Its Personal / Live-Action Films

Things getting personal in live-action films.

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• Assassin's Creed (2016): Sophia hates Callum after he kills her father Alan at the end of the movie along with stealing the Apple. Before then, their interaction were just business and research.
• In Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, this is present in the film's tagline of "First he fought for the crown, now he's fighting for the family jewels!" While done in a more comedic sense, Austin's desire to take down Dr. Evil becomes personal in the second film when the villain orders the theft of Austin's mojo, the physical manifestation of his libido, rendering the International Man of Mystery impotent. Naturally, Dr. Evil's revenge plan hits below the belt literally and causes Austin to pursue him relentlessly to reclaim his mojo and cure his erectile dysfunction.
• Parodied in Back to the Future Part II, when Marty sees an ad for Jaws 19 with the tagline "This time it's really really personal!" All Marty has to say is that the shark still looks very fake.
• Batman films:
  • Batman (1989) adds this to the relationship between Batman and the Joker — it is revealed that the Joker was the man responsible for murdering Bruce Wayne's parents.
  • Subverted in Batman Begins: Bruce plans to murder Joe Chill, the man who killed his parents, but is denied the chance when a crime boss' assassin kills him instead to prevent Chill from testifying against him. Ironically, being denied this chance for personal closure is partly what leads Bruce to the path that will result in his becoming Batman.
  • Invoked in The Dark Knight when Joker kills Rachel Dawes and drives Harvey Dent insane. Joker is trying to make Batman think It's Personal and act as such; trying to push him over the edge and kill him. More broadly, he is personal in symbolising everything that Batman is opposed to, and intentionally threatening the (mostly) crime-free city Batman has dedicated his life to.
  • Harvey Dent, now Two-Face, also hunts down members of the mob, Gordon, and Batman because he views them to be responsible for Rachel's death. Now It's Personal for the villain.
  • The same goes for Bane and Talia in The Dark Knight Rises. It's out of revenge for Bruce Wayne killing Ra's al Ghul: The attempted destruction of Gotham City's society is purely to make Bruce psychologically suffer as much as possible before killing him. Bane sets up a state-of-the-art TV system in the prison to make sure Bruce sees it happening.
• Big Brother (2018): At first, we're led to think that Jianying hates Henry for improving Tak Chi Secondary School and causing them to get more funding from the board of directors. Jianying is an influential mobster, and he wishes to buy the school property so he can turn it into an apartment complex. Then, we learn that long ago, Henry committed a massive slight against him, and is unintentionally the reason he's a mobster today.
• In The Crossing, Washington is particularly eager to get back at the Hessians in Trenton because they killed his surrendering troops in Brooklyn.
• In Die Hard, the first terrorist McClane manages to take out happens to be the little brother of The Dragon Karl. Karl does not take it well and spends the rest of the movie in a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, being fully willing to put their entire plan at risk for the sake of putting a bullet in the head of his brother's killer. When Karl catches up to John near the end of the film, he makes it clear that it's personal before they fight.
  Karl: We are both professionals. This is personal. [smashes radio]
  • Zigzagged in Die Hard with a Vengeance where Simon is apparently blowing up buildings as part of an elaborate scheme to screw with, and eventually kill, McClane as payback for killing his brother Hans (the Big Bad of the first film). Then it's revealed that was all a cover for Simon's scheme of robbing the Federal Reserve and that Simon didn't even like his brother. Then it's revealed that while Simon's in it for the money and he didn't like his brother, he still took the man's death personally:
    Simon: There's a difference between not liking one's brother and not caring when some dumb Irish flatfoot throws him out a window!
  • Nothing is personal in Live Free or Die Hard, at least not until the bad guys make the huge mistake of kidnapping McClane's daughter. Of course, this was in response to McClane killing the Big Bad's girlfriend Mai, after which Gabriel said "You want to make it personal? Fine. It's personal." Still, it was a very very bad idea on Gabriel's part, and he paid the price eventually. Don't fuck with McClane's family.
