Exact Words / Live-Action Films

Films/franchises with their own pages:

• Saw

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Individual examples:

#-I

• 18 Again! (1988): Near the beginning of the movie, David and his friend are working in a back alley and have to hide from a police cruiser. David asks him to give him the paint... and promptly gets red paint dumped all over his face.
  David: Now the bucket.
• In 42, Branch Rickey gets Burt Shotton to manage the Dodgers by way of this trope. Shotton informs Rickey that after he retired, he promised his wife to never put on a uniform again. Rickey says that he never said that he wouldn't manage, and that he can still manage without wearing a uniform. The next scene shows Shotton, in a suit, introducing himself as the new Brooklyn manager.
• A Far Off Place: Nonnie tells Harry that their trek for help is "pretty far" and points out this is technically true when he gets mad at her for not specifying that "pretty far" meant 2,000 kilometers.
• A Wedding (1978): Dr. Meecham tells Toni that he's checking her mother's temperature. When Toni asks how it is, he replies that it's low, but that's fine "under the circumstances." Mrs. Sloan is dead, so, "under the circumstances," it is indeed nothing to worry about.
• Played for laughs a few times in Airplane!:
  • A reporter says "Let's get some pictures", and he and his colleagues all strip paintings off the wall.
  • Ted Striker has a "drinking problem"—as in, he's physically unable to drink without throwing his beverage on his face. (SLOSH!)
  • The air traffic controllers say it's impossible for the crew to go off course, as "they're all on instruments." Cut to the group playing an actual jazz combo.
  • At one point, someone hands Johnny a report and asks "What can you make of this?" Johnny proceeds to literally make "a brooch, a hat, and a pterodactyl" with the paper.
  • A Running Gag in the movie sees someone remarking "There's a problem with X!"; someone else asks, "What is it?", and the first speaker replies by giving a description of X (a cockpit, a hospital, etc.) instead of actually responding to the question.
  • The other Running Gag: "How about some coffee Johnny? No, thanks!"
• Airplane II: The Sequel continues this:
  • Ted Striker's record is pulled out for review: a vinyl LP titled "Ted Striker's 400 Polka Favorites", complete with a cover photo of Striker playing an accordion.
  • "Simon's turned to jelly!"
• In Aladdin (2019), Aladdin asks Genie if he could make him a prince (as in, make him an actual prince so he can win Princess Jasmine's heart). Genie, being of the benevolent variety, quickly points out that there's a lot of gray area in such a wish and demonstrates by making him a prince (as in, summoning one out of thin air). This appears again when Jafar makes his third wish to be "the most powerful being in the universe. More powerful than [the Genie]" which is so ambiguous that Genie can twist it into turning Jafar into a genie, stopping him and his plans.
• In Alice in Wonderland (2010), the Tweedles and the White Rabbit bring Alice to Absalom, the Caterpillar, to determine whether she is the Alice who is destined to fight the Jabberwock and free Wonderland from tyranny; Absalom replies "Not hardly." Later, as Alice slowly remembers her first journey to Wonderland, the Caterpillar reveals that he didn't mean that this Alice was the wrong one; rather, he was saying that she wasn't yet the confident young woman who was able to fight the Jabberwock. By the end of the movie, she is.
• Hallie of All I Want for Christmas asks a Mall Santa that her parents remarry. But her mother announces she's engaged to another man, making Hallie go back again to clarify she wanted her parents to remarry each other.
• Amazing Grace and Chuck: Chuck finishes a short speech at a press conference and the reporters begin asking him questions. He just replies "I don't want to talk anymore", and then he doesn't, not to them, not to his family, not anybody. Thus begins a silent protest that spreads among children across the globe, forcing the world leaders to take his anti-nuclear movement seriously.
• In America America, Stavros, who dreams of emigration from Turkey to the USA, has gotten engaged to Thomna, daughter of a wealthy merchant. Thomna's father says that Stavros and Thomna should live with him, and then tells Stavros not to take his daughter away. Stavros says "I will not take your daughter away from you," because he isn't going to marry her, he's going to use the dowry to escape to America.
• Used at the end of Amistad as part of a Badass Boast: US Secretary of State John Forsyth had previously claimed that the Lomboko slave fortress did not exist, and captain Fitzerald, of the Royal Navy writes him a letter saying he's correct... Right after having destroyed Lomboko with the guns of his ship.
• Armageddon (1998): Having fired (a shotgun at) AJ, Harry Stamper goes to get him back on the team to go into space, even though he tells him, "there's not a job on the planet that I want you to work with me on."
• In Back to the Future, George McFly is unwilling to ask Lorraine to the dance, telling Marty "neither you nor anyone else on this planet is going to make me change my mind." Since George is a sci-fi fan, Marty pretends to be "Darth Vader, an extra-terrestrial from the planet Vulcan" to change his mind.
• In Baby Driver, after botching the final heist and drawing the attention of the cops, Bats tells Baby with increasing fury to "move the car". So Baby snaps and drives straight on into a dumpster, causing Bats to be impaled on a piece of rebar sticking out of it.
  Buddy: What the fuck did you do?!
  Baby: I moved.
• Batman Film Series:
  • Batman (1989)
    • The Joker, at a mob summit, says to a mob boss that if he doesn't want to do it, he can shake his hand and that would be it. Joker did mean that it would have been it. Unfortunately for the mob boss in question, it wasn't what he thought it meant, as he learned at his death in a very gruesome manner.
    • Also, the Joker during the climax says to Vicki Vale while she and Batman are hanging for dear life "Here: let me lend you a hand.". He really meant lending her a hand. Unfortunately, he meant it literally (as in, supplying her with a fake hand that snaps off upon contact).
  • It happens in Batman Returns when The Penguin kills the Ice Princess and frames Batman for the murder. Catwoman calls him out for this, pointing out how he said he was only going to scare her:
  Penguin: She looked pretty scared to me!
  • In Batman & Robin: Poison Ivy, who has been seducing Robin for most of the film, asks Robin to kiss her "for luck" before he leaves to stop Mr. Freeze. However, after a brief kiss, Ivy mockingly tells Robin that it was for "bad luck" and expects him to die shortly. However, Robin ends up surviving the kiss thanks to rubber lips he wore to protect himself.
• Battle Beyond the Stars: After the mercenary Gelt dies defending Akar, as hired by Shad:
  Shad: Have somebody prepare a meal.
  Akirite: A meal?
  Shad: Full course, then bury it with him.
  Akirite: Bury it?
  Shad: That was our arrangement: A meal and a place to hide.
• Battlefield Earth: Johnny Goodboy Tyler's brother has a device attached to his neck that has enough explosive power to decapitate him. Terl promises that he won't press the activation button if Johnny agrees to serve him. He does, and he keeps his word... by letting his comrade do the honors.
• In The Bishop's Wife, Rev. Henry Brougham, stressed out over having to raise funds to build a grand cathedral, prays for help, and gets Dudley the guardian angel. In the end, Dudley fixes things so that the rich widow that Henry was hitting up for money decides to spend it on the poor instead, with Henry controlling the funds. When Henry asks why his cathedral isn't getting built, Dudley reminds him that Henry asked for guidance, not a cathedral.
• In Blade Runner 2049, Agent K is trying to figure out if a particular memory of his, which he believed was implanted, is real. He asks Ana, who designs artificial memories, to analyze it. After scanning his brain, Ana tells him, "It happened," meaning that it's a real memory. However, it didn't happen to him, but to her.
