History ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight / LiveActionFilms

*** After learning the sheer enormity of the horrors committed during the course of Project Starfish, as well as the U.S. government's involvement in it, Rick Flagg decidess to defy Amanda Waller and release all the evidence to the media. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, this gets him killed by Peacemaker.]]

*** The Starks have a habit of stepping in where the military won't. Howard's son, [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony]] flies to Gulmira to handle the terrorists personally even though the US forces in the area hadn't been given the go-ahead. A soldier monitoring the situation says they weren't given the go-ahead because the terrorists were using human shields. Iron Man is unimpressed by cowards who use human shields.

* Nick Fury does this in ''Film/TheAvengers2012'' when the WSC orders [[spoiler:a nuclear strike on Manhattan]] to stop the Chitauri invasion. Understandable, as it ''is'' a [[SophisticatedAsHell stupid idea]].
-->'''Nick Fury:''' I recognize that the council has made a decision. But given that it's a [[SophisticatedAsHell stupid-ass]] decision, I've elected to ignore it!\\
'''Gideon Malick:''' Director, you're closer than any of our subs. You scramble that jet--!\\
'''Nick Fury:''' That is the island of Manhattan, Councilman! Until I'm certain our team can't hold it, I will not [[spoiler:order a nuclear strike against a civilian population]]!\\
'''Gideon Malick:''' If we don't hold it here, we lose everything!\\
'''Nick Fury:''' I send that bird out, we already have.

* In ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger'',
** Steve Rogers's first real action in World War II is when he rescues 400 soldiers from HYDRA against Colonel Philips' orders. Subverted to a degree when, after returning the men to their base successfully, Steve voluntarily surrendered himself for disciplinary action, only to have [[AFatherToHisMen Phillips]] say, "I don't think that will be necessary."
** Agent Peggy Carter decides to help Steve to get into the HYDRA base, at the risk of her career. Likewise with Howard Stark, who flew the plane into enemy lines. Though as he was a civilian, not to mention a millionaire private contractor, he technically didn't have any orders to disobey and had the least to lose.
*** The Starks have a habit of stepping in where the military won't. Howard's son, [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony]] flies to Gulmira to handle the terrorists personally even though the US forces in the area hadn't been given the go-ahead. A soldier monitoring the situation says they weren't given the go-ahead because the terrorists were using human shields. Iron Man is unimpressed by cowards who use human shields.

* Heimdall in ''Film/{{Thor}}'' is ordered [[spoiler:by the temporary king Loki]] to [[ExactWords not open the Bifrost to anyone]]. When the Warriors Three and Sif decide to break the rules and go anyways and tell this to Heimdall, the latter simply replies with a "Good!" and walks away. After readying the Bifrost, of course.
** In the [[Film/ThorTheDarkWorld sequel]], when the gang (including Heimdall) is planning the break out of Loki, they need to distract Odin, which amounts to treason. Cue Heimdall informing Odin of a plan of treason... starting with his own part in the affair... and then attacking Odin.

* ''Film/WonderWoman2017'':
** Much like was done years earlier in ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', the contest to send out an Amazon is AdaptedOut and instead, Diana decides to ignore Hippolyta's edict not to get involved.
** ComicBook/SteveTrevor leads a rogue mission to Belgium to destroy the German poison gas stockpiles in defiance of explicit orders not to do so from his commanding officers in London.
** Diana, still the WideEyedIdealist and horrified by what [=WWI=] is doing to anyone caught up in it, ignores Steve's orders, puts her mission on hold, and charges through no man's land to liberate a Belgian village occupied by the Germans just because a desperate mother asked for her help.