• Eden Lake: Things go downhill real quick for Steve and Jenny after Steve kills Brett's dog.
• In The Expendables 2, the death of one of the team members turns a meager mission to retrieve weapons-grade plutonium into this trope.
• In Eyes of a Stranger TV reporter Jane is obsessed with the latest Serial Killer case, to the point of going into unscripted rants on the subject on air every time a woman is raped and killed, because when she was a child she neglected to properly watch her little sister, Tracy, resulting in Tracy being kidnapped, raped, and left blind and deaf-mute. Sadly Jane's obsession with the serial killer leads him to discover her - and Tracy, who he attacks in the climax.
• The Fastest Gun Alive: Bill Toledo, the sheriff in charge of the posse chasing Harold's gang, is the brother of a man they killed in their latest bank robbery.
• Fire with Fire: Mike Cella wants to get David Hagan not just for being an evil crime boss, but due to him murdering Mike's partner before, along with his partner's wife.
• For a Few Dollars More: Near the end of the film, it's revealed that Colonel Douglas Mortimer, one of the two protagonists, is targeting El Indio because El Indio raped Mortimer's sister and caused her suicide.
• Even Godzilla can take things personally:
  • The conflict in Godzilla vs. Destoroyah becomes personal after the latter brutally tortures Godzilla Junior to death, then attacks Godzilla while he is grieving.
  • Matches between Godzilla and his Archenemy King Ghidorah often come off this way; in Scott Ciencein's novelisation, Godzilla vs. The Space Monster this is made explicit, as Ghidorah's gleeful enjoyment of what he does, mockery of his opponents, and unprovoked attack on Monster Island really piss the big guy off. By the end of the novel (and the later films in the franchise), it's personal on Ghidorah's side as well, given the damage Godzilla has done to him.
  • See below for MonsterVerse examples.
• Halloween at Aunt Ethel's: Mark and Mandy are revealed to want to kill Aunt Ethel because she killed Mark's brother and Mandy's sister.
• The Hidden: Lloyd Gallagher has been hunting the evil alien parasite ever since it killed his partner on the planet Altair, so he's a lot more reckless than the human officer he's paired up with.
• Highlander: Oh boy, is it ever between Connor and the Kurgan. The Kurgan caused Connor's first death, and later killed Connor's friend and mentor Ramirez... and centuries later the Kurgan meets him again and lets slip that he also violated poor Heather on that terrible night in 1542 (mistakenly thinking she was Ramirez' girlfriend). Going by the epic Death Glare Connor gives the savage after that revelation, he wouldn't need a sword to remove his head.
• How To Blow Up A Pipeline:
  • Xochitl and Theo have more than just the cause of the environment/humanity being saved from being harmed by oil pollution as a motive to join the plan. It turns out Xochitl's mom died from poisoning by the oil refinery they lived nearby. Theo as well was poisoned from this and has cancer which is likely going to be fatal. It's unsurprising that Xochitl is the one who had proposed the plan to blow up the oil pipeline, with Theo eagerly joining before anyone else did.
  • Dwayne's family also lost land that had been in their family for generations to eminent domain to build an oil pipeline, ended up losing a lawsuit and saddled with thousands in legal fees and live in a trailer that lacks safe drinking water.
• The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 and even more so Part 2, with Part 2 being mostly about redemption according to the screen writers. Redemption here means revenge among other topics. Katniss first wants revenge on President Snow for the death of the people in her home district and later also for the brainwashing of her love Peeta. In the climax, Katniss also wants revenge for the death of her little sister.
• I Shot Jesse James: Frank James comes after Robert Ford, as Ford killed Frank's younger brother Jesse.
• James Bond:
  • Diamonds Are Forever opens with Bond on a probable personal vendetta-driven assassination run against Ernst Stavro Blofeld for the murder of Bond's wife at the end of On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
  • Licence to Kill exemplifies this trope. The slimy villain, Franz Sanchez, throws Felix Leiter (Bond's best pal) to the sharks while Leiter's newlywed wife was raped and killed on the night of their honeymoon. Bond is naturally pissed, and subsequently blows up windows, laboratories and trailer trucks to get to Sanchez.
