History PoliceAreUseless / LiveActionFilms

* ''Film/ThePurge'': JustifiedTrope. One of the rules behind The Purge is that the police cannot respond to any calls for 12 hours. As a result, if you get into trouble, you're on your own.

* ''{{Film/Rampage|2009}}'':

* ''Film/{{Shooter}}'': While the authorities' attempts to track down Swagger are done by the book, the most extreme example of this trope is Officer Kyle Timmons of the Philadelphia Police Department, who was hired by TheConspiracy to help frame Swagger for the Archbishop's murder. Timmons' part was pose as Swagger's police liaison and then shoot him whilst the real killer shot the archbishop, then he'd make the report and Swagger would be framed. Simple right? Except despite the kill being literally set up for him, with Swagger having his back turned and his guard down, Timmons proves so inept that he botches the kill and Swagger manages to escape. Naturally, the spooks who organised the set up are ''pissed'':

* ''Film/{{Shooter}}'': While the authorities' attempts to track down Swagger are done by the book, the most extreme example of this trope is Officer Kyle Timmons of the Philadelphia Police Department, who was hired by TheConspiracy to help frame Swagger for the Archbishop's murder. Despite the kill being literally set up for him, with Swagger having his back turned and his guard down, Timmons proves so inept that he botches the kill and Swagger manages to escape. Naturally, the spooks who organised the set up are ''pissed'':

* ''Film/{{Shooter}}'': While the authorities' attempts to track down Swagger are done by the book, the most extreme example of this trope is Officer Kyle Timmons of the Philadelphia Police Department, who was hired by TheConspiracy to help frame Swagger for the Archbishop's murder. Despite the kill being all but set up for him, with Swagger having his back turned and his guard down, Timmons proves so inept that he botches the kill and Swagger manages to escape. Naturally, the spooks who organised the set up are ''pissed'':

--> CIA Agent: "How could you miss?! ''How could you fucking miss??!!''"

* The cops in ''Film/HomeAlone1'' are poster children for this trope. When Kevin's mother calls them to report that her 8-year-old son has been stranded alone for at least a day, she spends several minutes being bounced around between two bored cops who can't be bothered to try to comprehend what she's telling them before finding someone else to foist her on. Eventually, they dispatch a third cop, who then waits all of 45 seconds after knocking on the door of Kevin's house before concluding that no one is home and leaving.
* ''Film/HomeAlone3'': The cops show up the first two times Alex calls about a burglar. However, since the bad guys are internationally-wanted criminals working for North Korea, not run-of-the-mill crooks, they are able to evade detection and capture (although the cops appear to [[NoPeripheralVision lack peripheral vision]]). He doesn't call them a third time, thinking they wouldn't show up. He does, however, call an Air Force recruiting office about a strange computer chip he finds in his toy car. While the sergeant dismisses his claims, he does agree to pass the serial number up the chain, eventually reaches the office of the Federal agent looking for it, who immediately heads to Chicago.

* Played straight in most Creator/AlfredHitchcock films, due to his own fear of the police from a traumatic childhood experience. However, it's subverted in ''Film/DialMForMurder'', with a cop who works against the innocent framed protagonist but eventually figures out what's really going on and sets up a trap for the villain and ''Film/{{Frenzy}}'', where the cop suspects the protagonist's innocence right from the start.

* ''Literature/NoCountryForOldMen'' has an ideal example of the police doing absolutely nothing useful whatsoever for the course of the film. They might has well have never been there, including the star sheriff played by ''Creator/TommyLeeJones''. The worst example has to be when they first visit Llewyn's trailer, which turns out to be empty, but someone has clearly been there due to the milk being left out and cold. The sheriff dismisses the idea of mentioning that the murderous psychopath Anton Chigurh is around, due to them knowing nothing about him -- it doesn't occur to him that others in the park might have seen him, most notably, the person who directly interacted with him, the owner of the park, as well as any others who probably noticed him breaking into Llewyn's trailer. Later in the film, Sheriff Bell learns that [[spoiler:Llewyn is headed to El Paso, and promises Llewyn's wife only he will go to see him...which is at least six hours from where he is at the time. Sheriff Bell does not alert the El Paso police that there might be a massacre exactly there, nor does he seem too concerned about the fact that it's probably safe to say Anton will be there, too. The obvious happens when a simple phone call to the El Paso authorities saying a massive gun battle was about to break out there would have given them some cause for concern.]] Instead, he lets all of it happen without telling anyone about the inevitable shootout that's definitely going to occur before he gets there.

* ''Film/AGoodWomanIsHardToFind'': Sarah and Alice spend most of the movie arguing, especially as Sarah's behavior seems to get more and more mysterious. When, towards the end, Sarah says that Alice was a good mother, Alice responds, "Now you're scaring me," (they don't have a good relationship, and had argued in their previous scene).

** Similarly downplayed in ''[[Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay the sequel]]'' where the SWAT response to the attack on Cyberdine was to effectively surround the place, effectively move right in, and ''almost'' manage to effectively neutralize the protagonists. Again, it only fails because they're facing a literal killing machine who's immune to tear gas and bullets, and even ''then'' they manage to take down Miles Dyson.

* ''Film/TheFugitive'':
** 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 theorize that]] [[DirtyCop the CPD framed Kimble to cover for him]].

* The cops in ''Film/HomeAlone'' are poster children for this trope. When Kevin's mother calls them to report that her 8-year-old son has been stranded alone for at least a day, she spends several minutes being bounced around between two bored cops who can't be bothered to try to comprehend what she's telling them before finding someone else to foist her on. Eventually, they dispatch a third cop, who then waits all of 45 seconds after knocking on the door of Kevin's house before concluding that no one is home and leaving.