History Film / Unthinkable

* AMillionIsAStatistic: The movie dwells on this with debates on whether it is morally justified to torture a known terrorist and aspiring mass murderer to death to extract information on the whereabouts of several nuclear devices that he scattered across the United States and rigged to detonate, which would kill millions of people. While this "dilemma" will seem downright farcical to most people, a better case is presented when the interrogators are considering torturing the man's two (innocent) children. When the WideEyedIdealist character is already responsible for the deaths of 53 people by trusting the terrorist at his word, she plays the trope horrifyingly straight when she openly voices her preference to let ''thousands'' of children all be killed to preserve the lives of his.

* BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil: When Agent Brody asks H's wife, Rina, how she can stand to live with and have a family with H considerably how he is "not normal" and dangerous by any moral standards, she discloses a dark secret about her past. [[spoiler: She once had a family in Bosnia, but three men came to her home and raped her in front of all her family members. They then murdered all her family members with her young son being the last one killed. These men were her neighbors who she admitted were seen as "normal" and known by her personally before the incident]]. It's pretty clear the experience caused her to become indifferent/borderline sociopathic about what H does or what she does to others, only caring about her own family at this point. [[spoiler: What she didn't reveal, according to H, is that after the three men were captured by authorities, she killed their wives and their children in front of them and then she killed the men when US troops arrived]]. [[CaptainObvious She's as monstrous as H is if you can't see from reading this]].

* WellIntentionedExtremist: He may be evil in his torture, but H is simply doing this to save millions of American lives.

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:It ends with the terrorist confessing the locations of the three nuclear bombs he has hidden in three different cities in the US. In the extended version, an FBI bomb squad finds one of the bombs and defuses it and are all celebrating. Then the camera pans to a ''fourth'' bomb hidden in the same room which count downs to zero, before the screen fades to black.]]

* PapaWolf: One of H's redeeming qualities - he seems to genuinely love his children and willing to go to great lengths to protect them - [[spoiler: including taking prisoner and possibly planning to kill federal agents]], as seen in the beginning of the movie. [[spoiler: [[MoralEventHorizon He does not extend this to other people's children, however.]]]]

* WellIntentionedExtremist: He may be evil in his torture, but H is simply doing this for the betterment of the USA.

* WouldHurtAChild: Invoked by "H" to make the captured terrorist believe that the torture expert [[TheUnfettered truly has no lines he wouldn't cross]] to get the information out of him that H needs to [[WellIntentionedExtremist save the lives of millions]]. He brings in the terrorist's children and pretends to take them to a seperate room to torture them to death, which is enough to make his subject crack. H doesn't go through with it, but leaves it ambiguous whether he would really be prepared to do something ''that'' extreme.

* BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil / RapeLeadsToInsanity: When Agent Brody asks H's wife, Rina, how she can stand to live with and have a family with H considerably how he is "not normal" and dangerous by any moral standards, she discloses a dark secret about her past. [[spoiler: She once had a family in Bosnia, but three men came to her home and raped her in front of all her family members. They then murdered all her family members with her young son being the last one killed. These men were her neighbors who she admitted were seen as "normal" and known by her personally before the incident]]. It's pretty clear the experience caused her to become indifferent/borderline sociopathic about what H does or what she does to others, only caring about her own family at this point. [[spoiler: What she didn't reveal, according to H, is that after the three men were captured by authorities, she killed their wives and their children in front of them and then she killed the men when US troops arrived]]. [[CaptainObvious She's as monstrous as H is if you can't see from reading this]].

** The movie deliberately takes no stand and remains ambiguous as to whether H was right - the viewer is free to form their own opinion on the relationship of ethical and moral values and extreme situations and whether the suspension of said values is justified. Unfortunately, the ExtendedVersion of the movie [[BrokenAesop thrashes said premise in just forty or so extra seconds]] - [[spoiler: by showing, after the final scene where the children are led away by Brody, that the fourth bomb is indeed real. The screen fades to black as the timer reaches zero, so it is still somewhat ambiguous whether the bomb really explodes, but it seems to be strongly implied...thus pointing out that Younger indeed lied, and implicitly showing that TheExtremistWasRight after all - had H tortured Younger's children, the man would have likely broken and the attack would have been prevented.]]

* BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil / RapeLeadsToInsanity: When Agent Brody asks H's wife, Rina, how she can stand to live with and have a family with H considerably how he is "not normal" and dangerous by any moral standards, she discloses a dark secret about her past. [[spoiler: She once had a family in Bosnia, but three men came to her home and raped her in front of all her family members. They then murdered all her family members with her young son being the last one killed. These men were her neighbors who she admitted were seen as "normal" and known by her personally before the incident]]. It's pretty clear the experience caused her to become indifferent/borderline sociopathic about what H does or what she does to others, only caring about her own family at this point. She even helped H hold two federal agents hostage and would have killed them without hesitation if H demanded it. [[CaptainObvious She's pretty messed up if can't see from reading this]].

