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How do!

This thread is brought to you by me watching Dredd. Again. Because it’s an absolutely flawless movie in my opinion.

The inspiration comes from the opening of the scene of Dredd being cornered by the bent Judges in the Slo-Mo factory. It’s a relatively dialogue light scene, but we see a bad guy make a fatal blunder.

Mr Judge Dredd Sir asks a simple question (likely to get an idea of where the baddie is). And that question is “What’s the price of a Judge these days?”

Judge Lex replies “a million”. Then, with no immediate response, tacks on “split four ways”.

This is I suspect in an attempt to illicit a response from Dredd, so Lex and his mate could likewise get an idea of where Dredd is. But in doing so, he furnishes Dredd with crucial information he didn’t previously have - just how many bent Judges were after him and Anderson in Peach Trees.

Dredd did a kind of reverse version shortly before with Judge Chan, where something Chan doesn’t say tips Dredd off that all is not well.

In what is to some a mindless Dakkafest of a movie, it’s really sweet dialogue. And it got me wondering what other instances of Hagridian “I shouldn’t have told you that” you like in films.

However, I am going to rule out the trope of “just shut up and shoot him, then, if you absolutely must, monologue about just how fiendishly diabolically clever and brainy and foolproof your plan is” bad guy grandstanding. Because that’s not always cleverly or even well written!

Agreed on Dredd being a fantastic movie. As someone who only had a vague idea of the Dredd universe and its impact on 40k with regards to Arbites, seeing it for the first time was a complete delight and it was jarring to watch the older Dredd movies with Stallone being so memey in comparison.

Off the top of my head, I did like the bar scene in Inglorious Bastards where Michael Fassbender's character goofed and asked for three glasses using 3 fingers the wrong way. Not exactly the line itself so much as his hand gesture but it's something he didn't need to do and gave the already suspicious SS officer reason to ruin their night.

Good guys sometimes make this mistake too, of course.

"Good Luck!" (from The Great Escape)

JOHN Wick to Viggo:
"When Helen died, I lost everything. Until that dog arrived on my doorstep... A final gift from my wife... That moment I received some semblance of hope, an opportunity to grieve alone... Your son took that from me, stole that from me... KILLED THAT FROM ME!"

Not 'took' or 'taken' 'ripped' even but fething KILLED. Its final, no comeback. dead.


Another understated little scene from a popular franchise is from LoTR. When Gandalf confronts Frodo about the ring, throwing it into the fire in Bag End. Gandalf has a blissful nanosecond of peace then you see fear and fatigue pass over his face, his body slumps. '..Gandalf, theres some funny markings on this ring...'.

 Mr. Burning wrote:


Another understated little scene from a popular franchise is from LoTR. When Gandalf confronts Frodo about the ring, throwing it into the fire in Bag End. Gandalf has a blissful nanosecond of peace then you see fear and fatigue pass over his face, his body slumps. '..Gandalf, theres some funny markings on this ring...'.

I noticed that too. specificly gandolf asks frodo if there are any markings on the ring, frodo says "nope none" and he immediatly releaxes only to be troubled when frodo says "ohh wait spoke too soon!"

Just because I saw the film with my kids yesterday: in Dreamworks "Megamind" the "evil genius" himself has a habit of mispronouncing words including the name of the city as kind of "Metrocity" (without pause like "atrocity") instead of "Metro City". When he later disguises as his former superhero Nemesis, he gives himself away by it.

Also in the Avatar the last airbender series there is a scene where prince Zuko is led in board of a firenation ship seemingly as honored guest, but than the ships captain slips saying "Bring the prisoners under deck"

Dredd was a great movie made tragic by the lack of a sequel.

In the scene you reffer to dredd had no way of knowing anderson had killed one of the bent judges tho.

Also I wondered how dredd knew anderson was coming and delayed Lex shooting him. Did she contact him telepathically?

 Matt Swain wrote:
Dredd was a great movie made tragic by the lack of a sequel.

In the scene you reffer to dredd had no way of knowing anderson had killed one of the bent judges tho.

Also I wondered how dredd knew anderson was coming and delayed Lex shooting him. Did she contact him telepathically?

