History Main / BrandishmentBluff

* ''Film/{{Sunset}}'' features a scene in which a Hollywood actor standing in the shadows cradling some kind of pipe in his arms manages to convince two mobsters that his mop is a shotgun long enough for their hostage to take the only real gun in the room.

See also FingerGun where the "weapon" is just a pointed finger, HesGotAWeapon where the bluff prompts a panicked outburst that the bluffer is armed, ShootHimHeHasAWallet where bluff is met with deadly force, and FakeSpecialAttack where a flashy weapon or ability is used or charged but is little more than a distraction or bluff. If someone bluffs being a known dangerous individual, rather than pretending to have a weapon, they may be seeking a ScarecrowSolution.

See also FingerGun where the "weapon" is just a pointed finger, HesGotAWeapon where the bluff prompts a panicked outburst that the bluffer is armed, ShootHimHeHasAWallet where bluff is met with deadly force, and FakeSpecialAttack where a flashy weapon or ability is used or charged but is little more than a distraction or bluff.

** He does it again in ''Recap/TintinTheBlackIsland'':

* In ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', a bounty hunter threatens to blow everything up with a thermal detonator unless he is paid more. General Tarquin immediately sees that he's really holding a can of tomato soup. The bounty hunter sheepishly admits that he really wanted to do a ShoutOut to the thermal detonator scene from ''Franchise/StarWars''.

* ''Series/{{Justified}}]]: Raylan at one point has a stand-off with a bank robber wearing a [[IncrediblyObviousBomb bomb vest]] and threatening to blow them all up if his demands aren't met. Unfortunately for him, Raylan previously worked as a coal miner and knows the difference between dynamite and the road flares that man strapped to himself to imitate a bomb.

* Played with in an episode of the Australian anthology series ''Series/TwistedTales'', in which the presenter Bryan Brown also guest stars as Jack Jackson, a liquor store owner who prides himself on being able to talk his way out of anything. When a knife-wielding junkie tries to rob his store, he grabs a cordless drill and tries to convince the junkie that it's a gun. His employees back him up, but then a man walks in off the street and the junkie asks him what Jackson is holding. After a long beat, the man tells the junkie that it is indeed a gun. After the cops arrive and cuff the junkie, Jackson says to him "just so you don't go out of your mind..." and pulls the trigger. The next thing he knows, he's staring in disbelief at the junkie, who lies dead with a hole in his head. "I thought it was a cordless drill!"

* Both played straight and subverted in the Burt Reynold's movie ''Film/{{Malone}}'' (1987). The villains suspect Malone is a ProfessionalKiller after he beats up local thug Dan Bollard, so to find out they fill up his brother Calvin with beer, give him a gun and sic him on Malone to see what will happen. Malone is having his hair cut, and claims he's got a gun under the barber's gown. Calvin says it's just his finger, but when Malone dares him to find out the hard way, Calvin flees. Malone then reveals to the others in the barber shop that it is his finger after all. Outside the man who gave Calvin the gun taunts him for being a coward, so he charges back inside, gun blazing. Malone however has gotten to his coat that's hanging behind the door and removed the [[{{BFG}} .44 Automag]] from his shoulder holster which he promptly uses to kill Calvin. The incident becomes a BrickJoke at the end of the movie. Malone has [[OneManArmy single-handedly destroyed the villains]] when he comes across a corrupt sheriff, who cowers away in fear when Malone makes a threatening move, only to reveal he's holding a FingerGun.

* An episode of ''Series/{{Bones]]'' has Bones do this to a suspect who's holding Booth at knife point, using a phone app the makes gun noises.

-->'''Burlgar:''' Oh great! I gotta get a hood who knows prison poetry!

* "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5429021/1/Luminescence Luminescence]]": While attempting to establish a treaty with the Quillettes, Victoria claims she’s planted C4 explosives in the clearing where they’re meeting to get them to listen to the rest of her demands (in reality there is no C4 and she just covered herself and the area with bleach to mask the scents).

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E3VictoryOfTheDaleks "Victory of the Daleks"]]: The Doctor convinces the Daleks that a jammie Dodger (a type of cookie) is a TARDIS self-destruct button.

* In an episode of ''Series/BreakingBad'', Walter White warns the people he's threatening that trained snipers are watching and ready to open fire, and on cue, [[LaserSight a pair of laser dots]] appear on their chests. Once Walt's left the house, it's revealed the "snipers" are really a couple of numbskull acquaintances with laser pointers.

* Subverted in ''Fanfic/TheSecretReturnOfAlexMack'' when Alex starts carrying around a plastic-and-metal tube and claiming it's a taser. It's really just a prop, ''but'' holding it gives her a plausible [[CoverBlowingSuperpower cover]] if she needs to shoot someone with her [[{{Electrokinesis}} electrokinetic powers]] when not in costume.