  • In Goldeneye, part of the motive of the Big Bad Janus (a.k.a. Alec Trevelyan) to go on his Evil Plan is revenge against the British government for their betrayal of the Lienz Cossacks to the Soviets at the end of World War II; his own parents survived the betrayal, but his father was so wracked with guilt he committed a murder-suicide with his wife. By the end of the movie, it becomes evident that it's personal between Janus and Bond as well, with Janus as Trevelyan embittered about Bond's patriotic honor to England overruling the friendship they had while they worked together as fellow MI-6 agents and knowing he would oppose his plan regardless of the old friendship. Bond is equally personal about it, as seen in their final confrontation.
    Janus: For England, James?
    Bond: No. For me. (drops him hundreds of feet onto the hard concrete surface below)
  • Quantum of Solace has this at its heart. Cars crash, boats explode and planes fall as the two protagonists battle their way to get revenge.
  • Skyfall:
    • The Big Bad Silva doesn't want to destroy/take over the world. He just wants revenge on M for leaving him to be tortured to the point of insanity when Silva was an MI6 agent.
    • Amusingly, despite the trouble Silva causes it isn't until he shoots up Bond's iconic Aston Martin DB5 that Bond really gets pissed off.
    • Averted with Eve. While Bond enjoys snarking at her for accidentally shooting him, he is angrier at M for giving the order.
• The popularity of the phrase possibly originates from Jaws: The Revenge's tagline: "This time... It's personal." Given that the film came out in 1987, the concept is probably substantially older.
• John Wick John Wick states it word for after speaking with Winston about wanting to get in touch with Iosef Tarasov. Winston actually seems somewhat hesitant to grant him his wish at first, until John leaves him with the final words of "It's personal.", leaving Winston shocked at what the Tarasov Mob could've possibly done to anger John so.
• In King Arthur: Legend of the Sword even after finding out that Vortigern murdered his parents, tried to murder him, and that the throne is his birthright, Arthur still has no interest in being king, only wanting to return his life as a street-level gang lord. But then, as Arthur is being dragged off to be decapitated for being a threat to the kingdom, Vortigern kills Lucy, the prostitute that raised Arthur, the only mother Arthur's ever known Just. Because. He. Can. Then Arthur escapes his execution and the only thing on his mind is avenging Lucy's death.
• In Last Train from Gun Hill, Morgan insists on arresting Rick and bringing him to justice, because he took an oath as a U.S. Marshal. But everyone recognizes that his underlying motivation is the loss of his wife.
• The whole reason Tom Sawyer wants to join the League in the film version of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is because the Phantom killed his Secret Service partner, who was also his childhood friend. He never actually comes out and says this was Huckleberry Finn, but it's pretty well implied. Unfortunately, the scene in which Tom explains this to the League was cut from the film and only appears in the DVD extras. The novelization has him outright confirming that it was Huck Finn he was out to avenge.
• When his wife is accidentally killed by a crooked cop firing off his Thompson in Legends of the Fall, Tristan and his father-in-law seek out retribution together. While Tristan kills the mobsters that had forced the confrontation, the older man waits with a powerful rifle on a hilltop near the police officer's patrol route. The first bullet doesn't kill him, nor, in all likelihood, was it meant to.
• In every Lethal Weapon movie, the villains threaten Murtaugh's family, and in the second film we learn the villains have not only killed Riggs' current squeeze, but also killed his wife previous to the events of the first movie.
• This was introduced in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, where what finally causes Aragorn to accept his destiny is Elrond telling him that his lover Arwen will die if Sauron is victorious.
