History Film / Hancock

* RiddleOfTheAges: [[spoiler:Where did Hancock and Mary's kind come from.]]

* BullyingADragon: When Hancock goes to jail, the prisoners, who he put there, surround and heckle him. [[TooDumbToLive Are they all tired of living?]]

->''"[[NobodyCallsMeChicken Call me an asshole]]... [[BerserkButton one more time]]."''

* ManOfSteelWomanOfKleenex: In a deleted scene, Hancock warns a woman about this before having sex with her. At the last minute, he shows her off him and his sperm ''shoot out through the roof''.

The film's name is a case of title dissonance for British viewers of a certain age, who irrevocably associate the name with Creator/TonyHancock, of ''Radio/HancocksHalfHour'' Fame. follow the link for his Creator page. The actual reference, for those not well-versed in American history, is to ''John'' Hancock, who famously signed the American Declaration of Independence with a much larger signature than the other signers, leading to "Hancock" becoming an idiomatic synonym for "signature."

The film's name is a case of title dissonance for British viewers of a certain age, who irrevocably associate the name with ''Tony'' Hancock, of ''Radio/HancocksHalfHour'' fame. The actual reference, for those not well-versed in American history, is to ''John'' Hancock, who famously signed the American Declaration of Independence with a much larger signature than the other signers, leading to "Hancock" becoming an idiomatic synonym for "signature."

* BrotherSisterIncest: Averted. Mary gives this claim as an excuse to Hancock why things are awkward between the two exes. Turns out their not related at all.

* AnArmAndALeg: Red, the ringleader of the bank robbery halfway through the film, tries to coerce Hancock into helping him with a spring-loaded "dead-man's switch". Hancock's solution, cut his hand off and keep it closed around the detonator. [[spoiler: At the climax, he's holding a gun to a depowered Hancock, and Ray chops his other hand off with an ax before killing him.]]

* BerserkButton: Call Hancock an asshole. One. More. Time. [[spoiler:Mary]] also has one: she doesn't like it when someone calls her crazy.

* AGodAmI: Hancock has this attitude sometimes, but [[spoiler: Mary]] gets it pretty bad for their fight. It helps they were [[spoiler:Godlike, and called Gods since the beginning of time.]]

* AGodAmI: Hancock has this attitude sometimes, but [[spoiler: Mary]] gets it pretty bad for their fight. It helps they were [[spoiler:Godlike, and called Gods since the beginning of time.]]
-->'''Hancock''': You and I, we're the same.
-->'''[[spoiler:Mary]]''': No, I'm stronger.
-->'''Hancock''': Really?
-->'''[[spoiler:Mary]]''': *smugly* Oh yeah.

** Rather than tell Hancock what was going on after they first meet, [[spoiler:Mary flings him out of her house and into the street after they share a kiss]]. Justified- see BroughtDownToNormal above.

* EternalLove: [[spoiler: Hancock and Mary are soulmates, made for each other, and have been in a relationship for hundreds of years]].

* FreudianExcuse: [[spoiler: Hancock is an asshole because when he woke up in the hospital with amnesia he learned that he apparently had no ties to anyone and that he had to have been some kind of ass to not know a single person who cared about his apparent predicament.]]

* GoryDiscretionShot: [[spoiler:The scene in which Hancock amputates Red's hand holding a dead-man's switch cuts to a shot outside the bank.]]
** Also, the AssShove scene. You know the one if you've seen the movie. You don't see it happening, but you do see [[{{Squick}} everyone's]] [[MassOhCrap reactions.]]

* HeroInsurance: Hancock's talent for causing collateral damage is wearing thin on the public at the start of the film.
* HeroWithBadPublicity: The premise is Hancock is a hero whose public hates him. Ray intends to fix this by giving him HundredPercentHeroismRating: "Crowds should cheer when you fly by. Boys should beg for your autograph. People should ''love'' you. They really should." Instead, they boo him.

* HookHand: Red replaced his hand with a hook because Hancock rips his original one off [[TakeAThirdOption to get around the deadman switch.]]
* IdentityAmnesia: [[spoiler: Decades prior to the film, Hancock was attacked, along with his wife, by a group of bigots (for being a black man romantically involved with a white woman); the injury sustained to his skull erased any memory of who he was.]]

** [[spoiler: Mary]] is also this [[spoiler: especially while she unloads 3,000 years of repressed anger in the street fight with Hancock, when he's repeatedly and honestly told her he ''doesn't remember anything'' about his former life.]]

* LivingLegend: Everyone knows who Hancock is. They know he's perfectly willing to help. They just don't like him very much.

* MoralityPet: Ray's son, for Hancock; who's noticeably nicer to him than to anybody else even before he starts turning his image around. Helps that Aaron is an unabashed Hancock fan.
* MortalWoundReveal: After the shooting at the shop, it takes Hancock a couple of seconds to notice that he received two gut shots. Then he sinks down. It's not mortal as in ''fatal'' but it demonstrates that Hancock has ''become'' mortal.
* MovieSuperheroesWearBlack: Invoked by Ray who gives Hancock a black leather suit to make him more professional. "I ain't wearing that", Hancock says, but Ray eventually convinces him.

* NobodyCallsMeChicken: Hancock is about to abandon prison and heads for the door when Ray calls him out (You're being a coward!) which makes Hancock change his mind.

