Leeroy Jenkins behaviour in live-action movies.
- In Baby Driver, when confronted with a horde of armed police, rather than take cover like her husband, Darling stands up in the middle of an open plaza and starts blasting away with Guns Akimbo. She gets blown away almost immediately.
- Defied in Blazing Saddles. When Bart is told about Mongo's presence in town, he doesn't know who or what Mongo is, and prepares to simply go out and face him like Mongo was any other criminal. The Waco Kid manages to stop him before confronting Mongo, convince Bart that he can't take on Mongo like he was a common criminal ("If you shoot him, you'll only make him mad") and this gets Bart to stop and come up with a plan that plays to his strengths as a Guile Hero.
- In The Bourne Ultimatum, reporter Simon Ross deviates from instructions from Bourne on eluding the agents out to get him, and rushes out into the open where a sniper offs him with ease.
- Diggs from Cats & Dogs: The Revenge Of Kitty Galore gets kicked out of the K-9 Unit because of not listening to orders, which results in a building blowing up. It gets deconstructed further as he also keeps messing up missions because of this, leading Butch to chew him out for his behavior and kick him off the team. This leads to Diggs maturing and putting aside his ego.
- Civil War: In a mix of inexperience, youthful stupidity, and newfound Blood Knight tendencies, Jessie becomes extremely reckless during the Washington D.C. Invasion in the climax. She repeatedly tries to get closer to the battlefield, almost completely disregards her companions, refuses to seek cover unlike the other journalists, and has to be physically held back by the soldiers escorting her several times. She would've gotten killed had Lee not intervened at the last minute and performed a Heroic Sacrifice to save her.
- Subverted in Cross of Iron. The two lead characters are about to mount a suicidal two man charge on the advancing Russian army when Stransky's gun jams and he can't figure out how to get it working again and Steiner collapses into hysterical laughter watching him struggling with the weapon.
- Subverted in the opening scene of Dances with Wolves. Dunbar, facing the likely amputation of his foot after a wound during a stalemate at the Battle of St. David's Field, decides to mount a horse and ride back and forth right in front of the Confederate lines to end his life honorably rather than live as a cripple. The Confederates miss him with every shot twice as he rides back down the line. This distraction allows the Union to break the Confederate lines and end the stalemate; as a reward he not only gets treatment that saves his foot but his choice of postings. He opts for a remote spot out West, where the film takes place.
- In Danger: Diabolik, Valmont attempts to kill Diabolik without waiting for Ginko to give him the go-ahead and gets gunned down with 11 bullets fired from Diabolik's machine gun for the effort. Lampshaded by Ginko as he yells at Valmont for jumping in too quickly.Ginko: Valmont, don't play the hero!
- In The Elite Squad, Nascimento is disappointed to learn that Neto is actually this once they carry out a real favela raid. He ends up having to bail the latter out.
- One of the reasons why Gunnar Jensen was kicked out of the title team in The Expendables, the other one being his substance abuse problem.
- Colonel Thursday in Fort Apache, who's essentially an Expy of George Custer. Against orders he picks a fight with Cochise (who's willing to negotiate), then leads a cavalry charge into a well-laid Apache ambush. Needless to say, things don't go well. Thursday becomes a martyr for the US Army, with even his subordinate Captain York (who despised him while alive) claiming "no man died more gallantly."
- Ghosts of Mars: Williams charges headlong and both-guns-blazing into the crowd of possessed miners, resulting in the movie's first big shootout."Come on, you mindless motherfuckers!"
- Gleahan and the Knaves of Industry: Does Gleahan see an opportunity to confront Nathaniel's goons? You can bet he'll take it.
- Used during the Battle of Manassas in Gods and Generals. The Confederates under Stonewall Jackson arrive on the scene. A couple of young guys tell their company, "Come on, we can take 'em!" and charge the Union lines. The rest of the company follows, with the commander basically forced to order a charge retroactively. Looking on, Jackson remarks that "it's good to get your dander up", but correctly predicts that the company will be slaughtered.
- The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies has a positive example. When hordes of Orcs show up, the Elves and Men have a Heroic BSoD, but Dáin Ironfoot's troops get in between the Orcs and other forces and start killing without a second thought.
- In Hooded Angels, Ellie's Sanity Slippage turns her into this as the movie progresses, leading to her doing things like yanking her mask down during a bank robbery, thereby exposing her identity and revealing that the robbers were women, and throwing dynamite between the two groups during the tense standoff between Hannah and Wes, triggering a Blast Out.
