Screw The Rules Im Doing Whats Right / Live-Action Films

People breaking the rules in order to do the right thing in Live-Action Films.

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• Alien Nation: 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."
• American Ultra:
  • Lasseter helps Mike, despite knowing that what she's doing could qualify as treason.
  • 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 "Fuck you!" for good measure.
• In Avatar, Trudy Chacon's Neutral Face Turn comes when she's ordered to fire on a tree full of defenseless Na'vi:
  "Screw this. I didn't sign up for this shit!"
• Babe: Pig in the City: Even though the Landlady knows it's considered illegal for her to shelter animals in her hotel, she does it anyway because she believes they need somewhere to stay in the city.
• Bad Boys II: 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.
• Batman Forever: In the wake of Stickley's "apparent" suicide,^*where he was actually murdered by The Riddler Bruce Wayne granted full death benefits to his family, even though suicide disqualified him from those benefits. He likely knew something was fishy.
• Crimson Tide is all about this. Lt. Commander Hunter (played by Denzel Washington) 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 are two sets of keys. As far as Hunter sees it, his actions were all Lawful as well as Good.
• Dallas Buyers Club: had people with HIV played by the strict rules and procedures of the FDA, they would have all ended up dead.
• Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan: Australian soldiers are notorious for 'excessive initiative' in contrast to the Commonwealth tradition of 'obey most orders to the letter', and these lads are no exception. It's almost a Running Gag that multiple characters disregard their superiors' dithering - or outright orders to stay put - to go out and do what they can to help their comrades. The ultimate example is Smith telling Colonel Townsend 'you can go and fuck your orders' when Delta Company is ordered to withdraw and return to base - when Delta Company's all that's standing between the base and two thousand Viet Cong.
• The Dark Knight Rises: 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 it becomes the target of an imminent nuclear explosion.
• DC Extended Universe:
  • Wonder Woman (2017):
    • Much like was done years earlier in Justice League, the contest to send out an Amazon is Adapted Out and instead, Diana decides to ignore Hippolyta's edict not to get involved.
    • Steve Trevor 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 Wide-Eyed Idealist 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.
  • The Suicide Squad:
    • 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 Flag decidess to defy Amanda Waller and release all the evidence to the media. Unfortunately, this gets him killed by Peacemaker.
    • When Starro rampages on Corto Maltese, Waller insists that the Squad's mission to destroy evidence of America's involvement is complete, and they must abort. Starting with Bloodsport, the remaining members begin charging towards Starro to save the city. This also extends to the aides in Waller's office, one of whom knocks Waller unconscious with a golf club to prevent her from activating the Squad's Explosive Leashes.
• Dick Tracy: When Tracy is framed for murder, his coworkers Pat and Sam are assigned to drive him to prison. Due to their belief in Tracy's innocence and their awareness that crime is running wild without him, they arrange to make a stop to interrogate a high-ranking mobster on their way to the prison, giving Tracy an opportunity to clear his name.
• Dirty Harry lives this trope. He's a Cowboy Cop of the first order, frequently breaking the law and going against procedure in the name of getting his man, hence the name "Dirty Harry" by the police. However, Harry is a deconstruction of this mindset, as Harry's actions invariably cause huge messes for the police to clean up, including lawsuits and some of the people Harry arrests going free because of improper police procedure.
• Female-lead Tina from the Fantastic Beasts films is the most similar character to the protagonist of the parent series, Harry Potter. The two of them share this as their modus operandi. Before the events of the first film, she gets demoted from being an Auror because she attacked Mary Lou Barebone for abusing her son Creedence.
• Deconstructed in From the Hip. The main character, a hotshot defense attorney, starts to believe 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 Berserk Button again and again with a Breaking Speech until his client tries 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 Breaking Speech would have gotten him a guaranteed acquittal.
• G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra: General Hawk first subverted his orders by telling the team that they could violate the spirit of the orders without technically violating the letter and later launched an unsanctioned attack on Cobra's Arctic base after the organization was ordered disbanded.
• In Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Liz Sherman and Abe Sapien go against orders to take a dying Hellboy to Prince Nuada's realm in order to save his life. Johann Kraus intercepts them, seemingly intending to either reason with them or arrest them for disobeying orders, but instead joins them.
• In Home Alone 3, 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 and his family won't believe him. As such, Alex decides to deal with the crooks himself by using the remote control car they hid the chip in— which was given to him by his neighbor, Mrs. Hess, for shoveling her driveway^note this is due to the crooks and Hess having their bags mixed up at the San Francisco Airport after the deal occurred— 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.
• In The Hunger Games 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. But the last two standing players Katniss and Peeta refuse to keep fighting and prefer to commit joint suicide instead.
• The Intruder (1953): A London stockbroker finds a burglar in his house, and recognises him as one of his men when he was a tank commander in the war. Instead of reporting the matter to the police, he decides to try to find out for himself what led a brave soldier to this, and chooses not to tell the police "He's here!" when the opportunity presents itself.