** Steve Rogers' first real action in World War II is when he rescues 400 soldiers from HYDRA against Colonel Philips' orders. Subverted to a degree when, after returning the men to their base successfully, Steve voluntarily surrendered himself for disciplinary action, only to have [[AFatherToHisMen Phillips]] say, "I don't think that will be necessary."
** Agent Peggy Carter decides to help Steve to get into the HYDRA base, at the risk of her career. Likewise with Howard Stark, who flew the plane into enemy lines. Though as he was a civilian, not to mention a millionaire private contractor, he technically didn't have any orders to disobey, and had the least to lose.
*** The Starks have a habit of stepping in where the military won't. Howard's son, [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony]] flies to Gulmira to handle the terrorists personally even though the US forces in the area hadn't been given the go ahead. A soldier monitoring the situation says they weren't given the go-ahead because the terrorists were using human shields. Iron Man is unimpressed by cowards who use human shields.
* ''Film/CrimsonTide'' is all about this. Lt. Commander Hunter (played by Creator/DenzelWashington) actually commits mutiny and seizes control of the ''USS Alabama'' in the name of preventing nuclear war. Though Hunter insists throughout that it was ''not'' a mutiny, he did everything "by the book". It was the Captain who disobeyed proper procedure, by not holding the launch countdown pending retrieval of the message, and attempting to relieve Hunter for fulfilling his role, the very reason why there's two sets of keys. As far as Hunter sees it, his actions were all Lawful as well as Good.

* ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'': Officer John Blake often goes against his superiors because of them making questionable decisions in handling Bane's attacks on Gotham. He rescues Commissioner Gordon and gets inducted into the Major Crimes Unit, and his decision to help Gotham no matter what others say comes to a head when [[spoiler:it becomes the target of an imminent nuclear explosion.]]

* ''Film/GIJoeTheRiseOfCobra'': General Hawk first subverted his orders by [[spoiler:telling the team that they could violate the spirit of the orders without technically violating the letter]] and later [[spoiler:launched an unsanctioned attack on Cobra's Arctic base after the organization was ordered disbanded.]]

** ''Film/DieAnotherDay'': Bond is held in custody by MI-6 in Hong Kong after his return from captivity in North Korea. He escapes and continues his initial mission, that is finding terrorist Zao in Cuba. He gets cleared by MI-6 upon coming back to the UK and works with their endorsement again afterwards.

*** ''Film/{{Skyfall}}'': Bond forgoes procedures and takes M on a ride to Skyfall, Scotland, onboard his Aston Martin [=DB5=], in order to protect her and lure Raoul Silva far away from London. Q, Bill Tanner and Gareth Mallory are onboard with that plan, but Mallory prefers that the British PM doesn't know about this.

*** ''Film/NoTimeToDie'': At the end, the Royal Air Force plane carrying Bond, Nomi and Q as well as the Royal Navy destroyer sent by M to destroy Lyutsifer Safin's IslandBase before the mass-produced and deadly Hercules {{nanomachines}} are spread worldwide have no right to be in the skies and waters of the Kuril islands, and nearly cause a diplomatic crisis with Japan and Russia. M proceeds nonetheless and has the destroyer bombard the island to destroy any trace of Heracles [[spoiler:(and Bond willingly [[HeroicSacrifice sacrifices]] [[TheHeroDies himself]] when the missiles hit)]], as it's better for the rest of the world that it doesn't know about the existence of Heracles.

** In the [[Film/ThorTheDarkWorld sequel]], when the gang (including Heimdall) is planning the break out of Loki, they need to distract Odin, which amounts to treason. Cue Heimdall informing Odin of a plans of treason... starting with his own part in the affair... and then attacking Odin.

** Diana, still the WideEyedIdealist and horrified by what [=WWI=] is doing to anyone caught up in it, ignores Steve's orders, puts her mission on hold and charges through no man's land to liberate a Belgian village occupied by the Germans just because a desperate mother asked for her help.

-->"Screw this. I didn't sign up for this shit!"
* ComicBook/NickFury does this in ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'' when the WSC orders [[spoiler:a nuclear strike on Manhattan]] to stop the Chitauri invasion. Understandable, it ''is'' a [[SophisticatedAsHell stupid idea.]]
-->'''[[Creator/SamuelLJackson Nick Fury:]]''' I recognize that the council has made a decision. But given that it's a [[SophisticatedAsHell stupid-ass]] decision, I've elected to ignore it!
-->'''Gideon Malick:''' Director, you're closer than any of our subs. You scramble that jet--!
-->'''Nick Fury:''' That is the island of Manhattan, Councilman! Until I'm certain our team can't hold it, I will not [[spoiler:order a nuclear strike against a civilian population!]]
-->'''Gideon Malick:''' If we don't hold it here, we lose everything!
-->'''Nick Fury:''' I send that bird out, we already have.