** Ray is one of the only people in the Hancock-verse who recognises that it's ''not'' a good idea to piss Hancock off.

* OohMeAccentsSlipping: No idea where on earth Creator/EddieMarsan's villain is supposed to be from. He's sometimes English, sometimes Southern US, and sometimes vaguely...Irish?
* PhysicalGod: [[spoiler:Hancock and Mary are implied to be this. They're certainly powerful enough and have at many times in history been dubbed and worshipped as gods]].

* SirNotAppearingInThisTrailer: Creator/CharlizeTheron. The DVD previews didn't do it, and it went to TrailersAlwaysSpoil.
* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: The film starts with Ray at the idealistic end (All Heart Symbol), and Hancock at the cynical end (don't care about anything or anyone). The movie ends up closer to center but still tilted toward idealism (i.e. Hancock is still a pro-bono superhero but not a boyscout).

** The (former) prisoners who assault Hancock at the hospital. Sure he can be hurt ''now'' because he's turning mortal, but he still has SuperStrength and there is no way they could have known he'd be vulnerable. [[note]] The scene before showed a news report about him being hospitalized with gunshot wounds but they started planning to escape and get revenge long before this happens.[[/note]] Although in this instance, it could be chalked up to [[SanitySlippage the prisoners going mad with revenge]], as well as Red's (who was proven to be a crazed [[TheSociopath sociopath]] to begin with) manipulation.

* UntrustingCommunity: Averted; the population of Los Angeles are belligerent and ungrateful, berating Hancock for his methods of stopping crime and saving people (which costs the city millions and often trashes some poor sod's day).

* WithGreatPowerComesGreatPerks: Hancock had this image in the public eye until Ray taught him how to make a good enough impression to make people realise that he genuinely was a superhero.

* WhereDaWhiteWomenAt: This trope is played with. [[spoiler: Hancock and Mary have been together for centuries in a mixed marriage. In fact, Hancock's amnesia is a result of being assaulted by bigots [[MalignedMixedMarriage because he was with a white woman]] in pre-[[UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement Civil Rights]] era Florida.]] The PlayingWithATrope part comes in because [[spoiler: Hancock and Mary]] are both superheroes/immortals, so it's LikeGoesWithLike.

->''"[[NobodyCallsMeChicken Call me a asshole]]... [[BerserkButton one more time]]."''

* BadassBookworm: Kenneth "Red" Parker Jr. He's mentioned in a news report as a former Psychology professor who created a large underground network using psychological persuasion to create criminals.

* BittersweetEnding: It's downplayed on the "bitter" part. Hancock and [[spoiler:Mary]] are supposedly "drawn to one another" but do not hook up at the end. She's HappilyMarried and in love and he's doing what he loves doing, and they show no signs of actually wanting to hook up.
* BlackComedy: The first act is about the gruesome injuries and vulgaries that Hancock engages in, and how this is played for laughs. The original scripts continued this way, but the addition of the second plot line takes it in a different direction.

* BusFullOfInnocents: In this case a bank full of innocents acting as hostage to the robbers. Hancock saving them without loss of life or major property damage is precisely when his public image improves.

* ComplainingAboutRescuesTheyDontLike: The citizens complain about collateral damage because Hancock is everything but subtle in his heroics. It isn't until Hancock's absence that some of them learn to appreciate him.

* CrooksAreBetterArmed: Cops wielding standard-issue handguns plus a few rifles are pinned down by a group of bank robbers wearing body armor and armed with machine guns and BottomlessMagazines. Hancock shows up in order to pull the two pinned down cops to safety, then catch the robbers.

** Often by Hancock and Ray; it's a feedback loop such as this one. Ray shows Hancock a video of him hurling Walter the whale back into the ocean...on top of a Greenpeace boat:

-->'''Ray''': ... Greenpeace does. Walter does.

* DestructiveSavior: The movie bases a big part of its plot in both [[DeconstructiveParody deconstructing and making fun of this]]. Hancock breaks a lot of stuff while chasing bad guys and tends to inadvertly cause trouble whenever he tries to help. Because of this, most people hate him, and he has to learn to clean his act before he can get any appreciation.

''Hancock'' is a 2008 film starring Creator/WillSmith as the titular [[AntiHero hero]].

The film's name is a case of title dissonance for British viewers of a certain age, who irrevocably associate the name with ''Tony'' Hancock, of ''Radio/HancocksHalfHour'' fame. The actual reference, for those not well-versed in American history, is to ''John'' Hancock, who famously signed the American Declaration of Independence with a much larger signature than the other signers, leading to the idiom "put down your John Hancock" being used to mean "sign here."

While he still opts to fight the bad guys, there is absolutely no public support for him... until he saves the life of Ray (Creator/JasonBateman), an idealistic marketing executive. Ray convinces him to clean up his act: to change his image from being a clumsy {{jerkass}} with no care for property damage to actually acting and dressing the part of a superhero, so that the people he saves will actually be ''happy'' to see him.

%%* ActionFilmQuietDramaScene:

The movie is about a drunken {{jerkass}} super-hero (played by Creator/WillSmith) who has been stopping crime in Los Angeles for years. He is incredibly clumsy and careless and has absolutely zero HeroInsurance, and every time he stops crime, something gets horribly wrecked, only annoying the city's denizens more and more. Each additional crime he stops raises the level of enmity the Angelenos have for him, and it isn't helped by the fact that they're all aware he cannot be restrained.

* YouTube: Ray shows Hancock why he has such bad publicity. Someone recorded Hancock cavalierly grabbing a whale by its tail and flinging it out into the ocean, then posted the video on YouTube. In real life, the scene from the movie was posted to YouTube by the studio itself.