- Deconstructed to an extent in The Hurt Locker, where the adrenaline junkie main character insists his EOD team run into a series of darkened alleyways to attempt to find the insurgents behind a car bombing. Both of his teammates call him out on it, but since he outranks them, they have to go anyway. The ensuing firefight nearly gets one of them killed.
- Oomiak in The Island At The Top Of Theworld. After being captured and then getting his hands free, he immediately attacks an entire Viking hunting party while armed only with a knife.
- In King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Arthur and his gang spend days working and elaborate plan to draw King Vortigern out of his castle to a specific town in Londinium. Once they receive word the king will be there, they launch into more intensive planning on how to carry out an assassination and still safely escape the city. When the King's carriage arrives, they realize something is wrong. It's a trap intended to draw them out through their assassination attempt. Everyone agrees they should fallback. Except for their hotshot archer, Goosefat Bill, who has an axe to grind against the King's main guard. He shoots and kills the guard alerting all the king's men to their exact location, despite being explicitly told that doing so would cause them to be locked inside the city gates with no means of escape and surrounded by hundreds of men if they were unsuccessful in killing the king. Goosefat's action causes them to have to scramble madly about the city looking for an escape route and results in the murder of Arthur's best friend, Back lack, and the capture of Rubio, who confesses the secret living location of the resistance that is then slaughtered by the King's men. Great job, Goosefat.
- In The Last Samurai Algren leads a newly-formed regiment in the introductory battle against the Samurai, who fight without firearms. The plan is to hold fire until the Samurai are within range and let loose. One soldier fires off accidentally, which the other soldiers mistake as the cue to fire their weapons, despite the commanders screaming to cease fire. Their volley's spent before they have time to reload and the Samurai overrun them effortlessly. One could argue that leading the inexperienced troops into battle earlier than expected (before Algren could finish training them) was a Leeroyish move by his commanding officer. Funnily enough, Algren served under (and survived!) notable real-life Leeroy Jenkins General George Armstrong Custer, and there are two points during the film he angrily points out he's no fan of the man and his suicidal tactics.
- In The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Merry and Pippin are the first to charge at the host of orcs coming out of Mordor. Luckily, the rest of the army quickly overtakes them. Aragorn
was first though. - Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- The Incredible Hulk: Main villain Emil Blonsky is very much a Leeroy Jenkins; it's heavily implied that, in his eagerness to fight the Hulk, he prematurely springs an attack on Banner before sniper teams and other supporting units can properly get into position, causing Banner to transform into the Hulk before the military can subdue him. Also (he may not have hurt anyone but himself, but still): "That all you've got?" *THUD* Cue him having every bone in his body broken in about half a second.
- Thor: Thor decides to gather his brother and his four friends and embark on a "diplomatic" mission to the realm of the Frost Giants. After a deal of tension, Thor turns to leave, but a giant calls him "princess", prompting him to send Mjölnir through his head at Mach 2. His friends have no choice but to join in the ensuing fight, and while Thor smacks the army around without even trying, Fandral is almost mortally wounded, and Odin exiles Thor for his lack of foresight.
- The Avengers: Iron Man gives us this:Captain America: We need a plan of attack.
Iron Man: I have a plan — Attack. - Despite the above example, MCU Steve Rogers has an occasional habit of this too. It's most noticeable in Captain America: The First Avenger, which features him dealing with the discovery that his best friend is a POW by invading Austria during a break in his USO show. Fitting his status as The Heart and The Good Captain, though, he's only reckless about his own safety and never surprises his teammates with this. When he does plan a head-on attack, he always gets some kind of prior approval from the people involved and does his best to make sure that he's still the one in the greatest danger.
- Guardians of the Galaxy: Rocket is laying out a prison escape plan, and various things he will need. He mentions a "quarnex battery" which is mounted on the exterior of the security tower. He then explains that its removal will kick the prison into emergency mode, so they have to get it last. Groot, however, didn't hear that part. While Rocket is finishing up, he goes over to the tower, grows tall enough to reach the battery, and rips it from the wall. Everyone has to scramble. Fortunately for them, they succeed at escaping.
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Drax leaps right into a battery-eating interdimensional monster's digestive system because its skin is too thick to be damaged from the outside and he thinks he can stab it to death from the inside. He can't. Peter and Gamora spend the next few seconds horrified and baffled that Drax would do something so stupid based on such faulty logic.
- In Mercenaries, Raven completely blows the team's attempt to covertly infiltrate the Citadel by drawing her twin Glocks and starting blasting the first time they encounter sentries.
