History Main / PlethoraOfMistakes

* The BankRobbery in ''Film/TwoHands'' starts off smoothly. Things start to unravel when one of the customers gets lippy and Jimmy has to beat him down. Then Wozza knocks himself out attempting to hurdle the counter, and Jimmy as to fetch the GetawayDriver Craig from the car to help him carry out Wozza. This means that Craig is not keeping watch outside the bank and two cops arrive without being spotted. The cops open fire and Craig is killed in the fusillade of shots. Jimmy is forced to dump Wozza in the car, where he groggily comes round and returns fire. Jimmy tries to start the car and get away, but the cops PopTheTires, forcing Jimmy and Wozza to carjack another vehicle before they can escape.

%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Do not uncomment them without expanding them to explain how this trope applies. A work name on its own is not a proper example, and neither is a character name. HOW does this trope play out in this work?

* FanFic/DungeonKeeperAmi: In retrospect, [[GodOfEvil Crowned Death]] really, really shouldn't have stolen from the Dark Empress.

* Several movies by Creator/TheCoenBrothers feature seemingly simple plots gone horribly wrong.
** ''Film/TheBigLebowski'' by contrast, has a number of ''complicated'' plots gone horribly wrong, mainly by crashing into each other.

** ''Film/BurnAfterReading'': The list of stupid things that happen is mind-boggling to the Nth degree. Suffice to say that it's a plot played for (dark) laughs, populated with people too self-absorbed to actually figure out what the hell is going on, and pointed out as such by the CIA at the epilogue... in a "what the hell just happened?" kind of way.
** ''Film/{{Fargo}}'': The very first mistake was getting StupidCrooks to pull off a kidnapping and giving them a car that didn't had proper plates. The second one was not knowing that one of them was a TriggerHappy sociopath. From that point on, it gets worse.
** ''Film/TheLadykillers2004'' (and [[Film/TheLadykillers1955 the British original]]): The heist itself goes off without a hitch, it's dealing with the [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom sweet old lady]] who witnessed it that's problematic.
** ''Film/RaisingArizona'': The first mistake, arguably, was not sitting down and thinking that when a man says he has too many children that he knows what to do with, he was just joking. And then there's the avalanche of obvious lies made to the neighbors. And the Biker from the Apocalypse. And there's the two StupidCrooks that are friends of the protagonist that try to pull a heist at the finale but can't even make the hostages follow instructions right.
** ''Film/NoCountryForOldMen''. Boy howdy! The very first mistake isn't even Llewelyn Moss' fault -- for some damn reason two drug-dealing groups decide to blow each other away. ''His'' first mistake, though, was deciding to go back to the scene of that crime and try to do something humane for a man that was probably long dead by the time he made that decision. And it only gets worse from there.
%%** ''Film/BloodSimple''
%%* ''Film/BeforeTheDevilKnowsYoureDead'': Almost to the point of parody. It makes ''Film/ReservoirDogs'' look like ''Film/{{Heat}}''.

* In ''The Great St Louis Bank Robbery'', [[Creator/SteveMcQueenActor George Fowler]] is recruited to be the getaway driver for the titular bank robbery. John Egan (the gang's leader) has planned everything meticulously and timed things down to a second. However, Ann, (George's ex-girlfriend) finds out about the robbery and tries to inform the authorities. John kills her for knowing too much and changes the plan so now Willie is the driver and George has to come into the bank with the other robbers. The day before the robbery the bank makes a small change that causes the entire plan to unravel. The police show up and Willie panics and drives off without the others. The robbery ends with John shot by the police while taking a woman hostage, Gino committing suicide in the vaults and George captured.

%%* ''Film/{{Stag}}'' (similar to ''Very Bad Things'', but came out before it).
* ''Film/{{Snatch}}''. Let's just say getting a diamond onto an aeroplane is not nearly so simple as it seems. Neither is understanding [[TheUnintelligible Brad Pitt as a pikey]].
* ''Film/TheNextThreeDays'' plays with this a little. The protagonist is a teacher, not a criminal mastermind, and thus he is constantly racing to try to pull off a XanatosSpeedChess in his quest to get his wife off prison.

* In the ''Literature/{{Parker}}'' novels by Richard Stark, Parker's carefully planned heists seldom go according to plan; usually due to either the greed of one of his partners or interference of other criminals. Basically, they're the serious, pulp-fiction version if the Dortmunder novels, mentioned above, which makes sense when you realize that Richard Stark is a pseudonym for Donald Westlake.

