10 Ridiculous Movie Tropes So Common People Think They're Real

7. Grenades Cause MASSIVE Explosions

The Guest Dan Stevens
Picturehouse

The Trope

Pretty much every action movie in existence is guilty of this: any time someone deploys a garden variety fragmentation grenade, it'll let out a colossal explosion that launches the bad guys 20 feet across the room, destroys entire buildings and basically annihilates anything that gets in its way.

The Reality

Despite what movies and video games might tell you, real life frag grenades are actually far more modestly destructive, as evidenced by the hundreds of "live grenade detonation" videos on YouTube.

Frag 'nades don't let off fireballs nor can they tear a wide radius apart: there's a puff of smoke, a bang and some localised fragmentary damage.

One of the few films to get this even basically correct is war classic The Thin Red Line. When Sgt. Keck (Woody Harrelson) accidentally detonates his own grenade, he isn't instantly blown to shreds but is in fact left entirely in tact as he dies. They did include an explosion, though (tsk).

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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.