* {{Deconstructed}} in ''Film/{{SWAT}}'', where it's shown what happens when a stunt like this doesn't go as planned. In the opening scene of the movie, the audience sees a bank robbery that quickly turns into a tense hostage situation, and they're introduced to respected SWAT officer Brian Gamble, who disobeys a "hold" order to save one of the hostages from certain death while his superiors insist on negotiating with the robbers. It's the kind of stunt that practically all action movies depict heroically -- except Gamble screws up and accidentally shoots the hostage, causing a PR nightmare for the police department, destroying Gamble's relationship with his partner, and leading to his expulsion from the force, whereupon he goes rogue and becomes a bitter career criminal. Turns out [[DecoyProtagonist Gamble's actually the villain of the movie]]. Oops.

* In ''Film/HomeAlone3'', eight-year-old Alex Pruitt is recovering from chickenpox when he sees his neighborhood burglarized twice by four internationally wanted spies working for a North Korean terrorist organization looking for a microchip stolen from a defense department contractor, but each time he calls the police to catch them, they already managed to flee the crime scenes in time, at which point the police won't believe him. As such, Alex decides to deal with the burglars himself by using the remote control car the chip was hidden in-- which was given to him by his neighbor, Mrs. Hess, for shoveling her driveway-- to film their next burglary in the act. When that eventually leads to the discovery of the chip, he calls an Air Force recruiting office, which then alerts the FBI. When he realizes the spies know where he lives, then he sets up the booby traps.

[[ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight Breaking the rules in order to do the right thing]] in LiveActionFilms.

* ''Film/StreetFighter'': "Troopers, I just received new orders. Our superiors say the war is cancelled. We can all go home. Bison is getting paid off for his crimes, and our friends who have died here will have died for nothing. But, we can all go home. Meanwhile, ideals like peace, freedom, and justice, they get packed up. But, we can all go home. Well, I'm not going home. I'm gonna get on my boat, and I'm going up river, and I'm going to kick that son of a bitch Bison's ass so hard that the next Bison wannabe is gonna feel it! Now, who wants to go home... and who wants to go with me?"

** ''Film/LicenceToKill'': Bond will stop at nothing in his RoaringRampageOfRevenge against drug lord Franz Sanchez to get justice for the Leiters, even if it means disobeying MI-6 orders and becoming a RogueAgent. Also in the same film, Moneypenny (Caroline Bliss) calls Q (Creator/DesmondLlewelyn) in M's back so he can help Bond, and Q immediately goes to Isthmus to catch up with Bond and bring him gadgets without a second thought, not bothering one bit about what M would think of this.

*** ''Film/{{Spectre}}'': Bond goes on a mission the previous M entrusted him with in VideoWills before she died at the end of ''Skyfall'', that is tracking and killing Spectre agent Marco Sciarra before he carries out a deadly terrorist attack in Mexico. The new M didn't know about this and [[DaChief chastises Bond]] for it upon his return. Furthermore, Bond's entire mission to find and destroy Spectre is not sanctioned by the new centralized direction for the secret services that's headed by Max Denbigh aka "C", who is actually TheMole for Spectre, and later M, Q and Moneypenny end up working against this guy to stop and expose the threat even after having been all basically fired from [=MI6=].

-->'''[[Creator/SamuelLJackson Nick Fury:]]''' I recognize that the council has made a decision. But given that it's a [[SophisticatedAsHell stupid-ass]] decision, I have elected to ignore it.

** ''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness'' starts with Kirk and crew violating the Prime Directive to save an alien tribe from a volcano (possibly, it's a little unclear if ''that'' was the big violation, or if letting the natives see the ''Enterprise'' during a rescue of Spock. Either way, writing a misleading report to cover it up afterwards wasn't Kirk's best decision). Subverted in that Kirk ends up [[TurnInYourBadge losing his command]] as a result. This is later inverted when Admiral Marcus gives Kirk the ''Enterprise'' back and orders him to fire a payload of advanced photon torpedoes from a distance at John Harrison, who was in hiding in Klingon Space([[spoiler: as part of Marcus' ploy to instigate a war between the Federation and the Klingons]]). After much soul-searching, Kirk decides "Screw the Admiral's questionable orders, I'm doing what's right" and informs his crew that they are going to arrest Harrison and bring him to Earth to stand trial.