• At the beginning of Bodyguards and Assassins, a wealthy Hong Kong merchant celebrates his son being accepted into a Western University by giving away free rice. His man says that everyone can take as much as they can carry in one hand. Most people grab a single one-pound bag and leave. Then a man who stands about two feet taller than everyone else in the movie grabs the ends of five bags in his enormous hand.
• Body Count 1995 has Makoto, an escaped Professional Killer (played by Sonny Chiba) and his henchwoman ambushing and killing a number of National Guard officers, the last one who pleads for his life. Cue the oldest one in the book.
  Makoto: I won't kill you.
  [Makoto's henchwoman pulls the trigger]
  Makoto: She will.
• In Breaking Away, Moocher gets a job at a gas station. He's ready to put up with anything (even the boss chewing him out for being late) until the boss says, "And don't forget to punch the clock, shorty." ("punch the clock" being the term for clocking in and out for your work shift) Unfortunately for the boss, calling Moocher "shorty" is his Berserk Button, so instead, Moocher actually hits the clock with his fist, breaking it.
• Cat's Eye: In "The Ledge", Cressner prides himself on never welshing on a bet. He promises Norris that if he wins, Norris will have his car cleaned of drugs, a bag of cash, and Cressner's wife. He delivers all three, but what Norris receives is the wife's head.
• In the Director's Cut of The Chronicles of Riddick, Aereon's very carefully worded response to the Lord Marshall demanding she calculate the odds on their campaign to reach the Underverse being successful;
  Aereon: The odds are good that you will reach the Underverse... soon.
• In Cinderella (2015), the Prince introduces himself to Ella as an apprentice who works at the palace, and that his father calls him Kit "when he's in a good mood". Later, at the ball:
  Ella: So you're the prince!
  Kit: Not the prince, exactly. There are plenty of princes in the world. I'm only a prince.
  Ella: But your name's not really Kit.
  Kit: Oh, certainly it is, and my father still calls me that, when he's especially un-peeved at me.
  Ella: But you're no apprentice.
  Kit: I am. An apprentice monarch. Still learning my trade.
  Ella: Oh, gosh!
• In Clash of the Titans (1981), Zeus "requests" Athena give Perseus her beloved owl Bubo as a guide. Naturally, the Goddess of Wisdom is able to circumvent the order without violating it by having Hephaestus create a mechanical version of the owl. After all, Zeus said "give him the owl, Bubo," he never specified it had to be the living Bubo.
• Cloud Atlas: Zachry once gets the chance to surprise a sleeping Kona and prepares to slit his throat. But then he remembers the seer's words, warning him never to slit the throat of a sleeping enemy. So he wakes up the Kona, and then slits his throat.
• Commando have John Matrix promising to let go one of the villains, Sully, after interrogating him. Letting go off a cliff, that is.
• Conan the Barbarian (2011) includes our hero telling someone he's interrogating, "Speak, and I won't kill you." The bad guy in question's probably the only one who's surprised when Conan (after getting the info he wants) turns him over to the slaves he's been abusing.
• Cry_Wolf: Dodger calls her mother a Dickens scholar when she introduces herself and explains how she got her name. Later, after admitting she is secretly a local scholarship student, she admits that by Dickens scholar, she meant sixth grade English teacher who teaches Charles Dickens.
• In Dance Flick, a guy comes over to his baby’s mother’s apartment to pick up his son. He does pick the son up...only for him to drop him back in his seat. At the end, he says that he’s finished "picking him up."
• In Danger: Diabolik, Valmont executes three of his allies for voting against a plan that would buy them all time. He shoots the first two, then the third tries to change his vote and says, "Please don't shoot!" Valmont says, "Since you said 'please', I won't shoot." The poor blighter is then Thrown from the Zeppelin courtesy of a Trap Door.
• Part of King Brian's trickery in Darby O'Gill and the Little People. When Darby tries to show King Brian to Michael, Michael says he only sees a rabbit (and in fact, his POV only shows a little rabbit inside the bag). Darby wishes for Michael to be able to see Brian, to which Brian says the wish has been granted. Michael is able to see King Brian... as a rabbit.
• The Dark Knight:
  • The Joker has a variation of this. Whenever he promises that he's "a man of [his] word," he is as good as his word... and no further. For instance, when confronted with a huge pile of mob money that he had been tasked with retrieving, in return for half, he then proceeds to set the pile o' cash on fire. When confronted about this, he tells the Russian thug "Oh, I am [a man of my word.] I'm only burning my half." Later, he makes a threat against Gotham City, promising that those who try to leave via the tunnels or bridges "will be in for a surprise." The "surprise" turns out to be that he DIDN'T do anything with the bridges or the tunnels, and instead wanted to fool people into trying to get out of the city via the ferries, which he had rigged beforehand. Surprise — the other ways out were safe! A man of his word indeed.
  • Also "Let her go!" and "Poor choice of words...." (because he does... while he's holding her off the edge of the building).
  • Joker isn't the only one who utilized this trope: The Scarecrow, when meeting with the Chechen about a drug deal gone awry, remarks that he stated that his drug (implied to be the fear toxin from the previous film) will "take people places", a common euphemism for drug-induced hallucinations. He never said anything about whether these so-called places are places their customers actually wanted to go (read: fear toxin-induced hallucinations are NOT pleasant).
  • Also, Harvey Dent, shortly after "snapping" and trying to interrogate Sal Maroni, replied to Maroni's question about whether he'd let him go if he told him the other cop. Dent replies that it "wouldn't hurt his chances." He really meant it, but he never said it would help his chances, either. True to his roots, it was a coin-flip. Also, when Maroni won that coin toss, Dent stayed true to his word and didn't shoot him. However, he didn't say anything about deciding the driver's fate via coin toss, and thus killing him when he lost the coin toss, causing the car to flip over likely killing Maroni.
  • In the climax, the Joker has rigged two ferries to blow, one filled with innocent civilians, the other filled with prison inmates and guards, and given each boat the detonator to the other boat. He tells them that if one boat blows the other boat up, he'll let that boat live, but if neither boat does anything in the next fifteen minutes, he'll just blow both boats up. With less than five minutes left, a big tough-looking inmate on the prison boat walks up to the warden, who's holding the detonator, and tells him to hand it over, so he can do "what he should have done ten minutes ago". The warden reluctantly hands it to him... and the prisoner immediately tosses the detonator overboard.
  • A sad example with Rachel. When Bruce brings up that at the end of Batman Begins she said she would wait for him until he stopped being Batman, he asks her if she really meant it. She looks a bit uncomfortable and says "yes", because at the time she did intend to wait. But then she met Harvey Dent. In the letter she gave to Bruce - which he never read before her death - she tells him that while she still loves him, she can't wait for him anymore and she intends to marry Harvey.
• In Demolition Man, Simon Phoenix is sleep-conditioned not to kill Dr. Cocteau. Cue Phoenix handing his gun to an underling. "Will you please kill him? He's pissing me off."
• Doctor in Trouble: When Captain Spratt tells Wendover to only wear a black tie at dinner, meaning dinner is the only time the wearing of a black tie is required, Wendover instead turns up to dinner wearing nothing but a black tie, much to his embarrassment.
• Dragons Forever opens with the main villain, Hua, performing a hostile takeover of another mob, with his mooks killing another mobster's bodyguards and Hua pointing his gun at his rival. When said rival pleads not to kill him, Hua obliged... by ordering his aide to pull the trigger instead. And yes, that scene is a direct Shout-Out to Scarface below.
• The Emperor and His Brother: After Master Zhong's son accidentally spilled the beans on the hideout of the Red Lotus Resistance movement causing numerous of their leaders to be arrested by the Manchurians, the boy awaits his punishment. However, Master Zhong declares he will not spank, scold, or otherwise inflict any kind of pain on his own flesh and blood... because the price of betrayal is death. Master Zhong then proceeds to kill the boy, with a painless skull-shattering blow.