• A Man Called Sledge: After Sledge kills one of his deputies, it becomes personal for Sheriff Ripley, and he takes the opportunity to inflict a heavy beating on Sledge when he has Sledge in his custody.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • In Iron Man Tony decides to go back to Afghanistan and take on the Ten Rings after seeing they've attacked Yinsen's hometown.
  • Loki in The Avengers (2012); as Tony tells him, "YOU, big fella, you've managed to piss off every single one of them." He gives every single member of the Avengers a personal reason to take him down, and does so deliberately:
    • Thor, because Loki's his brother — "He's adopted" — and he feels responsible for his actions.
    • Hawkeye, because Loki uses mind control to make him attack the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D.
    • Black Widow, partly because of what Loki did to Hawkeye and partly because of the vicious speech that Loki treats her to while she's interrogating him.
      Natasha: I've been compromised... I've got red in my ledger. I'd like to wipe it out.
    • The Hulk, because Loki plans to target him as the weakest link in the Avengers and pit him against the others.
    • Iron Man and Captain America, because Loki kills Agent Coulson, hitting a little too close to home for both of them.
    • It's later revealed that Nick Fury lied about Coulson's trading cards being found on his body to give the Avengers even more motivation to stop Loki.
      Nick Fury: They needed the push.
  • The elevator fight in Captain America: The Winter Soldier features Cap's buddy Rumlow claiming that "It isn't personal" as he attacks. Steve beats the hell out of him and snarls "It kind of feels personal" at his unconscious form.
  • In Captain America: Civil War Rumlow returns and shows how "not personal" it all is when he tries to detonate a bomb that will also kill Captain America and the surrounding civilians.
    Rumlow: This is for dropping a building on my face.
  • Erik Killmonger has it out for the Wakandan Royal family in Black Panther (2018) because of how King T'Chaka killed his father Prince N'Jobu and left him to fend for himself in a crime ridden ghetto.
  • Half the characters of Avengers: Infinity War have personal reasons to want Thanos dead:
    • Both Nebula and Gamora want to kill him for the lifetime of abuse he put them through. Drax wishes to see him die for the part he played in Ronan the Accuser killing his family. Star-Lord gets a reason to hate him after he kidnaps and later kills Gamora.
    • It becomes this for Tony after realizing Thanos was the one behind Loki's attack on New York, which caused him to suffer from PTSD.
    • Thor wants him dead for slaughtering half of what was left of his people including Heimdall and Loki.
    • After Vision and Scarlet Witch are attacked, the rest of the Avengers swear to stop him, no matter what.
  • As the current page quote indicates, Avengers: Endgame has the alternate timeline Thanos state that his previous genocides were always business. However Earth has been such an annoyance to him that the terror he's about to unleash is something he's going to enjoy.
  • In Spider-Man: No Way Home, Spidey is determined to De-power all the villains from the Sam Raimi movies and the Marc Webb movies, not for any personal reasons but to save them from their predestined fate of dying. The only exception to this is the Green Goblin, whom Peter wants to personally kill after Osborn caused his Aunt May's death. The Goblin murders Aunt May to intentionally create this trope between him and Peter. If not for the intervention of the other two Spider-Men, MCU Peter would've gone through with the deed.
    Green Goblin: Peter, Peter, Peter… No good deed goes unpunished. You can thank me later.
• Maverick: After Angel learns that Maverick tricked him into backing down from a fight, he's enraged and is determined to get his revenge. He says "Maverick is mine, anyway. But this time it's personal."
• MonsterVerse:
  • Godzilla (2014): It's implied that the skeleton in the beginning is another of Godzilla's species, making it possible the reason why Godzilla is so hellbent on killing the MUTOs because they killed either his mate or family.
  • It's hinted in Kong: Skull Island and outright confirmed in the tie-in graphic novel The Birth of Kong, that Kong's hatred of the Skullcrawlers is rooted in them killing off the rest of his kin including his parents and leaving him the last ape standing. In Godzilla vs. Kong, Kong doesn't look for another fight with Godzilla after their first battle, but when Godzilla bores a hole into the Hollow Earth (damaging Kong's ancestors' temple in the process), that's when Kong gets pissed into fighting him.