* WrittenByTheWinners: H gives a speech to Younger about [[IDidWhatIHadToDo he is able to do the terrible things he's done as long as it yields the results his people want]]. If he paves the way for victory, then his people have the moral-ground regardless of the atrocities he commits.

* WrittenByWinners: H gives a speech to Younger about [[EndsJustifyTheMeans he is able to do the terrible things he's done as long as it yields the results his people want]]. If he paves the way for victory, then his people have the moral-ground regardless of the atrocities he commits.

* RapeLeadsToInsanity / BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil: When Agent Brody asks H's wife, Rina, how she can stand to live with and have a family with H considerably how he is "not normal" and dangerous by any moral standards, she discloses a dark secret about her past. [[spoiler: She once had a family in Bosnia, but three men came to her home and raped her in front of all her family members. They then murdered all her family members with her young son being the last one killed. These men were her neighbors who she admitted were seen as "normal" and known by her personally before the incident]]. It's pretty clear the experience caused her to become indifferent/borderline sociopathic about what H does or what she does to others, only caring about her own family at this point. She even helped H hold two federal agents hostage and would have killed them without hesitation if H demanded it. [[CaptainObvious She's pretty messed up if can't see from reading this]].

* RapeLeadsToInsanity / BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil: When Agent Brody asks H's wife, Rina, how she can stand to live with and have a family with H considerably how he is "not normal" and dangerous by any moral standards, she discloses a dark secret about her past. [[spoiler: She once had a family in Bosnia, but three men came to her home and raped her in front of all her family members. They then murdered all her family members with her young son being the last one killed. These men were her neighbors who she admitted were seen as "normal" and known by her personally before the incident]]. It's pretty clear the experience caused her to become indifferent/borderline sociopathic about what H does or what she does to others, only caring about her own family at this point. She even helped H hold two federal agents hostage and would have killed them without hesitation if H demanded it]]. [[Captain Obvious She's pretty messed up if can't see from reading this]].

* RapeLeadsToInsanity / BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil: When Agent Brody asks H's wife, Rina, how she can stand to live with and have a family with H considerably how he is "not normal" and dangerous by any moral standards, she discloses a dark secret about her past. [[spoiler: She once had a family in Bosnia, but three men came to her home and raped her in front of all her family members. They then killed her family with her son being the last one killed. These men were her neighbors who she admitted were seen as "normal" and known by her personally]]. It's pretty clear the experience caused her to become indifferent about what happens or what she does to others, only caring about her own family. [[Spoiler: She even helped H hold two federal agents hostage and would have killed them without hesitation if H demanded it.

* RapeLeadsToInsanity/BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil: When Agent Brody asks H's wife, Rina, how she can stand to live with and have a family with H considerably how he is "not normal" and dangerous by any moral standards, she discloses a dark secret about her past.

''Unthinkable'' is a 2010 thriller film starring Creator/SamuelLJackson, Carrie-Anne Moss and Creator/MichaelSheen.

* [[spoiler:WouldHurtAChild]]: [[spoiler:H.]]

An American Muslim man releases a tape claiming he has planted three nuclear weapon in three seperate cities and will detonate them unless his demands are met for U.S. military withdrawal from the Middle East. The FBI agent looking for him are contacted by the military that they have found the terrorist. To get the information they have resorted to torturing him. With time running out they are forced to enlist "H" (Jackson), a radical "special interrogator" who will use any means to force the locations out of the terrorist. Moral dillemmas ensue as H goes further and further with the means at his disposal.

* JackBauerInterrogationTechnique: "H", the [[DesignatedHero "hero"]] of the film, is an ex-Army interrogator who uses extreme methods to get a terrorist to talk, which go up to and include cutting off the man's fingers, electrocuting him, and [[spoiler:killing his family in front of his face.]] His methods end up being viewed as crossing the MoralEventHorizon for the counterterrorism unit assisting him, causing them to run interference.
* AMillionIsAStatistic: The movie dwells on this with debates on whether it is morally justified to torture a known terrorist and aspiring mass murderer to death to extract information on the whereabouts of several nuclear devices that he scattered across the United States and rigged to detonate, which would kill millions of people. While this "dillemma" will seem downright farcical to most people, a better case is presented when the interrogators are considering torturing the man's two (innocent) children. When the WideEyedIdealist character is already responsible for the deaths of 53 people by trusting the terrorist at his word, she plays the trope horrifyingly straight when she openly voices her preference to let ''thousands'' of children all be killed to preserve the lives of his.

* TitleDrop: Towards the end of his interrogation, H, a torture expert working for the US military, says "what I am about to do...is unthinkable".

* WellIntendedExtremist: He may be evil in his torture, but H is simply doing this for the betterment of the USA.