10 Movie Heroes Who Might As Well Have Stayed At Home

Which so-called heroes weren't needed or made things worse?

By George Philpott /

How often in movies have we seen our favourite heroes swoop in and save the day at the last minute? The villain could have the president of The Unites States strapped to a bomb in a remote controlled helicopter, circling an active volcano and the main character you've fallen hopelessly in love with over the course of the film will still save the day.

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Maybe they'll swoop in, roundhouse kick the bomb off the president into the live volcano, cause a tidal wave (which the hero will surf on with a piece of helicopter debris and the president strapped to their back), wash up on the nearest shoreline and say something like "surf's up", "explosive wave, bro" or "bomby make splashy" (they could be terrible at one-liners).

But every now and then, whether we notice it or not, there are times when heroes actually make things worse or, in some cases, weren't needed at all and might as well have stayed at home. This list will reveal the times that the heroes cleaned up a huge mess that never would have existed without them in the first place - to the times that their presence had little to no significant outcome to the plot at all.

From a rag tag bunch of mercenaries attempting to assassinate Hitler to a regular Joe trying to help out a gang of superheroes, these are the times that the "hero" may as well have just hit the snooze button.

10. The Inglourious Basterds Almost Ruined A Perfectly Good Plot

In 2009, Quentin Tarantino released his World War 2 masterpiece - Inglourious Basterds. Towards the end of the movie, the Basterds received information that Hitler and his pals would be attending a screening of Nazi propaganda flick Nation's Pride in a small cinema in the heart of Paris. Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) and co then formed a half-baked plan to unleash hell on the Nazi cinephiles by arming themselves to the teeth and making Swiss cheese out of as many fascists as they could.

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Why Aldo shouldn't have bothered: Little did they know, the owners of the French cinema - Shoshanna and Marcel - had devised their own brilliant plan to lock the Nazis in the auditorium and burn the place to the ground, giving them all a slow and painful death. To make it even more awesome, they had cut the film to include their very own "F*** you" message to Hitler and the Nazi officers.

The consequence: Raine's presence at the cinema almost ruined Marcel and Shoshanna's plan when Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) realised who The Basterds were. Luckily, Landa stepped aside and let chaos ensue when he saw an opportunity to profit from the Third Reich's downfall.

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