• In Empire Records, Joe orders Lucas not to leave the couch. Once Joe isn't looking, Lucas starts testing out how far he can go while still technically having some part of his body resting on the couch - Eventually he gets the idea to just walk away with a couch cushion under his arm, since Joe didn't specify the whole couch.
• In Ever After, Danielle and Henry are attacked by a band of marauding gypsies. They agree to let Danielle go, and she asks one favor — to be allowed to take anything that she can carry. They agree to her condition... and she promptly picks up Prince Henry. This act charms the gypsies, and they invite the pair to share their fire for the evening. They do, however, keep her dress.
• Exam:
  • A major plot point is that every rule that the Invigilator said must be followed to a T, but everything he hasn't explicitly forbidden is allowed, up to and including murder.
    White: It's not about what he said, y'know? It's what he didn't say.
  • Ultimately, only Blonde figures out the true exact words. The Invigilator says that there is a question before them and asks only one question: "Are there any questions?". All you have to do to pass is turn in your unspoiled form and answer "No."
• The Exorcist: Believer: At the film's climax, the demon possessing both Angela and Katherine tells their parents "One girl lives, one girl dies. You get to choose." Katherine's father desperately shouts that he chooses her... Which leads her dying and her soul getting dragged to Hell. The demon never said they were choosing which girl gets to live.
• Throughout Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Albus Dumbledore is adamant that he cannot fight against his former lover Grindelwald, forcing him to send Newt to act in his stead. This seems like a case of Love Makes You Dumb, until it turns out that he literally cannot fight Grindelwald, having entered a blood pact with him in his youth that forbids them both from directly harming the other.
• In Forbidden Planet, Cook "sneaks out" of the ship to obtain 60 gallons of liquor from Robby the Robot at their meeting place amidst the rocks. While engaged in conversation with Cook, Robby pauses and scans the area, causing the human to ask if someone's "coming this way", which Robby reassures him is not the case. An invisible monster proceeds to sneak aboard the ship and kill a crewmember.
• In Flubber, the Big Bad has his cronies search Robin Williams' character, Philip Brainard. He finds a squirt gun. A satisfactory explanation is provided, and...
  Wilson Croft: Let him have it.
  Crony: (squirts Philip Brainard in the face)
  Wilson Croft: N-No, no. Give it to him.
  Crony: (squirts him again)
  Wilson Croft: W— Stop that and give it to him.
  Crony: (squirts him again)
  Wilson Croft: Put-Put it in his hand and give it to him.
  Crony: (squirts him in the hand)
  Wilson Croft: No, no, no, no, no. GIVE THE GUN TO HIM!!
• Forrest Gump:
  • When he receives the medal of honor from Lyndon B. Johnson, Johnson jokingly expresses interest in seeing the wound on Gump's butt. Gump interprets this as literal, and… obliges his request.
  • Jenny gets caught by this trope too, after she tells Forrest "I wanna be up on a stage with just my guitar and my voice..." She later gets that dream. But she never specified whether she'd be wearing clothes at the time, and ends up with just her guitar and her voice.
• In From Dusk Till Dawn, upon being told that the Titty Twister only allows bikers and truckers as its clientele, Jacob Fuller helpfully informs them that, since his RV requires a Class 2 driver's license to operate, he is technically a truck driver. The bartender, unable to dispute his logic, permits the wholesome preacher Jacob, his kids, and the two criminals holding them hostage to stay in the bar.
• Future World (2018): After the Prince wins in the fight that the Drug Lord made him do to get the cure for his mother's illness, he wants to leave with Ash. Then she notes that wasn't part of their deal, and Ash will stay.
• In both Get Shorty and Be Cool, "Chilli" Palmer specifically orders a Cadillac (as in the brand) from a car rental service and both times he gets a vehicle that was not made by Cadillac (a van in the first film, a hybrid in the second) but the car rental service defends their choice by saying that it's "the Cadillac of" (as in (supposedly) has the same kind of reliability, comfort, class and cool to a Cadillac) of whatever kind of vehicle it is. Chilli shows that he's not a hair-trigger maniac like his fellow mobsters by accepting this, although with some annoyance.
• In The Godfather, Vito Corleone tells his fellow Mafia Dons the following: "But that aside, let me say that I swear, on the souls of my grandchildren, that I will not be the one to break the peace we have made here today." His youngest son, and eventual successor, Michael has pretty much all of them killed in the film's climax, before pulling off this trope himself when his wife, Kay, asks him about said killings in the final scene.
• In The Golden Child, Love Interest Kee Nang is struck by a crossbow bolt after Taking the Bullet for The Chosen One, Chandler Jarrell, forcing him to race against time to rescue the titular Golden Child so his powers can be used to save her. Her body is laid out on a table, with the sunlight shining on her through a window. Jarrell is told that "as long as the sunlight touches her, she can be revived by the Golden Child", but if he takes too long, it'll be too late. After defeating Numspa and saving the Child, Jarrell notices sadly that the sunbeam has already moved past Kee Nang's body. Then the Golden Child walks over, props Kee Nang's foot back up into the sunlight, and revives her.
• Gone (2012): Jill promised her abductor that she won't shoot him if he tells her where her sister is. She didn't actually say anything about burning him alive...
• The climax of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a famous example. The main conflict comes to a head when the three main characters all reach the cemetery where the hoard of gold is hidden, but only Blondie knows which grave it's buried in. With the inevitable standoff looming, he offers to reveal the name on the grave where the gold is buried—so he writes the name on a stone, and promises that whoever survives the standoff can have it. Surprise! The stone is blank, because there is no name on the grave. Blondie only knew the treasure's location because its original owner told him which grave it was buried next to.
• In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Umbridge catches the wrong end of this from Harry while she is being dragged off by centaurs.
  Umbridge: Harry! Tell them this is all a misunderstanding! Tell them I mean no harm!
  Harry: I'm sorry, professor, but I must not tell lies.
• In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Snape reassures Narcissa and Bellatrix that "[O]ver the years I have played my part well. So well, I have deceived one of the greatest wizards of all time. (Bellatrix scoffs) Dumbledore is a great wizard; only a fool would doubt it." He never actually says that he's deceived Dumbledore. In fact, the great wizard he's selling down the river? Voldemort.
• In Heathers, Kurt and Ram attempt to humiliate a geeky boy who stepped on their shoes by putting him in a full nelson and not releasing him until he admits he's gay. The problem comes with the phrasing they use...
  Kurt: Say you like to suck big dicks. Say it! Say it!
  Geeky boy: Okay, okay. <Beat> You like to suck big dicks.
• Used by Hellboy in Hellboy (2019), Baba Yaga demands one of his eyes as payment for information and he agrees, but when she tries to collect he refuses saying "When I'm done with it. Should have specified when before making the agreement."
• The Hobbit:
  • All the riddles played by Bilbo and Gollum in An Unexpected Journey rely on this of their formation. The last riddle was taken a bit further. Gollum was growing impatient that Bilbo was taking so long trying to think of a riddle and demands Bilbo quickly ask him a question. While thinking, Bilbo feels the ring he had earlier found and muses to himself "What have I got in my pocket?". Gollum mistook it as a riddle and complains before Bilbo, using Gollum's earlier words, retorts that he is asking a question and decided to use that as his riddle.
  • In The Desolation of Smaug, Thranduil the Elvenking tells a captured Orc that he would promise him freedom if the orc divulged information. After the orc tells him information, he frees the orc's head from its body.
