History Main / BulletproofVest

* ''Series/Hunter1984''. In "The Beach Boy", Dee Dee [=McCall=] puts a couple of bullets into a hitman from Hawaii and he doesn't even flinch. Hunter comments that he must have been wearing a bulletproof vest, but that doesn't explain why the audience doesn't see it given that the hitman spends the entire episode with his Hawaiian shirt half unbuttoned to show his CarpetOfVirility. After that Hunter gets out a [[HandCannon Desert Eagle]] to take the hitman on, and uses it to ShootTheFuelTank and blow him up, vest and all.

** When Reese goes undercover as an armored truck guard, he is shot in the back. While he survives due to his vest, he loses consciousness and wakes up in the hospital. The other guard also survived getting shot in the vest but while he was lying stunned and defenseless on the ground, the bad buy finished him off.

** The identity-stealing SerialKiller in 'Proteus' mentions wearing body armour at one point. After Joss Carter [[BigDamnHeroes saves Harold Finch]] by shooting the killer, Finch mentions how good the man was at impersonating an FBI agent and [[ExplainExplainOhCrap realises that included the armour]]. Cue the man getting to his feet, ''immediately'' followed by Beecher shooting him in the head.

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' has featured Stella Bonasera's low-cut vest on a number of occasions.

** The 333 Stalker's brother is given one to wear along with the rest of the team including Chief Sinclair before confronting him at the end of the arc (in "[[Recap/CSINYS04E10 The Thing About Heroes]]").

** They also had an interesting play with this. In the episode after making shippers' dreams come true by marrying Lindsay, Danny Messer forgets his vest and arrives at a crime scene. Mac and Flack, knowing the suspect is present and has a gun, armor up and go inside, telling Danny to stay by the SUV. There is the sound of gunfire. Danny draws his weapon and goes inside. He exchanges fire with the suspect - and does not get hit. In fact, he mortally wounds the suspect and gets a dying confession. Mac does let him have it later about defying orders though.
** The 333 Stalker's brother is given one to wear before confronting him at the end of the arc.
** At the beginning of season 7's 'Exit Strategy,' Mac and Danny are shown getting ready to apprehend a suspect. Danny kisses a picture of Lucy before sticking it in his vest pocket while Mac, also wearing a vest, kisses his crucifix before dropping it down his shirt. Half-way thru, the episode has a Call-Back scene.

* ''Film/Interceptor2022''. On realising they're in a [[DieHardOnAnX Die Hard on the SBX-1]] plot, Captain Collins and Corporal Shah get plate carriers from a locker and put them on, as well as placing one on the unconscious Corporal Beaver. However Beaver turns out to be TheMole and when he wakes up, he shoots the others at short range in the vest to temporarily immobilize them so they can be captured.

* ''Film/JamesBond''

* ''Film/JohnWick'':
** John wears a bulletproof vest beneath his [[BadassInANiceSuit nice suit]] in the first movie, and while it stops penetration, the force of the impact still gets through; Kiril knocks John down by shooting him twice in the chest. It's also not knife-proof. In spite of these limits, it saves his life several times.

* In the ''Greg Mandel Trilogy'' by Creator/PeterFHamilton, a FutureSpandex dissipater suit is used as a defense against {{Energy Weapon}}s, transferring heat away from the body (including body heat, which makes the wearer feel rather cold). It doesn't work against bullets or shrapnel though, so for hardliner tekmerc jobs [[PoweredArmor muscle-armour suits]] are used.

* ''Literature/MikeHammer'': Subverted in the novel "Kiss Her Goodbye" (started by Creator/MickeySpillaine, completed by Creator/MaxAllanCollins). Hammer, knowing the damage the force of the bullets' impact can cause, shoots a vested killer several times at close range in the stomach and chest. It causes massive internal damage, and Hammer leaves him dying in agony on the floor.

* ''Film/{{Goldfinger}}'': When Bond is at Q Branch a man wearing an overcoat is shot with a machine gun. He opens the overcoat, revealing a bulletproof vest -- it was being tested under fire, as it were.