• In I, Robot: Sonny, a advanced robot who is able to think independently of the three laws, agrees that the actions of the main villain are perfectly rational and that their logic is sound in accordance with the laws of robotics; however, he chooses to go against their plan because it "just seems too heartless."
• James Bond always trusts his own instincts, even if it sometimes means going against his MI6 hierarchy or diplomatic laws.
  • On Her Majesty's Secret Service: Ernst Stavro Blofeld can't be extradited due to Switzerland's neutrality, he's holding Tracy hostage and he's about to cause a global disaster, so Bond and Union Corse leader Marc-Ange Draco mount a helicopter assault on Piz Gloria with Draco's private army to free Tracy and rid the world of Blofeld's threat, Swiss neutrality be damned.
  • Moonraker: M is forced by Defense Minister Frederick Gray to take Bond off the Hugo Drax case after they're both humiliated by entering the supposed laboratory, now Drax's study, wearing gas masks. However, Bond is able to produce the gas vial he recovered from the lab, showing that he was right. M decides to grant him a "leave of absence" so that he can pursue the lead in Rio.
  • The Living Daylights: Bond is tasked to provide sniper cover to the defection of Russian general Georgi Koskov to the West in Bratislava. He spots a "sniper" (Kara Milovy) at a window and deliberately doesn't kill her, disobeying the orders of his superior Saunders. He saw all too well that she isn't trained to handle firearms and sparing her life allows him to later uncover the mystery behind Koskov.
  • Licence to Kill: Bond will stop at nothing in his Roaring Rampage of Revenge against drug lord Franz Sanchez to get justice for the Leiters, even if it means disobeying MI6 orders and becoming a Rogue Agent in the process. Also in the same film, Moneypenny (Caroline Bliss) calls Q (Desmond Llewelyn) in M's back so he can help Bond, and Q immediately heads for 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.
  • Die Another Day: 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, which 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.
  • Daniel Craig's Bond actually does it at least Once per Episode.
    • Casino Royale: 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 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.
    • Quantum of Solace: Bond disobeys MI-6 orders to drop the mission that leads him to Dominic Greene, seduces their envoy Stawberry Fields, and escapes when they come to arrest him in order to ruin Greene's scheme.
    • 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 on board with that plan, but Mallory prefers that the British PM doesn't know about this.
    • Spectre: Bond goes on a mission the previous M entrusted him with in Video Wills 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 City. The new M didn't know about this and 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 The Mole 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.
    • No Time to Die: 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 Island Base 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 (and Bond willingly sacrifices 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 A League of Their Own, a Western Union telegram man comes to the Rockford Peaches' locker room, telling them he has a telegram from the War Department. There's only one reason why he would be there: the husband of one of the players had died in World War II. But he forgot the placard stating who it was for. He was about to leave to get it sorted out, but manager Jimmy Dugan parts him of the telegram and pushes the man out of the door, knowing his team would not have a chance of getting through the game not knowing who had just lost their husband. The telegram was ultimately for Betty Horn.
• Sartana in Machete could have supplied the header quote if there wasn't already one:
  "Well, there's the law and there's what's right. I'm gonna do what's right."
• In The Matrix Reloaded, Neo realises Trinity will be killed by an Agent, and insists she stays out of the matrix; however, despite his pleading, Trinity states "[She refuses] to sit and watch [Neo] die", and does so anyway.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Captain America: The First Avenger:
    • 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 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, 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 Thor is ordered by the temporary king Loki to 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 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.
  • Nick Fury does this in The Avengers (2012) when the WSC orders a nuclear strike on Manhattan to stop the Chitauri invasion. Understandable, as it is a stupid idea.
    Nick Fury: I recognize that the council has made a decision. But given that it's a 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 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.
• Michael Clayton: Arthur goes off his meds and plots to bring down his own major client, even though this would kill not only his career but possibly the entire firm, because said client knowingly hid their product's carcinogenicity for profit, and his conscience could no longer take it. He is killed before his efforts can fully bear fruit, but Michael — who likely tanks his own career in the process — avenges him.
• The primary reason Jason keeps the evidence from the police in Mystery Team.
• The Naked Gun. Frank Drebin tries to live this trope from time to time, sadly with more realistic consequences than most Big Damn Heroes.
  Mayor: Now Drebin, I don't want any trouble like you had on the South Side last year. That's my policy.
  Frank: Well, when I see five weirdos, dressed in togas, stabbing a man in the middle of the park in full view of a hundred people, I shoot the bastards! That's my policy!
  Mayor: That was a Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar, you moron! You killed five actors! Good ones!
• National Treasure is all about a guy who steals the Declaration of Independence so someone else can't. In the sequel, he kidnaps the President, but unlike the first movie, it has absolutely nothing to do with "saving the country" or anything; Gates just wants to find El Dorado and clear Thomas Gates' name of treason.
• Pacific Rim:
  • The Becket brothers decide to save a fishing trawler rather than guard a coast line from a Kaiju attack, defying orders. This ends up getting one of them killed and their Jaeger destroyed.