    • The "last light of Durin's Day [that] shine[s] upon the keyhole" isn't the last ray of sunlight, but it's the light of the moon because the "day" isn't over yet.
• In Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Wayne shows Diane the shrunken couch, to which she excitedly asks if the kids know the shrinking machine works. He sheepishly replies that, yes, the kids definitely know.
• The Horse Soldiers: After Hannah attempts to alert the Confederates by shouting at them, Colonel Marlowe angrily reminds her that she had given her word of honour that she would not try to run away. She agrees, but says that she said nothing about yelling to Confederate troops.
• I, Robot sees Sonny state "[He] did not murder [Dr. Alfred Lanning]." Which is technically true: Lanning had Sonny kill him as part of a Thanatos Gambit to stop VIKI's Zeroth Law Rebellion.
• In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Walter Donovan tries to make Indy get the Holy Grail.
  Indy: Killing me won't get you anywhere.
  Donovan: You know something, Dr. Jones? You're absolutely right.
  (shoots Henry Sr. instead)
  • The three trials guarding the Grail itself work in a similar fashion; all three sound like metaphors for being a faithful believer, but are actually specific instructions as to how to pass the tests. The first trial states that Indy must humble himself before God—in other words, kneel to avoid the giant swinging blade on the ceiling. The second requires Indy to know the name of God—as in, literally spell out the word "JEHOVAH" in the Latin alphabet, too on a series of booby-trapped tiles. The final test is one of pure faith, which means that Indy has to walk across an invisible bridge to pass a bottomless chasm.

J-O

• Jackie Brown: Louis, fed up of Melanie's sass in the carpark, reaches a Rage Breaking Point and demands she says "not another fucking word". Melanie mouths out a defeated "Okay, Louis", and Louis promptly produces his gun and shoots Melanie fatally. Cruel, but he did warn her.
• In Jupiter Ascending, Balem's intentions are pretty transparent when he's trying to blackmail Jupiter into abdication—send her and her family back to Earth, and immediately harvest the planet. It's so transparent, in fact, that she realizes as much and decides to spite him by refusing, even knowing he'll kill her family (and probably her as well).
• Kingsman: The Secret Service:
  • Merlin waits until after the Kingsman candidates have jumped from a plane before telling them that part of the test is seeing how they work as a team if, for example, one of them does not have a parachute. He did not say that any of them really were missing a parachute.
  • Valentine loathes violence and insists that he doesn't kill people, rather it's people killing each other. He's technically right in that he never actually kills anyone by his own hand aside from Harry. His SIM cards on the other hand...
• In Knives Out, Marta manages to describe her last encounter with Harlan before he was found dead to the police in a way that omits the most damning parts of it without triggering her instinctual reflex of vomiting whenever she lies. Everything she tells the police — that she and Harlan were playing Go and she gave Harlan his medication before leaving — is true, but there's a lot she's leaving out, and when the police ask her what medication she gave Harlan, she details the prescribed doses for him while not telling them that she accidentally gave him the wrong doses that night.
• In Labyrinth Sir Didymus fervently and violently guards a bridge, boasting "I have sworn with my life's blood, none shall pass this way without my permission!" While one of Sarah's companions rashly manage to cross it through misdirection Sarah (realizing most aspects of the labyrinth are a test) carefully considers Didymus's words and manages a stress-free crossing by asking his permission. This notably flummoxes Sir Didymus, implying that no one had ever considered doing so before. Never the less, he allows Sarah to pass and even decides to help her in her quest.
• Laughter in Paradise: When Helen and her father mistakenly assume that Captain Russell is undertaking a secret mission for the government, he decides not to disabuse them of the notions. He very carefully answers all of their questions in such a way that it sounds like he is a secret agent, when, in fact, he is going to jail for a month, but without actually lying. For example, he tells them that the government will be paying all of his expenses while he is away, and carefully using the word 'away' rather than 'overseas' or 'abroad'.
• This is the main plot hinge of the documentary drama Let Him Have It; in the movie, when Bentley and Craig are cornered by the police on the warehouse rooftop and Craig is pointing his gun at a policeman, Bentley (who had just been arrested) shouts "Let him have it, Chris!"; the ensuing murder trial hinged on whether he meant "kill him" or "surrender your gun". (In the real-life case, Craig denies that Bentley ever said any such thing.)
• Liar Liar:
  • The protagonist Fletcher Reede, a lawyer, finds that he's become magically unable to lie for one day, and consequently there's no way he can win the dishonest case he's on that day. He tries to get out of it by beating himself up in the bathroom and saying that he was attacked by "a desperate man at the end of his rope." He even gives a description of the attacker that's true of himself but not very identifying. The judge is about to move the case until later... unless, he asks, Fletcher feels that he's able to continue anyway? Then of course Fletcher has to say "Yes." (Mind you, since he was already doing this trope, he could have said something like "I could continue, but I don't think I would be able to serve my client's interests well in my current state.")
  • Earlier, one of his previous clients got arrested again, this time for knocking over an ATM, and wants Fletcher's legal advice.
  Fletcher: STOP BREAKING THE LAW, ASSHOLE!
• The Luck of the Irish:
  • Kyle makes a bet with Seamus that if he beats the leprechaun in sports, his grandfather will go free. Seamus agrees, but chooses "traditional Irish sports" like hurling, wresting, javelin-throwing, and step-dancing. Despite this, Kyle ties him. Seamus then insists he won the bet, as "a tie's not beating" him. Kyle then makes another bet, putting his own freedom on the line. This time he chooses basketball and makes Seamus promise to live forever on the shores of Erie in the land of his fathers if he loses. Kyle manages to win the game, but Seamus claims it's a minor setback, as Kyle is sending him home. Kyle correctly gambled on Seamus to assume he simply mispronounced Eire (the Irish name for Ireland), whereas Kyle meant one of the Great Lakes, as his father was born in Cleveland, Ohio.
  • There is also a minor point where Seamus says he "might" let Kyle's grandfather go if Kyle wins. Kyle wins, but Seamus then insists that he could just as well keep Kyle's grandfather his slave forever.
• In Lucky Number Slevin, Lucy Liu's character comes over to borrow a cup of sugar. The main character is slightly surprised when she proceeds to take a measuring cup, fill it with sugar and walk out with his cup. "I said I needed to borrow a cup of sugar. If I didn't need the cup, I'd have said I needed sugar." Since she seems to have no intention of returning the cup or the sugar, she's still playing loose with the "borrowing" part.
• In Madea Goes to Jail, after Madea tows someone's car due to the owner taking her parking spot, the lady gets angry and demands that Madea puts her car down. Madea says "ok" and drops the lady's car down, but said car is flipped upside down instead.
• In Maid to Order, after Jessie says goodbye to her fairy godmother, she wonders if she was going to leave in a bubble. The fairy godmother says, "Get real; this is the 20th century." She proceeds to depart by car... which is then taken up by a bubble. So she didn't just leave in a bubble—she put a modern twist to it.
• In Major Payne, the title character tells a biker thug that he'll take his foot and kick him across the face with it. Anticipating this the biker is then sucker punched in the throat and kicked in the nuts. The biker (now on his knees choking) foolishly brings up the Major's threat:
  Biker: You... you said you were gonna... hit me in the face.