- Mohawk: Well-considered battle plans are not part of Calvin's mindset. He triggers the whole mess by sneaking off and setting fire to an American camp, and later attempts to take on the entire group of American survivors by himself, resulting in his capture.
- More fun with Custer: this is the general depiction of the man in Night at the Museum 2.
- he hotheaded and trigger-happy Lt. Keating in The Raid (1954). While escaping the stockade, he shoots one of the sentries on the wall; alerting the Union troops to the escape. After the initial raid is called off, he goes AWOL and gets drunk. The next day, he drunkenly interrupts a church service and has to be shot dead by Benton, almost giving away the plot.
- In Rob Roy, a small group of Rob's clansmen are watching a large troop contingent burn a farm belonging to them. They see that the soldiers are too many to fight directly, so they prepare to draw back into the fog and continue to harry them. Then Rob's little brother Alisdair sees that the leader of the soldiers is the man who raped his sister-in-law. So he takes a shot at him from extreme long range and misses, which alerts the soldiers to the presence of the clansmen. Nearly all of the Scots are promptly butchered when the soldiers chase them.
- In Shaun of the Dead, Diane's boyfriend David is killed by zombies from the window. She grabs David's detached leg and uses it as a club as she charges into the zombie horde. (She also opened the front door, allowing the zombie horde to attack her other friends inside.)
- The extras reveal that she survives, but it costs a man's life.
- In the climax of Sherlock Holmes (2009), when Holmes and his allies learn of Blackwood's plan to murder everyone in Parliament with a remote control poison gas machine, he and Watson start coming up with a plan to get past the men guarding it...when Atler just starts shooting everyone.Watson: She loves an entrance, your muse.
- Star Trek (2009): A brief "Leeroy" moment, when the Red Shirt pumps himself up for his fateful skydive onto the Romulan planetary drill.
- Star Wars
- Episode II: Attack of the Clones: Anakin and Padmé rush to Geonosis to rescue Obi-Wan, only to be captured themselves.
- Also Jango Fett during the battle of Geonosis. When he sees Mace Windu drop his lightsaber, he immediately dives into the battlefield without thinking and it gets him killed, costing Dooku his best fighter and ultimately the battle. In his defense, Mace Windu embarrassed him in front of his son and his boss earlier, which made Jango jump on the first chance he could get for revenge. For bonus points, Count Dooku even has the look "are you serious, bro?" on his face as he does it.
- Obi-Wan detailing a plan of attack against Dooku, which Anakin doesn't wait to hear before charging in.Obi-Wan: We'll take him together. You go in slowly on the left—
Anakin: I'm taking him now! (rushes in)
Obi-Wan: No, Anakin, no! (Dooku zaps Anakin with Force Lightning) NO! - In Revenge of the Sith, upon being told by Anakin that Palpatine is the Sith Lord, Mace Windu and three other Jedi Masters immediately dash off to arrest or assassinate him. They don't stop to verify the account, assemble evidence, determine specific charges, tell anyone else or leave a message, or even alert the temple guards. Naturally, The Coup goes horribly wrong.
- Played straight in The Empire Strikes Back, when Admiral Ozzel's eagerness for battle results in the fleet coming out of lightspeed too close to the Rebel base, thus alerting the Rebels to the Imperial invasion. Needless to say, Darth Vader is not pleased.
- Luke rushing off to face Vader at Cloud City without completing his training and over the protests of both Obi-Wan and Yoda.
- This is echoed when Rey is put in a similar situation in The Last Jedi. When Rey realizes that Luke isn't going to help her, she decides instead to re-join the fleet to recruit Kylo Ren to the Resistance's cause, having sensed conflict within him. This goes VERY badly, as the entire scenario, the Force communications between Rey and Kylo included, was set up by Snoke in order to bait Rey into a trap. Rey only narrowly escapes with her life. Luke warns her not to go, having learned from his previous experience.
Luke: This is NOT going to go the way you think! - Subverted in Return of the Jedi. When the Rebel team on Endor sees Paploo run off alone toward the shield generator, they think he's going to blow their element of surprise, but he actually creates a useful distraction by loudly stealing a speeder bike.
- In A New Hope, Han charging a group of Stormtroopers on the Death Star. He actually managed to intimidate them into fleeing until they ran into a much larger group of reinforcements (much, much larger in the special edition).
- In Swashbuckler, Jane ruins her own plan to rob Lord Durant and then kill him by suddenly screaming "I'm going to kill you!" and leaping at him wielding a candelabra.