** ''Film/LicenceToKill'': Bond will stop at nothing in his RoaringRampageOfRevenge against drug lord Franz Sanchez to get justice for the Leiters, even if it means disobeying MI-6 orders and becoming a RogueAgent.

** ''Film/{{Casino Royale|2006}}'': Bond breaks into M's apartment and hacks her laptop to find the whereabouts of a certain Alex Dimitrios, who hires terrorists on behalf of [[BigBad Le Chiffre]]. Bond's quick thinking later prevents a disaster and numerous deaths at the Miami International Airport when he foils Le Chiffre's bombing scheme, even if it ends with him getting arrested and roughed up by the police there.
** ''Film/QuantumOfSolace'': Bond disobeys MI-6 orders to drop the mission that leads him to Dominic Greene, seduces their envoy Stawberry Fields, and [[RogueAgent escapes when they come to arrest him]] in order to ruin Greene's scheme.
** ''Film/{{Skyfall}}'': Bond forgoes procedures and takes M on a ride to Skyfall, Scotland, onboard his Aston Martin [=DB5=], in order to protect her and lure Raoul Silva far away from London. Q, Bill Tanner and Gareth Mallory are onboard with that plan, but Mallory prefers that the British PM doesn't know about this.
** ''Film/{{Spectre}}'': Bond goes on a mission the previous M entrusted him with in VideoWills before she died at the end of ''Skyfall'', that is tracking and killing Spectre agent Marco Sciarra before he carries out a deadly terrorist attack in Mexico. The new M didn't know about this and [[DaChief chastises Bond]] for it upon his return. Furthermore, Bond's entire mission to find and destroy Spectre is not sanctioned by the new centralized direction for the secret services that's headed by Max Denbigh aka "C", who is actually TheMole for Spectre, and later M, Q and Moneypenny end up working against this guy to stop and expose the threat even after having been all basically fired from [=MI6=].
** ''Film/NoTimeToDie'': At the end, the Royal Air Force plane carrying Bond, Nomi and Q as well as the Royal Navy destroyer sent by M to destroy Lyutsifer Safin's IslandBase before the mass-produced and deadly Hercules {{nanomachines}} are spread worldwide have no right to be in the skies and waters of the Kuril islands, and nearly cause a diplomatic crisis with Japan and Russia. M proceeds nonetheless and has the destroyer bombard the island to destroy any trace of Heracles [[spoiler:(and Bond willingly [[HeroicSacrifice sacrifices]] [[TheHeroDies himself]] when the missiles hit)]], as it's better for the rest of the world that it doesn't know about the existence of Heracles.

** ''Film/{{Spectre}}'': Bond goes on a mission the previous M entrusted him with in VideoWills before she died at the end of ''Film/{{Skyfall}}'', that is tracking and killing Spectre agent Marco Sciarra before he carries out a deadly terrorist attack in Mexico. The new M didn't know about this and [[DaChief chastises Bond]] for it upon his return. Furthermore, Bond's entire mission to find and destroy Spectre is not sanctioned by the new centralized direction for the secret services that's headed by Max Denbigh aka "C", who is actually TheMole for Spectre, and later M, Q and Moneypenny end up working against this guy to stop and expose the threat even after having been all basically fired from [=MI6=].

* ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'' has Qui-Gon Jinn, who will defy the council to train Anakin because he believes the boy is the "Chosen One." Never mind how bad that went. He was sure he was doing the right thing at the time.
** It should be noted that Qui-Gon was right, but not in the way anyone expected.

* Star Trek

*** Kirk's eventual "[[{{Unishment}} punishment]]" for this is to be demoted in rank to Captain - which is actually what he had wanted all along, and is Starfleet's way of rewarding him for what turned out to be heroic actions. As it turned out, they were glad to admit he was right.