  Payne: You calling me a liar?! (boots him in the face)
• In Maleficent, the title character, while placing a curse on Princess Aurora, enforces the other fairies' gift of beauty such that she will be "beloved by all who meet her" before delivering the eternal sleep that can only be broken by true love's kiss, and declares that "no power on Earth can change it". This wording is turns out to be critically important because Maleficent failed in both cases to exempt herself from the conditions of the curse. Thus, she too comes to love Aurora, and even her own power is insufficient to revoke it. Further, nowhere is it specified that it has to be a kiss of romantic love, so her own maternal love for Aurora proves sufficient to awaken her.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • In Iron Man 2, when Vanko tells Hammer that the drones at the show won't be fully capable, he adds that they will be able to "make salute." They do, taking the stage in formation by service branch and delivering a hand salute in unison, like human soldiers on parade. But in Russian, salyut means fireworks. The Stark Expo turns into one hell of a fireworks show.
  • Captain America: The First Avenger
    • When demonstrating a flying car, Howard Stark says in a few years time, cars won't need wheels. When the hovering car crashes down, he then remarks "I said a few years, didn't I?"
    • The Drill Sergeant Nasty tells Steve Roger's squad that the man who brought him the flag off a pole gets to ride back in a jeep rather than march back. After all the other, bigger guys kept pulling each other down, Steve waited until they were back in line, calmly pulled the pin that dropped the pole to the ground, picked up the flag, gave it to the sarge and climbed into the jeep.
    • At the end of the movie, after crashing into the Arctic, Steve wakes up in what he's told is a "recovery room in New York City". He quickly notices that there's something wrong as the baseball game that's being "reported live" on the radio is one that he saw in person. He demands to know where he is, doubting that it's a recovery room in New York. The truth is that he is exactly where they told him he is, but there's a bit of an important detail that they didn't want to tell him right away.
  • The Avengers:
    • Captain America tells Thor to "put that hammer down" (as in, "put it down on the ground") during Thor's scuffle with Iron Man. Thor takes the meaning a bit differently. He puts the hammer down... onto Captain America, who blocks it with his shield. Iron Man immediately realizes that the Captain's choice of words was quite poor.
    • Loki dismissively refers to Captain America as "the man out of time", to which Cap responds, "I'm not the one who's out of time."
  • In Avengers: Age of Ultron, when Helen teases Clint after treating his wounds that his girlfriend wouldn't tell the difference, he replies that he doesn't have a girlfriend. That's because he has a wife instead.
  • Captain America: Civil War
    • Implied when Vision phases through a wall into Wanda's room, with her remarking that they'd talked about this. Vision then awkwardly points out that the door is open. It's likely that their earlier conversation led Wanda to tell him that he could only enter her room when the door was open, and Vision not catching on to the fact that he actually had to use the door.
    • Played for Laughs when Black Widow pulls a Hazy-Feel Turn and turns on Black Panther to help Captain America and Bucky escape. She makes this excuse when Black Panther flashes her a look of anger after they've gotten away:
    Black Widow: I said I'd help you find them, not catch them. There's a difference.
    • When Tony asks Steve if he knew that the Winter Soldier had killed Tony's parents, Steve responds by saying that he didn't know it was Bucky, which is technically accurate in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Arnim Zola strongly implied to Steve that HYDRA murdered them but didn't say who it was, but Tony doesn't particularly care after seeing a tape of the murder and learning that Steve kept the fact that he knew anything about this secret.
    • In The Stinger, when Aunt May asks how Peter got hurt, he says he was beat up by a guy named Steve from Brooklyn and his "big friend." He carefully declines to mention that he means Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America, and his "big friend" was Ant-Man turning into Giant-Man.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Ego fathered children with various women across the galaxy and later hires the Space Pirate Yondu to retrieve his children when they are old enough. Yondu agrees to do it if Ego promises the children will not be harmed. Ego callously murders his children if he finds they did not inherit his powers, deeming them useless. Ego claims he kept his word because their deaths didn't hurt.
  • Thor: Ragnarok: A prisoner begs The Grandmaster to pardon him. The Grandmaster replies, "You're officially pardoned...from life." He then melts the prisoner.
  • Black Panther (2018): Killmonger apparently kills T'Challa in ritual combat and takes over the throne as a result. Okoye, the leader of the king's royal guard, hates Killmonger, but is bound by oath to serve the king. But when T'Challa miraculously appears several days later, she's able to switch sides without any concerns - as T'Challa points out, the rules of the combat are that it continues until one of the participants surrenders or dies, and he didn't die and he certainly didn't surrender, so he's still the king. Killmonger doesn't find that terribly persuasive, but oh well.
  • Ant-Man and the Wasp: Sonny Burch drugs Luis with Truth Serum and demands that he tell him where Scott Lang is. Luis responds by going off on an unnecessarily-long tangent describing where Scott Lang is emotionally.
  • Eternals: When the Eternals find Ajak's dead body, Ikaris declares that a Deviant killed her. It's true, but he's the one who dropped her into the pack of Deviants.
  • Spider-Man: No Way Home:
    • When Doctor Strange's spell of making everyone forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man goes catastrophically haywire thanks to Peter's tampering, Peter's final wording for the spell was, "Everyone who knew I was Spider-Man before should still know!". The spell interprets this as "everyone in the multiverse who knows that the Peter Parker of their world is Spider-Man" and started pulling them in to the MCU, triggering the entire plot.
    • Ned (who is wearing the Sling Ring) asks to find Peter Parker. But the thing is, he never said which Peter Parker, so he brings in the Webb-verse and Raimi-verse Peter Parker to his apartment.
  • Thor: Love and Thunder: To enter Valhalla, one must die in battle. Battling cancer counts, which allows Jane Foster to enter when she succumbs to it.
• Matilda: Miss Honey is terrified when she sees Matilda retrieved her old doll from Trunchbull's house, given that she forbade Matilda from getting in there again after they narrowly escaped without getting caught. Matilda explains she didn't get in, instead used her Psychic Powers to bring back the doll from outside. Naturally, Miss Honey doesn't believe it until she sees firsthand she wasn't lying about having powers.
• In Max Keeble's Big Move, when an angry mob was going to place Dobbs and McGinty into a Dumpster in retribution for their bullying them, Max attempts to stop it, stating that they'll become just like the bullies if they do this. Max then suggest that they let the bullies go. The football players who were holding them near the Dumpster did let them go... although it was far more literal than what Max intended. (He meant let them go free; the football players took that to mean releasing them from their grip and letting them fall into the Dumpster.)
• From Men in Black:
  Bug: Place the projectile weapon on the ground.
  Edgar: You can have my gun *Dramatic Gun Cock* when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.
  Bug: Your proposal is acceptable.
• In The Monster Squad, Virgin Power is required to activate the Amulet that will defeat Dracula's evil scheme. When their previous candidate is discovered to be ineligible for a reason that, according to her, doesn't count ("Doesn't count?!?!"), it is noted that the five-year-old sister of one of the main characters happens to be present, is undoubtedly a virgin, and the spell in question doesn't say anything about an age requirement.
• Hugo Drax in Moonraker: "And you, Dr Goodhead, your desire to become America's first woman in space will shortly be fulfilled".
• In Mortal Kombat: The Movie, Sonya Blade has Kano's head wrapped in a leg lock. Already beaten, he begs for mercy.
  Kano: Give me a break!
  Sonya Blade: Okay. (Breaks his neck)
• In Mutiny on the Buses, Blakey tells the bus staff that they are only to wear the company uniform as supplied, so in protest, they all show up to work the next day wearing only their caps, jackets, and trousers/skirts.
