'']], not to mention using him [[spoiler: as a Guinea Pig for his experiments on skin resistant to fire]] and trapping him in more ways than one more than earned him [[spoiler: [[KarmicDeath his death by shooting]] at the hands of [=Vicente/Vera=].]].

** In fact, when the girl finds out that she can [[spoiler:transfer the curse to someone else by giving them the button]], she can't seem to bring herself to do it, even to her JerkAss coworker.