- In S.W.A.T. (2003), Jim Street and his partner Brian Gamble infiltrate a bank where robbers are holding hostages. They have an order to hold their position. Gamble breaks his "hold" order and attacks, killing the robbers but wounding a hostage, who sues the department for negligence. Through this could be a subversion in that it's clear the gunmen were about to kill the hostage, and if Gamble and Street had followed the hold order, the hostage would have likely died.
- Raphael usually gets saddled with this role in various incarnations of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, including the comics and the original 1990s movies. If the Turtles were a Four-Temperament Ensemble, Raph would definitely be the choleric one. His Hair-Trigger Temper, borderline Psychopathic Manchild impulses, and overall badass attitude make him the one most likely to either kick a serious amount of ass (good) or do something stupid and/or potentially fatal (bad). In the original 1990 film, he played this to the hilt and got himself temporarily knocked into a coma after falling through a skylight during a battle with too many Foot soldiers for him to take on by his lonesome.Raphael: [sarcastic] Oh, so that's the plan from our great leader, huh — just sit here on our butts!
Leonardo: I never said I was your great leader.
Raphael: Well, you sure act like it sometimes.
Leonardo: Yeah? Well, you act like a jerk sometimes! And this attitude of yours isn't helping anything!
Raphael: Then maybe I'll just take my attitude and leave! - In the 2011 Three Musketeers movie, the title musketeers are trying to devise the best way to get through a booby-trapped hallway. While they are discussing, Milady just runs through it, narrowly avoiding all the traps.
- The Town ends with an example of this. The bank robbers have dressed up as paramedics. They take their loot to their getaway vehicle, which is an ambulance. SWAT teams have assembled and haven't recognized them yet. The ruse is working. They're about to get away. And then one of the robbers fires an M-16 through the ambulance window. Cue most of the bank robbers getting killed.
- In Troy, Achilles pulls his own Leeroy-esque move as he attempts to take the beach of Troy with roughly fifty soldiers (several of which are immediately sniped by Trojan archers). All is amended when Achilles himself sets foot on the sand and promptly begins to run through the Trojan forces. After his brief exhibition of Nigh-Invulnerability, he proceeds to desecrate the statue of Apollo, and then throws a javelin about 200 Yards and successfully smiting a Trojan captain, and scaring the bejesus out of Hector.
- In The Untouchables Eliot Ness and the rest of the Untouchables plan to catch a member of Capone's gang midway through a deal with the assistance of the Canadian Mounties who are meant to wait for a signal from the feds before charging. Mid-deal, gun shots are heard as the Mounties charge anyway. Subverted, though, as they are able to achieve what they wanted to do.
- Played with in Watchmen, in the 1970s flashback scene. The Watchmen are hovering above the anti-vigilante protest in the streets in Archie (their owl-shaped hovercraft), earnestly trying to calm down the crowd over a loudspeaker... and then the Comedian has to jump down to where the action is and pour fuel on the fire. Of course, pragmatically speaking, this wasn't exactly a foolhardy thing for Eddie Blake to do: it turns out to be not much of a fight at all, since the protesters have only rocks and beer bottles and the Comedian is an experienced CIA assassin toting major weaponry.
- In Wild Wild West, West constantly ignores Gordon's planning and runs right into battle. Only after he causes them to run for their lives and runs out of other options does he ask for Gordon to work out a plan. Gordon doesn't take it too well.West: Gordon, what's your plan for getting this thing off my neck?
Gordon: Excuse me?
West: Well, that's what you're here for, right? You're the master of this mechanical stuff.
Gordon: [chuckling maniacally] Oh ho ho, I see. Now I'm the "master of this mechanical stuff". As opposed to five minutes ago, when I was calmly and coolly trying to find a solution to this very problem. But then something happened. Someone, who will remain nameless — JIM WEST! — decided to jump over the wire, thereby providing us with that exhilarating romp through the cornfield, and that death-defying leap into the abysmal muck! And here we stand, with that demented maniac hurtling towards our President, with our one and only means of transportation, with Rita as his prisoner, armed with God-knows-what machinery of mass destruction, with the simple intention of overthrowing our government and taking over the country!
West: Gordon, I think you need to calm down.
Gordon: I can't be calm! Oh, no, no, no, no, I'm the "Master of the Mechanical Stuff"! And I have to help you! You, the master of the STUPID STUFF! - The Year One DVD includes a bonus feature where the cast plays out the Leeroy Jenkins skit, complete with some of the dialogue from the original machima.