  • Speaking of Kong: Skull Island; on the villainous side, Colonel Packard becomes motivated to kill Kong by any means necessary and with no regard for the bigger picture due to Kong killing several of Packard's men when they first encounter him, unintentionally presenting the war vet with a new enemy in his new combat environment.
  • Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019): Godzilla and Ghidorah treat their feud like this. Though for Godzilla, it becomes much more personal after Ghidorah kills Mothra who is Godzilla's loyal ally. Godzilla appears downright furious and when he becomes Burning Godzilla, he brutally annihilates Ghidorah.
  • In the official novelization of Godzilla vs. Kong, Ren Serizawa's motives are fleshed out, and it's revealed that he has personal motives for joining Apex Cybernetics' Evil Plan to kill and replace Godzilla. Ren blames Godzilla for a lifetime of Parental Neglect from his late father whilst the latter committed his energy and attention to his work for Monarch, and for Dr. Serizawa's Heroic Sacrifice to save Godzilla permanently depriving Ren of any chance of reconciling with his father.
• In Night After Night After Night, the hunt for the Serial Killer becomes this for Chief Inspector Rowan when the killer murders his wife Jenny.
• Polar: Mr. Blut sends a hit team led by his girlfriend Hilde to kill Duncan Vizla so he won't have to pay his multi-million-dollar retirement pension. When Vizla kills Hilde and it's pointed out that it would be smarter just to pay the pension, Blut refuses because the situation has turned personal. Vivian can't conceal her astonishment at this Moral Myopia.
  Vivian: Stealing his pension, trying to kill him, twice, and kidnapping his cute little neighbor... that is personal.
• Invoked by some of the posters for Rambo III:
  The First was for himself.
  Second for his country.
  This time...
  it's for his friend.
• This is one reason why The Ring Two was less successful than the first: Samara's wrath was horrifying in the original precisely because it was impersonal. Not only was she out to kill people who had never done anything to her, she was out to kill anyone who watched the video, regardless of whether they had done anything wrong ever. In the sequel she targets Rachel and Aiden specifically, and the feeling of "it could happen to you," so powerful in the first film, was accordingly defenestrated.
• In RoboCop (1987), the titular character initially arrests Clarence Boddicker, the man responsible for wounding him so grievously that he was made a candidate for OCP's clandestine cyborg program, but the next time he encounters Boddicker, after he tried to ambush and kill RoboCop and messily gunned down his former partner, RoboCop ominous walks towards Boddicker — who seemingly is surrendering — with his gun out. He tells Boddicker "I'm not arresting you, anymore"...
• In The Sadist, Charlie takes a special interest in tormenting his captives when he learns they’re teachers, as Judy had been mocked by teachers for her low intelligence. The kid gloves come off when Ed blinds Charlie, causing him to accidentally shoot Judy.
• Split Second (1992): Stone has a personal vendetta with the monster, as it previously killed his partner, sending Stone over the edge and turning him into his current cynical and anti-social self, and is constantly leaving him messages to fuck with him.
• Twice in Spotlight:
  • Reporter Mark Carroll (the father of two young children) discovers a "treatment center" for pedophilic priests is one block away from his house. He definitely gives off this vibe when the scandal is published and he personally goes to leave a first edition of the newspaper at the center's front door. Downplayed, however, in that he doesn't try to actually confront the priests, nor have his own children been victims.^note The scene where he puts a note on the refrigerator warning his children to stay away from the house and any of the men who live in it really happened.
  • Later, editor Walter "Robbie" Robinson discovers that one of the priests was the hockey coach at his high school, and he molested some of the players. It comes out in a very understated way during an interview with the school's principal, a fellow alum:
    Walter Robinson: I ran track, you played football. I guess we were just lucky.