-->-- '''Teurac''', ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' ("PK Tech Girl")

* ''Series/BlakesSeven''

* In ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' episode "[=PK=] Tech Girl" the crew of Moya, a living ship with no weapons, comes across an old enemy ship lost in space. When confronted by some pirates returned to finish salvaging the ship, Moya crewman D'Argo, who is of a race of fierce warriors, starts yelling in frustration. Zhaan, another crew member, has Moya's Pilot send a transmission of D'Argo to the pirates, which both intimidates and confuses them: Why would a warrior be on a ship with no weapons? During future talks, Zhann would feed D'Argo lines on how to comport himself to maintain the ruse. When the episode ends, the captain of the pirates isn't angry about the deception, accepting it to be a great strategic maneuvering on their part. He provides the page quote.
* ''{{Series/Firefly}}'': In the beginning of "[[Recap/FireflyE02TheTrainJob The Train Job]]," the crew is being held at gunpoint, when Wash appears in the completely unarmed ''Serenity'': "Every man there go back inside, or we'll blow a new crater in this little moon!" Quoth Jayne, after they all follow orders, "Damn yokels can't even tell a transport ship ain't got no guns on it."

* In the ''Series/LawAndOrderSVU'' episode "Closure," the VictimOfTheWeek describes her rapist holding a gun to her head throughout the assault, but can't describe it as he told her to keep her eyes closed. When they talk to another victim, she mentions daring to open her eyes and realizing that he was holding her ''curling iron''. They realize that he likely pulled the same trick on the previous woman and others.

* In one ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' episode, the Doctor threatens the bad guys of the week with "The [[LargeHam PHOTONIC CANNON!!!!]]" Naturally there is no such thing, however because he ''imagined'' that it existed earlier, and the bad guys' main method of collecting data on ''Voyager'' was by examining the Doctor's dreams (thinking them to be memories), it's a very effective one. In addition, the "memory" that they saw showed said cannon destroying a Borg Cube in one shot. When the bad guys say they're not detecting any weapon activation, the Doctor points out that the Borg didn't either, as it was designed to be undetectable.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'', "The Corbomite Maneuver:"
-->'''Kirk''': This is the Captain of the Enterprise. Our respect for other life forms requires that we give you this... warning. One critical item of information that has never been incorporated into the memory banks of any Earth ship. Since the early years of space exploration, Earth vessels have had incorporated into them a substance known as... corbomite. It is a material and a device which prevents attack on us. If any destructive energy touches our vessel, a reverse reaction of equal strength is created, destroying--\\
'''Balok [voice]''': You now have two minutes.\\
'''Kirk''': --destroying the attacker. It may interest you to know that since the initial use of corbomite more than [[TwoOfYourEarthMinutes two of our centuries]] ago, no attacking vessel has survived the attempt. Death has... little meaning to us. If it has none to you then attack us now. We grow annoyed at your foolishness.
** Corbomite was apparently a popular choice for Kirk. In a later episode, he successfully bluffs an attacking Romulan fleet into withdrawing by sending a transmission home in [[ChekhovsGun a code the Romulans had already broken]], detailing the effects of the detonation of the ship's corbomite device for them in the guise of a warning to Starfleet.
* In ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', Riker and Geordi pull a version with the "Crimson Forcefield," which supposedly {{depower}}s the Pakled ship's weapons. It's actually blowing hydrogen back through the Bussard Collectors. Helps that the Pakleds are, as a species, dumber than a sack of hammers.
* ''Star Trek'' loves this one. In the pilot episode of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', the heap of junk space station has zero guns and six photon torpedoes. It's a sitting duck for the Cardassian warships outside. Commander Sisko is missing, and so is another Cardassian ship. It's on not-so-ex terrorist Kira to get the Cardassian warship to stand down. So, she exploits O'Brien's engineering genius to make it ''look'' like the station is armed to the teeth, shoots every torpedo they have to make it look like a warning shot. And when they get the Cardassians on the line, Kira ''[[RefugeInAudacity dares them to fire back]]''. It doesn't work quite as well as she'd hoped, as the Cardassians open fire anyway, stopping their attack only when Sisko returns after rescuing the missing warship.
** Reappears again when another hostile fleet ([[spoiler: Klingon, this time]]) fails to fall for the same bluff, knowing full well that the station is essentially defenseless. [[SubvertedTrope This time, it's not a bluff]].
* In the ''Series/{{Supergirl|2015}}'' episode "Distant Sun," Winn gets an alien bounty hunter to stand down by holding a stapler to his back and threatening to shoot him.

* In the ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' fic "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5429021/1/Luminescence Luminescence]]", Victoria basically does this to make a deal with the Quillettes when she’s attempting to establish her own treaty with them, claiming that she’s planted C4 explosives in the clearing where they’re meeting to get them to listen to the rest of her demands (in reality there is no C4 and she just covered herself and the area with bleach to mask the scents).

* OlderThanDirt, this was employed in [[Literature/TheBible the Book of Judges]] by Gideon against the ''entire Midianite army''. He and his puny company snuck into the Midianite camp in the middle of the night, blew a horn to sound an attack, and smashed a bunch of pots, which supposedly sounds like a thousand swords being unsheathed at once - plus, the pots all had lamps inside them, making it look like the torches of a large army had just been lit. The groggy enemies panicked and ran for the hills.