It’s no easy ride for these incompetent and bumbling movie heroes…
The protagonist of a film usually has some goal they need to achieve, and for the most part, even if they begin way over their head, by the time the film ends, they’ve solved everything and wrapped up the case using their wits and their skills to overcome all obstacles.
However, it’s not always the case. Sometimes a hapless hero might bumble their way through the narrative, and even if they win the day it’s by dumb luck or a huge helping hand from their more competent buddies. You need only look at Harry Potter. Let’s face it, that kid was next to useless for several movies, and even having worked out a few life-saving spells and finding himself leading a rebellion, still had to rely on those closest to him to fix his mistakes.
Still, because Potter (must be said with Malfoy’s intense emphasis on the ‘P’) did gain some semblance of competence, he won’t make this list. These incompetent protagonists did not iron out their creases, from comedy, where one might more readily expect a hapless hero, to serious drama. Check out our selection here…
One Battle After Another
An incompetent hero, you say? There’s one lighting up the big screen right now, in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another. Anderson has always dealt with complicated and flawed protagonists. Some are reprehensible, others are hamstrung by self-inflicted ineptitude, and Leonardo DiCaprio plays one such here. A one-time explosives expert for a band of revolutionaries, he escapes to try and live in peace with his daughter, but bakes his brain with drugs over 16 years.
When the past catches up with them (in the intense form of Sean Penn), Willa is taken, and Bob (Leo) has to keep himself from being captured and then find her. Easier said than done when old passwords required to access important information have long departed his jellied brain. Anderson in some ways, refines and perfects some similar elements that didn’t quite work in Inherent Vice fused with some of the screwball farce you might see in The Big Lebowski. The result is wildly entertaining, as well as prescient, and DiCaprio has a ball.
The Big Lebowski
Speaking of Lebowski. The Coen brothers enjoy inflicting misfortune and acts of ineptitude onto their protagonists. It’s never been quite so majestically realised as The Big Lebowski, as a stolen rug (which really tied the room together) sets ‘The Dude’ (Jeff Bridges) off on an accidental gumshoe misadventure with his buddy Walter (John Goodman).
The Dude haplessly stumbles from one discovery to the next, often being favourably gifted the next clue, or just veering off to another red herring. It all comes together in the end, with no real thanks to the Dude (El Duderino) or Walter. The journey, however, is irreverent, goofy and uproarious.
Dog Day Afternoon
A more serious film now, with Sidney Lumet’s sweaty and thrilling bank job gone wrong, based on a true story. Al Pacino and John Cazale target a bank, but everything that could go wrong does, and soon the police, the press and hundreds of onlookers are outside the bank while the incompetent robbers hold up inside, with the hostages.
Sonny and Saul become unwitting stars, sticking it to the man, but their desperate attempts to improvise with the changing situation make things worse each time, before an inevitably blunt end to their robbery. Pacino is exceptional, and Chris Sarandon has a standout supporting role, whilst John Cazale was criminally overlooked for an Oscar nomination here. Lumet was a master in creating drama in confined settings.
Memories of Murder
21st Century Korean cinema has never been shy of laying in a little social or class commentary into their films, despite far from lenient censorship. Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning masterpiece, Parasite, was littered with subtext throughout and, in fairness, was also blessed with a hapless set of protagonists whose ingenuity was never as foolproof as they believed.
However, Joon-ho also made a stunning serial killer thriller way back in 2003. Loosely based on a real-life (then unsolved) case, it’s a police procedural showcasing institutional corruption and ineptitude as the two officers put in charge often hinder the case more than progress it meaningfully. They follow the same rules as the force has culturally allowed, which is to bend said rules as much as possible to get a conviction (even if it means convicting the wrong person). Thrilling but with wry humour, like the best in Asian cinema, Joon-ho plays on the fallibility of human nature but still manages to humanise cops resorting to criminal means to manipulate the case. Characters are inherently flawed. It’s an exceptional film from a modern master of cinema.
Naked Gun
We’ve just seen the reboot of Naked Gun in cinemas over the summer with Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson bouncing brilliantly off each other and nailing the comical obliviousness perfectly. However, the original Leslie Nielsen film is the perfect example of a bumbling, incompetent hero who accidentally wins the day. You’d expect nothing less from a scattershot spoof comedy, but the Zucker brothers never forgot there was a case to solve and a villain’s plot to stop.
As for Nielsen, no one did it better. He played it ridiculously straight and perfectly oblivious as all manner of daft comedy played out around him.
The Nice Guys
Shane Black loves a buddy-up film. In fact, he loves them so much he’s just fired one out on Amazon, with Mark Wahlberg and LaKeith Stanfield teaming up in Play Dirty, the latest adaptation from the Parker book series.
As far as incompetent protagonists, though, Black often leaned on the comedy you could mine from heroes blundering their way through a case or a mystery, but with Ryan Gosling in The Nice Guys, he dialled it up more than ever. Gosling is a P.I. who can’t even break a window without almost gravely injuring himself. There’s great physical comedy in this film, and Gosling bounces off Russell Crowe (who isn’t exactly Einstein himself here) brilliantly.
Blue Ruin
Revenge is a dish best served cold, and it’s usually served up by unrelenting bad asses like Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood or Arnold Schwarzenegger. They dole out the dish efficiently, wipe out bad guys with ease and solve the cases with time to spare.
Blue Ruin took a novel approach to revenge cinema, with Jeremy Saulnier showing what might happen should the most (below) average Joe possible set out to avenge the deaths of loved ones. Macon Blair is great as Dwight, who shambolically goes hunting for revenge. He’s as useless at dishing out blood letting as you’d expect an ordinary person to be, who relies largely on what he’s seen in movies and (fortunately) help from old friends who come to his rescue.
Marathon Man
Whether it’s The Man Who Knew Too Much or North By Northwest, protagonists falling into a deadly game of international espionage often make for compelling cinema. As is the case with Marathon Man. A History student (Dustin Hoffman) finds his gravely injured brother (Roy Scheider) just before his death.
Babington then ends up being stalked by the same shady government agents and a sadistic old War criminal (Laurence Olivier) who believes he’s hiding something. Gripping and tense, Marathon Man really cranks up the tension, and Hoffman’s naive student can do little more than run at any given opportunity, because that aside, he’s in way over his head. Perfect paranoia cinema from the peak era of the 1970s.
Who is your favourite incompetent movie hero? Let us know on our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
Tom Jolliffe