• My Fair Lady: Once Eliza has made a breakthrough with her pronunciation, Higgins decides to take her to the horse races for a test. However, not confident that Eliza's manners have improved enough to let her talk at will, he tells her to stick to two relatively safe subjects: the weather and everyone's health. Eliza does. However, Higgins failed to consider the ways that a former flower girl trying to pose as a lady might misinterpret that. her comments on the weather are simply the speech exercises Higgins gave her (e.g., the famous "rain in Spain" sentence). Her comments on health are even worse, leading into an inappropriate story about her aunt's experiences with alcoholism and diphtheria, and her belief that the older woman was murdered rather than dying of influenza as she was told.
• Jason in Mystery Team. He promises Kelly that he'll allow professionals to take the case... only to point out to his friends that their sign reads "Kitten Finding Purrrrfessionals".
• Nanny McPhee: Great-Aunt Adelaide sends Mr. Brown a telegram that reads, "I am coming with the express intention of easing your financial burden." This does not mean what Mr. Brown thinks.
  • Then Simon does it on the day she comes for tea. "We've been told to put our best clothes on, right? Well, I'm putting my best clothes on...the pig."
  • And then in the climax, Adelaide herself is the target. She gave her word that if Mr. Brown remarried before the end of the month, she'd keep supporting his family, and she takes pride in never breaking her word. She failed, however, to define an acceptable wife.
• Oblivion: During his trip to Tet's core, Jack is stopped by a pair of drones, Sally having deduced that he has misled her about the nature of his return. Jack then replies quite honestly that he's returned because it's the only way humanity would survive. He just doesn't give her the specifics.
• Of Gods And Warriors: Guided by the trickster god Loki, Prince Bard usurps the king of Volsung, who is his brother. Things do not go well after that.
  Bard: You said that the kingdom would be mine!
  Loki: But for how long?
• In Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, Arms Dealer Greg Simmonds doesn't like speaking of his clients. He has his assistant Emilia tell Orson's team about the people who were paying him to buy the Handle for them.

P-Z

• In Paranormal Activity, Kate tells Micah not to buy an Ouija Board to try to communicate with the demon. He gets one anyway, and says that he didn't buy it, he borrowed. Kate tells him in no uncertain terms how bullshit that kind of logic really is.
• The Patriot (2000) has a scene in which Col. Tavington threatens the citizens of a town in which someone has been supporting the militia, saying that anyone who answers him will be forgiven. He never says that he will forgive them, however—"that's between you and God." All the colonists die.
• In Paycheck, after the memories of the last several years of Michael's life are erased (as they were supposed to have been), Rethrick tells him "you're done". Michael takes it to mean that the job he was paid to do is done. However, after narrowly escaping with his life several times, he analyzes what happened and the clues he left himself, and the words "you're done" take on a whole new meaning, as Rethrick has been trying to kill him since that moment.
• The Pink Panther Strikes Again: Inspector Closeau signs in at a hotel's front desk, where a dog is lying on the floor in front of the counter. He asks the hotel clerk, "Does your dog bite?" The clerk answers no. Closeau leans down to pet the dog, which immediately chomps at his hand. Closeau confronts the clerk, who responds, "That is not my dog."
• Pirates of the Caribbean:
  • Captain Hector Barbossa really likes to use this trope to his advantage. He used it twice in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Early in the film, he justifies kidnapping Elizabeth because she didn't mention her release in their agreement about the ship leaving Port Royal, adding that the pirate's code is for pirates, and Elizabeth wasn't a pirate. Later, Barbossa agrees to release Elizabeth and Jack at Will's order, but does so by marooning Elizabeth and Jack on a deserted island. When Will objects, Barbossa says that Will didn't specify when or where they would be let free. In both situations involving Elizabeth, he's acting under the pirate's code of parley. It's implied, if not stated outright, that exact words are necessary; a non-pirate wouldn't think in those terms. Jack talks about this during his "man of their word" speech. After that, the heroes stop counting on this method of negotiating.
  • The curse on the gold pieces in the first film also qualifies. The curse is said to only affect those who actually took one or more pieces from the chest themselves. Merely possessing one of the pieces is not enough to trigger the curse; you have to take it out of the chest to become cursed.
  • Jack attempts this in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest to get out of his deal with Davy Jones, saying that the deal specified he'd be captain for 13 years, and his crew mutinied after two. Jones turns it right around saying "Then you were a poor captain, but a captain nonetheless. Or have you not introduced yourself all these years as Captain Jack Sparrow?"
  • Also crops up as a case of Foreshadowing in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. While discussing Davy Jones and his past, the pirates cite various legends about him, from his falling in love with a woman to being in love with the sea. Tia Dalma replies, "Same story, different versions, but all are true! It was a woman, as changing, and harsh, and untamable as the sea." When specifying "a woman," she gestures at herself, hinting at her true identity as the bound-in-her-bones sea goddess Calypso.
  • Sao Feng pulls one on Will in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End after helping him pull a Mutiny on Jack and Barbosa to steal the Pearl. He promised that Will would have the Black Pearl, and so he did - for about 10 seconds, until Feng pulled a mutiny on HIM!
  • A small but funny one involving Davy Jones; when he went to negotiate with Jack, Will and Elizabeth, the meeting was to be on a beach. As Davy Jones can only set foot on land once every decade (and he just went on land in the first movie) he had to be carried onto land...in two buckets filled with seawater, with several more buckets jutting out into the sea. Technically nary a single foot was on land.
• Alluded to in Prince Caspian (the scene doesn't appear in the original novel), where Miraz's wife, upon finding out that Miraz killed his brother the king to gain power for himself, says "You told me your brother died in his sleep." Miraz replies, "That was more or less true."
• Project A: In the film's (hilarious) shower scene, Inspector Hong orders his recruits to stand in a row, nude with only their wooden buckets over their privates and wait for him to finish washing. After a while, Hong realize he forgot his bucket and orders his recruits to give him one. The recruits comply... by pelting Hong with flung buckets.
• Quigley Down Under: Quigley goes practically the entire movie using only his specially modified, single-shot, long-range rifle. When asked about why he doesn't carry or use a pistol, he simply replied he never had much use for them. At the climax, the Big Bad has his henchmen take away Quigley's rifle and give him a revolver, ready to live out his dream of outdrawing someone in a duel (he's been practicing his quickdraw for probably decades). At the end, the two henchmen are dead and the Big Bad mortally wounded. Quigley: "I said I never had much use for them. I never said I didn't know how to use one."
• Raising Arizona: Nathan Arizona Sr.'s Catchphrase in his advertisements is a guarantee that his prices are the lowest around "Or My Name Isn't... Nathan Arizona!" Turns out that it isn't: he changed his name from Nathan Huffheinz (Arizona did thinking that it's a silly last name to put on a storefront).
• A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die!: It is eventually revealed that the reason why Col. Pembroke surrendered Fort Holman without firing a shot was because Maj. Ward had his son and was threatening to hang him. After Pembroke surrendered, Ward kept his word and did not hang his son. He shot him.
• In Red (2010), Victoria tells the story of how she was once ordered to kill her lover, so she "put three bullets in his chest." She didn't say she killed him. Her lover understood the message.
  "When I woke alive, I knew she still loved me... or else it would have been the head."
• In the Red Sonja film, Red Sonja is (as usual) not allowed to sleep with any man who can't best her in combat. When she first meets Lord Kalidor, they fight to a draw. Then as they adventure together, she actually falls for him. At the end of the movie, with them in love, she still can't sleep with a man who hasn't beaten her in a fight. She gets around this by challenging him to a rematch and immediately throwing it.
• The Retreat (2021): Gavin tells an accomplice who isn't down with murdering gays and lesbians, afraid of going to jail for it, that he won't. Then he shoots the guy in the head.
• The Ringer revolves around the main character trying to win a bet by pretending to be disabled so he can participate in the Special Olympics. Though he ultimately loses in the final event and places 3rd, he still wins the bet, because the bet wasn't for him to win the Gold, but for fan-favorite Jimmy to not win.
