History PoliceAreUseless / LiveActionFilms

* In ''Film/RunLolaRun'', Lola's second run has her robbing her father's bank. The money is put into a trash bag and she throws the gun she was using aside before leaving through the front door... right into a row of police cars and policemen, with their guns pointed right where she is. Thinking she's been caught, Lola is shellshocked, only for a policeman to tackle her aside, having mistaken her for an innocent bystander or simply the cleaning lady, due to the trashbag in her hand. [[SarcasmMode Cause there's no way the money could be held in a trash bag]].

** In ''Film/{{Scream|1996}}'', during the finale, the only cop present -- Dewey -- is taken out very quickly, and it's [[BadassNormal Sidney and Gail]] that put an end to everything.

** The directors actually went on record saying that there's an agreement between the NYPD and the Assassins. So long as the Assassins don't put out contracts on police officers or kill them in their cover ups of a crime, and most certainly '''do not kill civilians''', then the police leave the assassins alone. The fact that John Wick is left alone implies that despite his blood soaked past he was professional enough to never kill police or civilians in the process of doing his job, so the police rewards his professionalism by turning a blind eye. That and they probably know if they did go after John they'd need a whole lot of body bags planned ahead of time, so it's best not to bother him.

* Averted in ''Film/TheAlienFactor'' as the local sheriff does everything he can to protect a civilian when the two are attacked by one of the aliens. Even though bullets from his gun only distract the creature, both of them survive.
* Generally averted in ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan''. Captain Stacy and the NYPD are actually depicted as competent at their jobs. In fact, Spider-Man's first encounter with cops sees him inadvertently ruining a months-long NYPD sting that was going to bust up an organized car theft ring. After finding out that Dr. Connors is a danger to the city, Peter's first reaction is to tell Captain Stacy about it. First thing Captain Stacy does is mock him and have a cop escort Peter out. The second thing is ask another cop to pull up information on Dr. Connors to see if Peter's concerns are justified.

* Averted in The Boogens; The policeman does stop [[spoiler: the first]] creature from killing Trish, but even after putting all six rounds into it, he becomes the second last victim.

** This is averted with the portrayal of the New York City Police Department in ''Film/DieHardWithAVengeance''.

** Averted with Gerard and his team of US Marshals. Although technically incorrect in their pursuit of Kimble, they are not the least bit incompetent, and end up being his allies in proving his innocence.
* ''Film/TheFunhouseMassacre'': This trope is mostly [[AvertedTrope Averted]], as Sheriff Kate is a very dedicated police officer who's currently investigating a murder she believes was committed by the Stitch-Faced Killer (aka, Eileen). This trope comes into play, however, when Deputy Doyle gets a PrankCall from someone claiming to be at the Land Of Illusions Haunted House Attraction, and ignores all further calls from there on the grounds that it's just more pranks.

* Averted in ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy2014'' with the Nova Corps: they stop four criminals without endangering civilians, they don't presume a message from a criminal is a lie just because it's from a criminal, when Ronan's fleet arrives they evacuate the city and make civilian rescue a priority, not to mention the fact that they slow a mile-wide ship to a crawl by interlocking their craft and forming a huge barrier shield.

** Averted in the third film. [=McDylan=] is seen initially as a bumbling but friendly SVU Detective who by the end proves to be an effective investigator and police officer who [[spoiler: is forced to shoot Jennifer in order to stop her from killing her latest victim.]] The police in general are shown to be competent and quickly connect the victims [[spoiler:to the rape survivor group that Jennifer was a part of.]]
** Averted in the fourth film. [[spoiler: No one calls them in the first place and not one law enforcement official is ever seen.]]

* Averted in the horror movie ''Film/JeepersCreepers''. When the two frightened, teenage heroes from out of town run to the small-town police in the middle of the night with wild stories about a monster pursuing them, the police utterly break the formula by taking them seriously enough to investigate their findings, and trying their level best to protect them. The force finally faces down the monster in a standoff. Their efforts prove useless, though, as it has a HealingFactor.

* Completely averted in ''Film/Joker2019''. After a story breaks out that a man dressed as a clown killed three men on the subway, the GCPD doesn't sit scratching their heads as to who the murderer could be. Within a few days they are knocking on Arthur's door as they have found his workplace, questioned the boss and learned that he has mental health issues and was recently fired for bringing a gun to a children's hospital. He's the prime suspect.

* Averted in ''Film/TheMonsterSquad'' when the character Eugene writes a childish letter to the military about Dracula; they actually show up at the end. And again with Sean's dad, a cop, who immediately gets on board to help his son once he figures out what's going on.

* Partially averted in ''Film/TwoMinuteWarning'': Police officers are depicted as competent and determined to stop the sniper who has hidden in one of the towers of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum during a football game without causing casualties. [[spoiler: But they fail spectacularly]].

* PlayedForLaughs in ''Film/TheBigLebowski''. When asked about leads regarding the Dude's stolen car, the policeman replies sarcastically: "Leads, yeah, sure. I'll just check with the boys down at the crime lab, they've got four more detectives working on the case. They got us working in shifts!" This is actually TruthInTelevision as the car itself has almost no value and therefore they really wouldn't care all that much. Auto theft isn't generally a huge priority anyway.