  • 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. This nearly got them killed because it was a feint by the kaiju to lure them into an EMP blast.
• Zig-Zagged in Paths of Glory, set in WWI trench warfare. During an all-out attack 'B' Company can't get out of their trenches due to a 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 in writing. In the end, the general gets a free pass for his illegal order, and the troops are court-martialled for failing to go over the top.
• Red Tails 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.
• R.I.P.D.: Despite being suspended for the fiasco with Fat Elvis, Nick and Roy continue working their leads on the gold.
• At the climax of Rogue One, 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 the film version of The Running Man, Ben Richards is ordered to fire upon a food riot. When he refuses, the crew overpowers him and carries out the order. Richards is then blamed by the state and becomes known as the "Butcher of Bakersfield".
• The White Rose activists in the fact-based Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, 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.
• Starship Troopers:
  • Has a scene where Sergeant Zim is arguing with his superior officer to let him join the war. Being a boot camp instructor, he won't get anywhere near the front lines unless he "busts himself back to a Private". Rico bursts in, asking Zim to cancel his resignation so that he too can join the war effort. Zim shows him the resignation documents, and after a silent nod from his superior officer, rips them up and thus gives both of them what they want.
  • The end of movie shows that Zim did end up busting himself down to private, though that's probably a subversion, since he was actually following the rules in that case. And it turns out to be the best decision as it was Zim who captured the Brain Bug.
• Star Trek:
  • Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
    • Kirk and friends steal the Enterprise and defy Starfleet orders to not return to the Genesis planet in order to rescue Spock.
    Sulu: The word, sir?
    Kirk: The word is "No". I am therefore going anyway.
    • Kirk's eventual "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.
  • Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
  Uhura: We are ordered back to spacedock... to be decommissioned.
  Spock: If I were human, I believe my response would be... (*raises eyebrow*) "Go to Hell".
  Bridge: ...
  Spock: If I were human.
  • Star Trek: First Contact:
    • Captain Jean-Luc Picard disobeys the orders of Starfleet Command and goes to the front lines to engage the Borg.
    Picard: I am about to commit a direct violation of our orders. Any of you who wish to object should do so now; It will be noted in my log.
    Data: Captain, I believe I speak for everyone here, sir, when I say... "to Hell with our orders".
    • Which creates a sort-of Call-Back to the previous entry, given that Data is an android who's only recently begun to seriously express emotions and is thus very similar to Spock, making both their contexts both unusual and poignant.
  • Star Trek: Insurrection, the entire plot revolved around this trope so much that their rebelling against the rules is actually part of the title. The thing which sets the plot off is Data, who was assigned on what he thought was a survey mission, and attacked to keep the truth hidden when he discovered what was really going on. This damage kicked him into a kind of basic mode of functioning, probably designed to keep him from being used as a weapon, wherein his program directed him to do the right thing, regardless of whatever else was going on. Essentially, he was programmed with a Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right! default mode.
  • Star Trek Into Darkness 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 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 (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.
  • In the previous movie, Kirk treated nearly every order as a suggestion. The fact that they saved the Earth and perhaps every planet in the Federation of course means he's rewarded rather than punished.
• Star Wars: The Phantom Menace 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.
• Street Fighter: In the build-up of the climax, Guile is getting his troops ready to assault Bison's compound, but the UN instead ordered him to stand down because they agreed to give in to Bison's ransom demands. Their friends would have died for nothing while ideals like peace, freedom and justice get packed up. But, at least Guile and his troopers can all go home. Well, Guile is not going home. Even if he's alone, he's gonna get on his boat to the compound and kick Bison's ass so hard that the next Bison-wannabe is going to feel it, to ensure that the ideals are held and there's a meaning for their friends' deaths. The good thing for Guile, he delivered his intention via a Rousing Speech peppered with Dare to Be Badass elements, so his troops are also following suit.
  • In the video game adaptation, failing to complete the assault on the compound gets Guile court-martialed.
• Deconstructed in S.W.A.T. (2003), when 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 Gamble's actually the villain of the movie. Oops.
• In Tears of the Sun, the SEAL Team engages the Nigerian rebels after watching the rebels massacre a village, not to mention trying to extract as many indigenous refugees from the conflict zone as possible, against direct orders from their command center.
• Top Gun:
  • In an Establishing Character Moment in the beginning of the film, Maverick aborts his landing to help 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.
• In Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen, Lennox and the other NEST soldiers fly off not only to deliver Optimus Prime to Egypt, but actually take the Obstructive Bureaucrat with them so they can push him out of the plane on the way (with the Parachute, unfortunately). The latter was presumably because it would take him longer to rat them out than if they left him at the base. And because Lennox was having way too much fun screwing with the guy.
• 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.
• In Vice (2015), Roy refuses to follow his boss' orders to leave the Vice corporation alone, as he believes justice needs to be served to the disgusting patrons and company.

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