• In Robocop 1987, Robocop has a fourth and classified directive, which is "Any attempt to arrest a senior OCP employee results in shutdown.". However, former OCP employees aren't included in that directive, as Dick Jones gets fired by the Old Man, which allows Robocop to stop him.
• Rocky III: When a dying Mickey asks Rocky how the first match with Clubber Lang went, Rocky says that the fight ended in a knockout in the second round. To spare Mickey's feelings, he declines to mention that he was the one who got knocked out.
• Just before Tony takes control of Frank Lopez's operation in Scarface, Frank begs Tony not to kill him. Tony just says to relax since he isn't going to. Frank is so relieved that he isn't going to die. Then Tony tells his friend, Manny, to shoot him.
• The Scorpion King: Arpid makes Mathayus promise not to kill him and to let Arpid travel with him in exchange for saving Mathayus from a Sand Necktie and fire ants. After Arpid saves him, because he's so obnoxious, Mathayus roughs him up a bit and makes him walk instead of letting him ride his camel, noting that he's still keeping his word.
• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: Wallace tries to cover for Scott when he's trying to stay away from Knives, with mixed results.
  Knives: Is Scott here?
  Wallace: Uh, you know what?
  (Scott jumps through the window right behind Wallace, well within Knives's field of view)
  Wallace: He just left.
• In Scream (1996), Ghostface demands that Casey name the killer in Friday the 13th so her boyfriend will be allowed to live. When she names Jason Voorhees, Ghostface reveals that he'd been referring to the original movie, where Jason's mother Pamela was the killer. Then the boyfriend gets Gutted Like a Fish.
• In Fritz Lang's Film Noir Secret Beyond the Door... (1948), architect Mark Lamphere (Michael Redgrave) tells his wife that he likes to collect "felicitous" rooms. His wife (played by Joan Bennet) believes that the rooms must have some "happy" association for him. It turns out that the rooms he collects are sites of historical murders, and that when he said "felicitous", he meant "apt" or "well-suited", not "happy".
• In Silver Lode, Ballard calls McCarty a liar when accused of shooting the latter's brother in the back. He later clarifies to Rose that he really did kill McCarty's brother, but he didn't shoot him in the back.
• In Sinister, true crime writer Ellison's wife asks him if the house they've just moved into is a few houses away from the scene of the murder he's writing about, and he assures her it isn't. We soon learn this is only technically true: they didn't move a few houses away from the scene of the crime, they moved into the very house the crime occurred in.
• In Sneakers, the Big Bad says to another character, "I cannot kill my friend," then turns to one of his henchman and says "Kill my friend."
• In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), when Sonic asks Tom how he can get to San Francisco, Tom tells him to go west. Sonic follows his advice, only to end up going too far to the west and having a run-in with the Pacific Ocean.
• Occurs as the turning point of Speak No Evil. Bjorn and his wife, Louise, are invited by Patrick and Karin, a couple they befriended during their vacation, to stay for a few days in the latter's cabin home, only to suspect something's amiss by the second night, and tries to leave. Patrick however talks Bjorn and Louise out of leaving by saying "I really hope you do (stay), because today's going to be a great day!" It's a great day alright, for Patrick and Karin, a pair of serial killers about to claim another family as their victims. For Bjorn and Louise, not so great.
• Spider-Man Trilogy:
  • In Spider-Man, Peter enters a cage wrestling match promising $3000 to anyone who can last 3 minutes against the champ. After Peter wins with his spider powers, the ref refuses to pay the full amount on the grounds that he won and left the cage in less than three minutes. Peter is understandably pissed.
  • Later in the same film, Peter accuses J. Jonah Jameson of slander for accusing Spider-man of attacking the city. Jameson insists it isn't then clarifies that "Slander is spoken. In print, it's libel."
  • In Spider-Man 3, when Eddie is taking a picture of Spider-Man, he asks the hero to "show some web actions". Spider-Man obliges... by slinging the camera out of his hand and smashing it against the wall. Later, when Eddie won the staff job at the Daily Bugle with a picture of Spider-Man robbing the bank, Peter says to him "It's funny you should say that!" because he knows that Eddie faked the picture.
• Split Second (1992): When Stone enters a club and asks for coffee, he's told that he has to order a minimum of two drinks. So he orders two coffees.
• Stardust: Ditchwater Sal promises Tristan that she will get him to the Wall and that "you will arrive in the exact condition as you are now" but says nothing about his condition during their journey. She turns him into a mouse for the duration of the trip and only restores him to human form when they reach the village closest to the Wall.
• In Star Kid, Spencer finds himself stuck in an alien spacesuit, as Cy, the spacesuit's AI, won't let him leave until he has "engaged in a field combat situation". After a near-disastrous first encounter with antagonist The Brood Warrior, Spencer convinces Cy to let him out since the mission was technically accomplished: They didn't need to win a fight, just "engage" in one.
• Star Trek:
  • Towards the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Spock goes to Engineering to repair the warp drive himself since Scotty's been incapacitated. McCoy, however, stops Spock, saying "No human can tolerate the radiation in there!", to which Spock says "As you are so fond of pointing out, Doctor, I am not human." and nerve-pinches McCoy into submission, placing his katra into his mind before he goes in to repair the warp drive.
  • In the Star Trek reboot film, Spock Prime responds to Kirk's suggestion of explaining everything to the NuSpock with "Under no circumstances can he be aware of my existence. You must promise me this." Kirk incorrectly infers from this that universe-ending paradoxes will occur should this happen (which Spock later admits was his intention), but Spock never actually said that; his real motive was making sure that Kirk and NuSpock properly developed the friendship that would come to define them both.
  • Star Trek Into Darkness:
    • Carol tells Kirk that her father, Admiral Marcus, will not destroy the Enterprise while she's on board. Her father agrees... and forcibly beams her out of the Enterprise and onto his ship.
    • Spock agrees to let Harrison have the torpedoes, pointing out that "Vulcans do not lie." He never said anything about what was in them, though.
• Star Wars
  • In The Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon orders Anakin to stay in the cockpit of a Naboo fighter so that he'll be safe. Anakin happens to notice Qui-Gon didn't specify whether the cockpit could do the moving. Though his initial idea was simply to use the ship against the droids in the hangar. The entire flying into space thing was an unintentional consequence (activating the ship also activated its autopilot, and it took some time to figure out how to shut it off).
  • Also, in Revenge of the Sith, Darth Sidious tells the Separatist high command that his apprentice, Darth Vader, is coming to Mustafar, and assures them that he will "take care of them." Sidious wasn't lying when he said that, as he did intend for Vader to take care of them. Unfortunately for the Separatist members, it wasn't what they thought he meant.
    • Dialog cut from the film (but left in the novelization) has one of the Separatists pleading, "He said we would be left in peace!" Vader retorts, "The transmission was garbled. He said you would be left in pieces!" Another one protests "Sidious said we would be handsomely rewarded!" Vader's reply is "I'm your reward, don't you find me handsome?"
    • Sidious also justifies Order 66 to the public by claiming the Jedi tried to kill him and take over the Republic. This is an accurate description of what happened; Sidious just conveniently leaves out the fact that they only did that because he’s a Sith Lord who brutally murdered the Jedi Knights sent to arrest him. Anakin uses the same words when telling Padmé about the incident: "I saw Master Windu attempt to assassinate the Chancellor myself." Again, technically true; and again, leaving out the part that Windu was trying to kill Palpatine because Palpatine is a Sith Lord.
