10 Dumbest Characters In Disaster Movies
3. Stan Olber - Volcano
Volcano's Stan Olber (John Carroll Lynch) is a prototypical example of the guy who doesn't listen to the extremely well-informed "hero" in a disaster movie, and ends up paying the ultimate price for it.
Olber is the chairman of Los Angeles' Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and when emergency expert Michael Roark (Tommy Lee Jones) insists that one of the subway lines needs to be closed down following the initial volcano-triggering earthquake, he refuses.
This leads to a subway train being derailed, and Olber effectively being forced to lay down his life in penance for not listening to Roark.
The derailed train is evacuated as the volcano's lava approaches, but Olber realises the injured train driver is still on-board and goes back to rescue him.
Ultimately, Olber decides to sacrifice himself by jumping into the lava, allowing him to throw the driver to safety before being consumed by the molten liquid.
While Olber is hardly the only authority figure in the movie to ignore Roark's warnings, had he just shut the subway line down as initially advised, he would've survived.