True. But Dredd was still made aware of at least three other Judges.

Dredd is in my top 5 can’t stop watching once it starts movies. Absolutely love it.

As for subtle dialog, my wife says I have all the subtlety of a swinging sledge hammer. That said, the movie Die Hard is full of subtle “intelligence gathering” dialogue. From finding out the number of bad guys, to John letting Al know he’s a cop, to John handing Hans an unloaded gun... there’s quite a few smart-things going on in the dialogue.

 greatbigtree wrote:
Dredd is in my top 5 can’t stop watching once it starts movies. Absolutely love it.

As for subtle dialog, my wife says I have all the subtlety of a swinging sledge hammer. That said, the movie Die Hard is full of subtle “intelligence gathering” dialogue. From finding out the number of bad guys, to John letting Al know he’s a cop, to John handing Hans an unloaded gun... there’s quite a few smart-things going on in the dialogue.

Its not really subtle. All that stuff is telegraphed, iirc, he's writing names down, visibly unloading the gun, etc.
It's all appropriate, but the movie is set up in a way that they're waving signal flags over each moment.

Belloq in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Good job convincing Indy to not blow up the Ark with a bazooka, but we know how that ended up for him, don't we?

Moving on to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Elsa probably shouldn't have talked in her sleep.

@ Voss: Yes, it’s made obvious to the viewers. I guess I meant in-universe, it was subtle. And for an action flick, you know, not bad.

This is a subset of the "Before I kill you, Mister Bond..." thing, isn't it?

Kind of. Ish.

It’s certainly more specific. Less grandstanding monologue and more Hagridian “I shouldn’t have told you that”, where important information is given away without conscious thought.

The sort of seemingly innocuous remark which to the like of Poirot or Columbo would prove guilt or innocence. Something someone is more tricked into saying.

Dredd is one of my favorite movies and has one of my favorite lines from any movie:

“Admirable.”

Two I can think of off hand, and they maybe repeats.

1: In Attack of the Clones, when Dooku is trying to turn Obi-Wan. He lays out exactly what Palpatine is up to. However, Obi-wan is too high on his on supply to care, and assumes it is a line simply because Dooku said it. Probably my favorite scene of the Pre-quels.

2. In Inglorious Basterds when the American agents blow their cover in the bar with a simple hand gesture.

Along these lines, in the Orson Wells movie "The stranger" where orson wells was playing a nazi war criminal on the run and hiding in a small american town he almost convinces the investigator coming after him he isn't who he's looking for, but slips up.

He casually refutes a statement by Karl Marx because "Marx wasn't a german, he was a jew."

Later the hunter realizes "Well, who but a Nazi would deny that Karl Marx was a German because he was a Jew?"

 Matt Swain wrote:
Along these lines, in the Orson Wells movie "The stranger" where orson wells was playing a nazi war criminal on the run and hiding in a small american town he almost convinces the investigator coming after him he isn't who he's looking for, but slips up.

He casually refutes a statement by Karl Marx because "Marx wasn't a german, he was a jew."

Later the hunter realizes "Well, who but a Nazi would deny that Karl Marx was a German because he was a Jew?"

Many Americans at the time, actually. (Fighting Nazis doesn't indicate an accepting and open minded culture)
Even had personal experience with this while in college, I had a conversation with a history professor, despite enthusing about the Communist Manifesto, insisted Marx wasn't German.
The idea that Jewish people are a separate culture from wherever they're living is a very entrenched one. It isn't even entirely problematic (though its far too easy to make it problematic), since a fair number of Jews express the same view.
In 1946, I actually have a hard time believing anyone would even blink at it.

There was some evidence that the guy in question was the fugitive nazi, but his performance at the dinner the hunter was at just about had him convinced he wasn't, until he made the 'marx wasn't german he was a jew' crack, which later made the hunter rethink his dismissal of him being the man he was after.

So it does fit the theme of this thread.

In general i think anti semitism fading in america and confined to small fringe groups whose numbers are stagnant or shrinking especially as more and more people are choosing "none" as a religious affiliation.

But this is straying , so i'll just again say this example does kind of fir the thread.