    • He tells Anakin that Darth Plaigueis developed fantastic healing powers, and that these could not be learned from the Jedi. He never technically said that he knew them himself.
  • The Last Jedi has a few doozies.
    • Supreme Leader Snoke senses that Kylo Ren's mind has overcome its earlier turmoil, and that Ren shall ignite his lightsaber and strike down his enemy. Unfortunately for him, that enemy isn't Rey, but Snoke himself.
    • When Yoda burns down the ancient reliquary tree that contained the original Jedi texts, he brushes off Luke's protests, saying that there's nothing in there that Rey doesn't already have. He's being entirely literal; Rey stole the texts before she left Ahch-To.
    • Rey says of her parents, "they were nobody." Kylo Ren repeats that they were "nobodies" and mentions them as probably being worthless junk traders. But this is a universe that has both clones and people being born from the Force as canon, and Rey just had a vision where she saw endless versions of herself all asking who her parents were only to see herself.
  • The Rise of Skywalker
    • The last point from above is expanded further; Kylo never lied to Rey about her parents being nobodies, but he didn't specify until later that they were nobodies because they chose to be - and Rey's grandfather, Palpatine, is certainly not nobody.
• In the short film Suckablood, a young girl named Tilly gets threatened with the titular monster if she sucks her thumb again. Scared from seeing creepy shapes outside the window, she wants to comfort herself...so she sucks her fingers instead. The monster actually commends her cleverness for this move.
• In Suffragette, the prime minister assures the suffragists that he is very impressed by the reports of working women they presented, that many MPs are supporting them and that voting rights for women may very well be the result of debates in the parliament ... which is not technically promising them anything. They still feel cheated when it is revealed that not only are women not going to get the same voting rights as men, but nothing at all will change.
• In Super Mario Bros. (1993), Koopa first meets the Mario brothers by passing himself off as a lawyer, and describes Koopa as "one evil, egg-sucking son-of-a-snake." When his identity is revealed, Luigi points out the description, leading to the following exchange:
  Luigi Mario: But you said you were—
  King Koopa: An evil, egg-sucking son-of-a-snake. [Beat] Did I lie?
• From Sweeney Todd, Mrs. Lovett's explanation when Todd finds out that the woman he just killed was his supposedly dead wife, Lucy (though she admits a few seconds later that yes, she did lie):
  Mrs. Lovett: No, no, not lied at all,
  No, I never lied.
  Said she took a poison,
  She did, never said that she died.
• In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, John Connor makes the T-800 promise not to kill anyone. When they go to break Sarah out of the mental hospital, the T-800 kneecaps the gate guard and steals his keys.
  T-800: He'll live.
  • At another point, John needs to use a payphone, and asks the T-800 for a quarter. The T-800 smashes open the phone's coin-collection box and hands John exactly one quarter.
  • The titular character's propensity for this trope is why Arnold Schwarzenegger has his signature catchphrase. Director James Cameron said he originally intended the line in the first film to be a joke that was only funny on second viewing, but while watching the premiere the audience exploded with laughter, having already gotten to know the character so well, that they knew any time he made a promise like this, he kept it to the letter only and in the most outrageous way possible. So while they didn't know the Terminator would ram a police car into the quiet police station after being refused entry by the watchman, they knew he would certainly deliver the most menacing possible meaning of his quite humble promise:
    T-800: I'll be back.
• Tower of London: After George accepts Richard's challenge to a Drinking Contest, Richard promises George that Malmsey will be the only weapon used. At the end of the contest, Richard and Mord drown George in a vat of Malmsey.
• In TRON: Legacy this is effectively what drives the central antagonist, CLU. He was programmed with the directive to create the perfect system and this is exactly what he goes on to do. The problem is that the parameters of "the perfect system" were never explicitly defined, so he was essentially given an impossible task leading to an eventual psychological breakdown.
• This exchange in the women's locker room from Van Wilder:
  Van Wilder: Sometimes you gotta let your heart lead you... even if you know its someplace you know you're not supposed to be.
  Gwen Pearson: And how many times has your heart led you into the women's locker room?
  Van Wilder: This would be a first.
  Gwen Pearson: Why do I find that hard to believe?
  Van Wilder: I'm not saying this is the first time I've been in here, just usually it is another part of my anatomy that does the leading.
• In Waterworld the Big Bad promises not to shoot a prisoner if he divulges a particular detail, then turns around and hands his gun to an underling... who proceeds to shoot the prisoner.
• When Evil Calls: The djinn twists everyone's wishes by going only by their phrasing, not the intent. So for instance a girl wishing to be "hot" gets set on fire.
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit
  • The movie has a classic case of this when Eddie is falling from the top of a building in Toontown, while Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse are skydiving. Eddie asks for a spare, and of course in traditional cartoon fashion, Bugs gives him a spare tire.
  • Earlier at the Ink and Paint Club, he orders a scotch on the rocks. As the waiter leaves, Eddie yells that he means "scotch with ice", but unfortunately for him the waiter didn't hear him (or, being a toon, was Trolling him regardless).
• In Wild at Heart, Marietta Fortune suddenly notices that Johnnie Farragut suddenly disappears from the hotel they are staying at, so asks her mobster contact, Santos, who happens to stay at the same hotel and who made no secret of having a feud with Johnnie, if he has done anything to him; and more specifically if he has done anything to hurt him. Santos denies this, so Marietta asks to swear on his mother if he is telling the truth. Santos then swears, on his mother, that he hasn't done anything to Johnnie. As they speak, however, Dropshadow, Reggie, and Perdita, who just so happens to work for Santos, have knocked Johnnie out, kidnapped him, and currently preparing to kill him...
• In Winchester '73, as Wyatt Earp is riding with Lin McAdam through town, he tells Lin about the shooting contest for the gun of the title, mentions he thinks the main competition for the gun will come from Dutch Henry Brown, and asks Lin if he's ever heard of him. Lin replies, "I don't recall the name". Soon, they come to the bar, and Lin almost gets into a fight with Dutch Henry when he recognizes him as his estranged brother Matthew, whom he's been obsessively tracking:
  Earp: I thought you said you didn't know him.
  Lin: I said I didn't recall the name.
• In Wish Upon, the demon locked inside the music box will kill the box's owner once they make all seven wishes on it. After Claire uses her last wish to have never used the box to begin with, undoing all the damage the wishes have done, the demon kills her. Regardless of what she used it for, she still made her last wish.
• In Witness for the Prosecution, everything Christine says under oath is true, even when it seems to be self-contradictory or misleading. She really did see Leonard come home at the time she said he did; she really doesn't know anyone named Max, and any letters allegedly written by her to him are forgeries; and she really did write a letter to "Max" which seems to clear Leonard of the murder.
• In The Wolverine, when Wolverine is interrogating Noburo he tells him that he'll throw him out the window if he "doesn't like" what he hears and says nothing about telling the truth. Sure enough, Noburo gives him the information he asked for, but gets thrown out the window anyway, because "I didn't like it."
• Wolves: When Connor asks Cayden why John hired a total stranger to work on his farm, John intervenes, claiming that Cayden's his nephew. When Connor asks why, in that case, didn't John greet him straight away at the bar: who treats a visiting nephew like that? John replies that it's been so long since they saw each other that he didn't recognise Cayden at first. Cayden wonders why John is lying for him, but as it turns out, everything John says is true.
• In Wonder Woman (2017), Hippolyta never actually tells Diana that the sword isn't the God-killer; she just lets her assume it is. The distinction isn't discussed, but there's plenty of Dramatic Irony pointing this out to the audience, and it becomes clear to Diana once Ares pulls The Reveal.

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