* Episode ''Good Night'' of ''Series/{{Homeland}}'' had a ''relatively'' simple plan of getting Brody through to the Iranian boarder through Iraq. Instead they had problems with their drone, their planned route was cut off, nosey Iraqi cops show up at an inopportune moment, a land mine blows up the truck carrying Brody and cripples one of Brody's escorts, and then there is a shoot out with Iraqi soldiers. Their was nothing "simple" about it.
* ''Series/{{Ozark}}'' likes to cynically ''wallow'' in this trope. Basically Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman) is a Chicago financial advisor who, along with his business partner, launders money for a Mexican drug cartel. When his partner tries to cheat the cartel and ends up dead, Marty relocates his unfaithful wife Wendy (Laura Linney) and two kids to a modest resort at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri, where he hopes to work off his debt to the cartel while avoiding the attention of the FBI. Unfortunately for them, the Ozark is a WretchedHive of corruption, making the territory anything but a easy mark. So naturally there's an absurd amount of disasters after disasters, deaths after deaths. To the point of contrived coincidences.

[[folder:Film]]

* The 2013 ''Bonnie and Clyde'' TV movie portrays the infamous OutlawCouple as going through this trope at the start of their criminal career. Clyde wants to rob a payroll to get enough money so he and Bonnie can leave Texas, but the plan is faulty and he gets caught and sent to jail. When he gets out, he and Bonnie rob a bank, but their getaway car runs out of gas and Bonnie is captured. When they rob a store, a panicky accomplice accidentally shoots and kills the store owner. Over time, they become addicted to the outlaw lifestyle and stop caring about who they are hurting. They still make plenty of mistakes, but now they 'correct' them by killing the police officers who come after them.
* Series/{{Ozark}} likes to cynically ''wallow'' in this trope. Basically Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman) is a Chicago financial advisor who, along with his business partner, launders money for a Mexican drug cartel. When his partner tries to cheat the cartel and ends up dead, Marty relocates his unfaithful wife Wendy (Laura Linney) and two kids to a modest resort at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri, where he hopes to work off his debt to the cartel while avoiding the attention of the FBI. Unfortunately for them, the Ozark is a WretchedHive of corruption, making the territory anything but a easy mark. So naturally there's an absurd amount of disasters after disasters, deaths after deaths. To the point of contrived coincidences.
* One episode in ''Series/MissFishersMurderMysteries'' snowballed into this. Aunt Prudence had called a seance to speak with her godson Roland who had died in the Great War to help a ShellShockedVeteran recover his memories. This would lead to two people dying in the present time and the discovery that Roland was actually murdered. [[spoiler: Roland's ex-wife Maude]] wanted to protect the murderer and broke into Roland's grave to retrieve evidence but accidentally killed the grave keeper in their panic. Then, [[spoiler: Mrs Bolkonsky]] would kill Freddy upon discovering in the seance that [[spoiler: her aide Hamilton's brother]] was also in Roland's regiment but had died painfully due to [[spoiler: a traumatized Freddy]] [[AccompliceByInaction not doing anything to save them]].

** ''Film/BurnAfterReading'': The list of stupid things that happen is mind-boggling to the Nth degree. Suffice to say that it's an IdiotPlot played for (dark) laughs, populated with people too self-absorbed to actually figure out what the hell is going on, and pointed out as such by the CIA at the epilogue... in a "what the hell just happened?" kind of way.

* Series/{{Ozark}} likes to cynically ''WADDLE'' in this trope. Basically Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman) is a Chicago financial advisor who, along with his business partner, launders money for a Mexican drug cartel. When his partner tries to cheat the cartel and ends up dead, Marty relocates his unfaithful wife Wendy (Laura Linney) and two kids to a modest resort at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri, where he hopes to work off his debt to the cartel while avoiding the attention of the FBI. Unfortunately for them, the Ozark is a WretchedHive of corruption, making the territory anything but a easy mark. So naturally there's an absurd amount of disasters after disasters, deaths after deaths. To the point of contrived coincidences.

* The book (and less so, the movie) ''Film/TheHotRock''. The "simple" crime of stealing a diamond becomes a series of crimes as things keep going wrong. As one character says, "I've heard of the habitual criminal but never the habitual crime".
* This is a recurring theme in the [[Literature/{{Dortmunder}} John Dortmunder]] novels by Donald Westlake (of which ''The Hot Rock'' is the first). Dortmunder is a spectacularly unlucky criminal. The other novels (some of which have been filmed) are: ''Film/BankShot'', ''Jimmy the Kid'', ''Nobody's Perfect'', ''Why Me?'', ''Good Behaviour'', ''Drowned Hopes'', ''Don't Ask'', ''What's the Worst That Could Happen?'', ''Bad News'', ''The Road to Ruin'', ''Thieves' Dozen'', ''Watch Your Back'', ''What's So Funny?'', and the novella ''Walking Around Money''.

Similar to ASimplePlan, but applied to crime dramas, thrillers, and the like, this is either a very simple plan or a very complicated plan where ''everything'' goes wrong for the sake of going wrong. Usually an [[AnvilOfTheStory unsubtle]] way of saying crime doesn't pay, or just making the characters dance for your amusement.