• In the Stargirl book, Hillari Kimble had no reason to hate Stargirl beyond being the Alpha Bitch of the school. The Stargirl movie makes her the older sister of Danny, a boy mentioned in the book who was mentioned to have gotten into a bike accident. Her dislike of Stargirl comes from her being Innocently Insensitive and fixing up and giving back her brother's bike when he can't use it again.
• Star Trek:
  • Star Trek (2009): Both Kirk and Spock have lost a parent to the Big Bad Nero. It's also personal on Nero's side, as he blames Spock for the destruction of his home planet. In reality, it was destroyed by a natural disaster while Spock was the only person who was actively trying to save it.
  • Star Trek Into Darkness: Things start to become personal for Kirk and Spock when Pike dies. And when Kirk dies in a Heroic Sacrifice...let's just say the result for Khan was NOT pretty.
• Star Wars:
  • Attack of the Clones: After the events of the previous film, Nute Gunray wants revenge on Padme Amidala more than anything else. He tells Count Dooku he'll only join the Separatists in exchange for her head on his desk.
  • The Empire Strikes Back:
    Vader: Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.
    Luke: He told me enough. He told me you killed him.
    Vader: No. I am your father!
  • It continued getting personal for Luke in the Star Wars Legends universe when the new Sith Lord, his own student and nephew, killed his wife. Yeah, he had a bit of a problem with that.
• In Sunset, it becomes personal for Wyatt Earp after Christina is murdered.
• The lesson learned from the movie Taken is never, ever, ever kidnap a retired federal agent's daughter, as he will proceed to mercilessly carve a bloody swath through your organization to get her back.
  Saint Clair: Please understand... it was all business. It wasn't personal.
  Bryan: It was all personal to me. [shoots him with every round in his pistol]
• In Tombstone, another movie about Wyatt Earp, it becomes increasingly personal as the film goes on and the Cowboys keep killing people connected to him. This culminates in the death of Wyatt's brother, at which point he declares "I see a red sash, I kill the man wearin' it!"
• Unforgiven:
  William Munny: That's right. I've killed women and children. I've killed just about everything that walks or crawled at one time or another. And I'm here to kill you, Little Bill — for what you did to Ned.
• War for the Planet of the Apes: Unlike in the first two films, Caesar is fighting selfishly in this film because his wife, Cornelia, and his eldest son, Blue Eyes, were killed.
• The Wolfman (2010): Lawrence in relation to his own father, who is revealed to have killed his wife and oldest son and bit Lawrence, thus spreading the curse to him.
• Wolves: Wild Joe is the only person Cayden intentionally kills in cold blood. He kills a couple of bikers by accident and Connor's mooks because they intend to kill him, but it's Wild Joe's revelation that he killed Cayden's parents so he could manipulate Cayden into becoming his "trained dog" that pushes Cayden over the edge. The kicker? Joe actually seems to expect Cayden to consider them even after this. Read the room, Joe! Kill It with Fire ensues.
  Cayden: You ATE my fucking PARENTS!
• X-Men Film Series
  • X-Men Origins: Wolverine: The only thing in the world Victor cares about is his baby brother. When said brother walks out on him, he doesn't take it well.
    This is also how Stryker gets Jimmy involved in the Weapon X program.
    When Logan gets bashed through a wall by Gambit, he sees Victor. When Gambit appears right behind him, intent on continuing their fight, Logan doesn't even spare him so much as a glance before elbowing him in the face and fighting Victor.
  • Erik wants revenge on Shaw/Schmidt for killing his mother. One of the reasons it feels like Erik is the hero of X-Men: First Class.
• In You've Got Mail Kathleen Kelly is miffed about Joe Fox claiming putting her bookstore out of business was "nothing personal".
  Joe Fox: It wasn't... personal.
  Kathleen Kelly: What is that supposed to mean? I am so sick of that. All that means is that it wasn't personal to you. But it was personal to me. It's personal to a lot of people. And what's so wrong with being personal, anyway?
  Joe Fox: Uh, nothing.
  Kathleen Kelly: Whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal.

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