* In ''Film/ShootOutAtMedicineBend'', Sheriff Massey is in the pocket CorruptHick Eb Clark, and turns a blind eye to the banditry of Clark's men. However, even when he is trying to do his job on behalf of Clark, he is still incompetent.

** In ''Film/FridayThe13thPartVIJasonLives'', Tommy Jarvis desperately attempts to warn the police of Crystal Lake/Forest Green after he accidentally brings SerialKiller Jason Voorhees [[BackFromTheDead back to life]], but nobody but the sheriff's own daughter will believe him. Jason's subsequent [[KillEmAll bloodbath]] only convinces the cops that [[CassandraDidIt Tommy himself is the killer]], acting out a delusion of Jason's return. Never mind that the sheriff's daughter can vouch for Tommy because he was ''with her'' during two of the murders. The cops are only forced to accept Tommy's story only when they are attacked by Jason himself at the camp, and promptly killed.

* Averted in ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'' with the Nova Corps: they stop four criminals without endangering civilians, they don't presume a message from a criminal is a lie just because it's from a criminal, when Ronan's fleet arrives they evacuate the city and make civilian rescue a priority, not to mention the fact that they slow a mile-wide ship to a crawl by interlocking their craft and forming a huge barrier shield.

** The police forces of Marseille are completely incompetent except for [[PositiveDiscrimination Petra]]. It says a lot about their boss' abilities that in the third installment he talked about his brother, who copied one part of the exam wrong from him, got zero points and thus couldn't become a police officer.

** Played straight with the Chicago Police Department. They suspect and arrest Richard Kimble for his wife's murder within hours and don't appear to do ''any'' investigating into his (truthful) account of what happened, whereas Kimble, once he escapes, is able to track down his wife's killer within weeks. Given that the one-armed man who actually murdered Kimble's wife was [[spoiler:a former CPD cop]], [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation some viewers have theorized that]] [[DirtyCop the CPD framed Kimble to cover for him]].

* ''Film/{{Zodiac}}'' deconstructs this trope pretty well. It's not that the SFPD are incompetent, per se -- [[HollywoodHistory by the movie's account anyway]], Detective Toschi fingers the correct suspect early on and arrests him at one point. However, a number of contributing factors hamper his investigation: [[ObstructiveBureaucrat overlapping jurisdictions]] among different departments, the lack of hard evidence, adverse media coverage, a panicky public, and just plain bad luck.

* Sheriff Strickland in ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartIII'' doesn't seem to care that Buford Tannen attempted to murder Doc Brown, in front of dozens of witnesses, at the town fayre.

* In ''Film/SilentNight'', Sheriff Cooper is ridiculously incompetent and yet still gives sermons about the police work. Makes you wonder how he became sheriff. Subverted by [[FinalGirl Deputy Bradimore]].

** Played with most of the time. The Metropolitan Police Department and the FBI aren't necessarily incompetent and always active in the Jigsaw case, but they never manage to capture any of the Jigsaw killers and accomplices they know about (only getting their corpses after being killed by someone else), or even discover certain {{Closed Circle}}s like the Nerve Gas House (which includes the series' infamous Bathroom) and the barn (which somehow went unnoticed for ''over a decade'').

** Justified in ''[[Film/Spiral2021 Spiral]]'', where it's shown that the department has had plenty of {{Dirty Cop}}s and a long history of PoliceBrutality, especially after Zeke turned in Pete for murdering a witness. This not only worsens the department's efforts to capture the copycat killer in the film, but also left many past crimes without resolution.

** Justified in ''[[Film/Spiral2021 Spiral]]'', where it's shown that the department has had plenty of {{Dirty Cop}}s and a long history of PoliceBrutality, especially after Zeke turned in Pete for murdering a witness. This not only makes worsens the department's efforts to capture the copycat killer in the film, but also left many past crimes without resolution.

** Justified in ''[[Film/Spiral2021 Spiral]]'', where it's shown that the department has had plenty of {{Dirty Cop}}s and a long history of PoliceBrutality, especially after Zeke turned in Pete.

* NBC's Movie Of The Week ''A Cry For Help: The Tracey Thurman Story'' doesn't even begin to describe this trope. First off, the abusive husband already has a restraining order against him, but it doesn't stop him from marching on over to Tracy's house. Then Tracy calls the cops, who take their sweet ass time getting there. By the time they do, the husband has ''stabbed'' her multiple times. This also draws in a crowd, who now are witnesses to this crime. The cop also restrained a guy who was restraining the husband, who beats her up. Guess what the cop does? He stands there and looks as the husband beats her up and rants on how she should die. While they did call an ambulance and restrain the husband from clawing at her while she was on the stretcher, the fact that they could have done so much more and could have prevented some of the damage done onto Tracey got them ''sued'' for it, [[{{Deconstruction}} making]] [[DeconstructedTrope this...]] For reference, [[TruthInTelevision this is based on a true story]], and the resulting lawsuit [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome considerably improved the average police response to domestic disturbances]].

** Averted in the third film. See SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome below. [=McDylan=] is seen initially as a bumbling but friendly SVU Detective who by the end proves to be an effective investigator and police officer who [[spoiler: is forced to shoot Jennifer in order to stop her from killing her latest victim.]] The police in general are shown to be competent and quickly connect the victims [[spoiler:to the rape survivor group that Jennifer was a part of.]]