* In ''Film/LicenceToKill'', Pam Bouvier is shot in the back while fleeing a nightclub with Bond and tumbles into the boat they're using to flee. It's revealed a few seconds later she is wearing a vest under her dress.

* Nobody in ''VisualNovel/YoJinBo'' wears armor, except for [[spoiler: Mon-Mon]], who wears chain mail under his clothes. [[spoiler: He uses it to survive [[TakingTheBullet several kunai in the back]].]]

* People who make chainmail as a hobby can make good money not only by making costume-armor for Renaissance fairs but also selling mail vests to police officers looking for greater knife-protection than what their standard-issue body armor provides. However, according to research carried out by the British army in UsefulNotes/WW1, chainmail will actually make a gunshot worse. It's not strong enough to stop a bullet and will actually fragment, carrying more shrapnel into the body, as well as making it hard to reach the wound for treatment. Additionally, any stabs that do get through the chainmail will drive part of the mail into the wound, which can easily lead to infection. Also, while high quality chainmail coupled with effective padding is effectively knife proof, lower grade chain is not. Chainmail is also pretty heavy and cumbersome as it hangs from the shoulders. Thin steel panels are much lighter and provide comparable knife protection. Modern aluminum alloys are stronger than low-grade steel and weigh one-third as much. Titanium weighs 2/3rds as much as steel and is stronger by weight but not volume; however, unlike aluminum, which can be reasonably priced, titanium is ludicrously expensive.
* The popular UsefulNotes/SocietyForCreativeAnachronism song "I'll See Your Six" tells of Sir Trude, the first of the Lady Knights, who wore her SCA armor home through the streets of New York City. She was accosted by a mugger and his three cronies... whose switchblade failed to so much as faze her due to the heavy chain-mail she wore. All four were chased off when she responded by drawing and brandishing a three foot broadsword at them that they hadn't noticed her carrying earlier. MuggingTheMonster at its finest as well as an example of how chain-mail can at the very least reduce damage from blade slashes.
* A story is told about an early 90s Russian LARP enthusiast who wore a chainmail shirt under his jacket. Only in that case, the story has a punchline: the muggers thought that the "victim" was Duncan [=McLeod=] the Immortal because of the guy's immunity to knives and him carrying a sword.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'':

* ''Literature/HonorHarrington'': Honor has to wear specially reinforced clothing because her [[BondCreatures Sphynxian Treecat]] tends to ride around on her shoulders, using his rather long and sharp claws to maintain his grip. The special fabric, while strong, ''won't'' stop a Pulser Dart, the standard ammo used in modern sidearms in that universe (At least, not in anything above the smallest calibers). However, for several of the earlier books, Pulsers are ''not'' [[AbnormalAmmo common]] [[CoolGun weapons]] on the planet [[SpaceAmish Grayson]], and the clothing turns out to be at least moderately ''bullet'' resistant when an assassin attempts to kill her--and it helped that [[TakingTheBullet the bullets were slowed down]] [[HeroicSacrifice by someone else's body]] before they hit her. She still looks like hell when she makes it to a very important meeting soon after, but that has slightly more to do with her being in an aircar crash ''before'' she was shot. In addition, various more robust forms of armor are seen, ranging from the protective [[LatexSpaceSuit skinsuits]] to PoweredArmor, and also including robust, low-tech "clamshell" torso armor.

* ''Series/{{V}}1983''. At the start of ''V: The Final Battle'', a raid by the Los Angeles resistance group goes wrong when they discover that Visitor body armor is now impervious to conventional bullets. Fortunately, a member of a previously unrevealed worldwide resistance network then makes contact with Teflon-coated bullets they have developed.

* ''Series/V1983''. At the start of ''V: The Final Battle'', a raid by the Los Angeles resistance group goes wrong when they discover that Visitor body armor is now impervious to conventional bullets. Fortunately, a member of the worldwide resistance network then makes contact with Teflon-coated bullets they have developed.