** ''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness'' starts with Kirk and crew violating the Prime Directive to save an alien tribe from a volcano (possibly, it's a little unclear if ''that'' was the big violation, or if letting the natives see the Enterprise during a rescue of Spock. Either way, writing a misleading report to cover it up afterwards wasn't Kirk's best decision). Subverted in that Kirk ends up [[TurnInYourBadge losing his command]] as a result. This is later inverted when Admiral Marcus gives Kirk the Enterprise back and orders him to fire a payload of advanced photon torpedoes from a distance at John Harrison, who was in hiding in Klingon Space([[spoiler: as part of Marcus' ploy to instigate a war between the Federation and the Klingons]]). After much soul-searching, Kirk decides "Screw the Admiral's questionable orders, I'm doing what's right" and informs his crew that they are going to arrest Harrison and bring him to Earth to stand trial.

* ''Film/BatmanForever'': In the wake of Stickley's "apparent" suicide,[[labelnote:*]]where he was actually murdered by The Riddler[[/labelnote]] Bruce Wayne granted full death benefits to his family, even though suicide disqualified him from those benefits. He likely knew something was fishy.
* ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'': Officer John Blake often goes against his superiors because of them making questionable decisions in handling Bane's attacks on Gotham. He rescues Commissioner Gordon and gets inducted into the Major Crimes Unit, and his decision to help Gotham no matter what others say comes to a head when [[spoiler:it becomes the target of an imminent nuclear explosion.]]
* {{Deconstructed}} in ''Film/{{SWAT}}'', where it's shown what happens when a stunt like this doesn't go as planned. In the opening scene of the movie, the audience sees a bank robbery that quickly turns into a tense hostage situation, and they're introduced to respected SWAT officer Brian Gamble, who disobeys a "hold" order to save one of the hostages from certain death while his superiors insist on negotiating with the robbers. It's the kind of stunt that practically all action movies depict heroically -- except Gamble screws up and accidentally shoots the hostage, causing a PR nightmare for the police department, destroying Gamble's relationship with his partner, and leading to his expulsion from the force, whereupon he goes rogue and becomes a bitter career criminal. Turns out [[DecoyProtagonist Gamble's actually the villain of the movie]]. Oops.
* ''Film/BadBoysII'': Marcus's sister is kidnapped by the drug lord and taken to Cuba. Mike and Marcus intend to go rescue her themselves, but are then aided by a loose-knit group of law enforcement agents who decide to risk violating international law.
-->'''DEA Agent Snell:''' We don't know you, but you look like you're about to do something stupid. I'm in.
* The [[LaResistance White Rose]] activists in the fact-based ''Film/SophieSchollTheFinalDays'', which details the arrest and interrogation of a group of German anti-fascists in 1943. The titular Sophie basically quotes this trope, albeit more eloquently, when her interrogator admonishes her for breaking the law.
--> '''Sophie''': Laws change. Our conscience does not.
* ''Film/PacificRim'':
** The Becket brothers decide to save a fishing trawler rather than guard a coast line from a {{Kaiju}} attack, defying orders. [[spoiler: This ends up getting one of them killed.]]
** For that matter, Pentecost is using the last of his Jaeger funding to close the Rift, which is not ''technically'' what he's authorized for.
** The Hansens decide to preemptively intervene and assist Cherno Alpha during the Battle of Hong Kong against Pentecost's orders. [[spoiler: This nearly got them killed because it was a feint by the kaiju to lure them into an EMP blast.]]
* Film/{{Upldr}} has the main character going rogue to break all of the ethical rules to finish his project. In his mind, he thought he was doing the right thing.
* ''Film/{{RIPD}}'': Despite being suspended for the fiasco with Fat Elvis, Nick and Roy continue working their leads on the gold.
* ''Film/AlienNation'': George Francisco is a by-the-book Newcomer police detective...until he finds out some of his race are manufacturing a narcotic called ''jabroka''. Then he sets out to stop them by any means necessary; his philosophy becomes "Fuck procedure."
* ''Film/DallasBuyersClub'': had people with [=HIV=] played by the strict rules and procedures of [=FDA=], they would have all ended up dead.
* ''Film/TopGun'':
** In an EstablishingCharacterMoment in the beginning of the film, Maverick aborts his landing to help [[HeroicBSOD the badly-shaken]] Cougar land his plane even though he's low on fuel himself. He's chewed out for this by Commander Johnson, the carrier's CAG, but Johnson can't do anything else because he's been told to send his top flight crew to Top Gun and Cougar just quit the squadron.
** Way later in the film, Viper illegally reveals the classified true story of how Maverick's dad died because Mav needed to hear it. Viper acknowledges the illegality of doing so.
* ''Film/RedTails'' has a comparatively minor but very heartwarming example. Early in the film the Tuskegee Airmen are stopped from entering the whites-only officers' club. After they fly escort to a bomber wing without losing a single escortee, they go back to the officers' club again and are barred again, only for a group of bomber officers to tell the racist to screw himself and invite the Airmen inside so they can buy them a round.
* ZigZagged in ''Film/PathsOfGlory'', set in WWI trench warfare. During an all-out attack 'B' Company can't get out of their trenches due to a [[MoreDakka hail of bullets]]. General Mireau then orders for the artillery to fire on his own troops to force them out. His immediate subordinates demand for this order to be given [[JustFollowingOrders in writing]]. In the end, the general gets [[spoiler: a free pass]] for his illegal order, and the troops are [[spoiler:court-martialled for failing to go over the top]].
* ''Film/AmericanUltra'':
** Lasseter helps Mike, despite knowing that what she's doing could qualify as treason.
** [[spoiler:Her assistant, Petey, is initially threatened with treason charges of his own by Yates into going along with him, but ultimately chooses to turn on him, refusing to initiate a drone strike on Yates' orders, with a [[PrecisionFStrike "Fuck you!"]] for good measure.]]
* Deconstructed in ''From the Hip.'' The main character, a hotshot defense attorney, starts to believe [[spoiler: that not only is his client guilty of murder, but he's a sociopath and budding serial killer. At the end, the hero starts jumping on his client's BerserkButton again and again with a BreakingSpeech until his client tries [[EngineeredPublicConfession to kill him... in open court.]] The client is found guilty of murder, and the hero is censured for his actions. Most likely the only reason he isn't disbarred is because he can honestly say he didn't know he was defending a guilty man; if the client were innocent, the BreakingSpeech would have gotten him a guaranteed acquittal.]]
* At the climax of ''Film/RogueOne'', [[spoiler: the Rebel Alliance is preparing to surrender to the Empire out of fear of the Death Star, and won't even try to steal the plans showing the Death Star's weaknesses, believing that they'd fail. The protagonist crew of the titular ship, along with several other Rebel troops, decide to go after the plans anyway, thus setting the stage for the Rebels' ultimate victory.]]
* In ''Film/TheHungerGames'' Katniss hunts in the wilderness to feed her family, which is punishable by death. The titular games have one rule: 24 kids fight each other to the death. [[spoiler: But the last two standing players Katniss and Peeta refuse to keep fighting and prefer to commit joint suicide instead.]]

** Diana, still the WideEyedIdealist and horrified by what WW I is doing to anyone caught up in it, ignores Steve's orders, puts her mission on hold and charges through no man's land to liberate a Belgian village occupied by the Germans just because a desperate mother asked for her help.

** ''Film/{{Spectre}}'': Bond goes on a mission the previous M entrusted him with in VideoWills before she died at the end of ''Film/{{Skyfall}}'', that is tracking and killing Spectre agent Marco Sciarra before he carries out a deadly terrorist attack in Mexico. The new M didn't know about this and [[DaChief chastises Bond]] for it upon his return. Furthermore, Bond's entire mission to find and destroy Spectre is not sanctioned by the new centralized direction for the secret services that's headed by Max Denbigh aka "C", who is actually TheMole for Spectre, and later M, Q and Moneypenny end up working against this guy to stop and expose the threat even after having been basically fired from [=MI6=].

** ''Film/{{Spectre}}'': Bond goes on a mission the previous M entrusted him with in VideoWills before she died at the end of ''Film/{{Skyfall}}'', that is tracking and killing Spectre agent Marco Sciarra before he carries out a deadly terrorist attack in Mexico. The new M didn't know about this and [[DaChief chastises Bond]] for it upon his return. Furthermore, Bond's entire mission to find and destroy Spectre is not sanctioned by the new centralized direction for the secret services that's headed by Max Denbigh aka "C", who is actually TheMole for Spectre, and later M, Q and Moneypenny end up working against this guy to stop and expose the threat.