World Of Jerkass / Live-Action Films

The meanest places in live-action cinema.

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#-P

• 30 Minutes or Less: Almost everyone is a complete Jerkass willing to break the law. The only one with a clear conscience is Kate.
• Absolution: Of the three main characters (Father Goddard and two of his students at a Catholic boarding school), two are gratuitously cruel individuals who seem to take pleasure in tormenting one another, and the third is a murderous psychopath. Most of the lesser characters are almost equally unsympathetic, including a drifter who squats on school grounds and steals from the school or the two cops that beat him to a bloody pulp.
• Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy is set in The '70s, where men are perverted, misogynistic creeps who sexually harass and exploit women for their own ends. The only exception is Brick Tamland.
• Cannibal Holocaust: Both sides, the explorers and the native cannibals, are completely unsympathetic, and the audience is supposed to enjoy watching them slaughter each other. Only a couple of characters are remotely nice people, and they die too.
• A Cinderella Story: Nearly everyone treats poor Sam Montgomery like dirt, including her stepmother and stepsisters, her classmates (aside from Carter and Terry), and even her Love Interest, who scornfully rejects her because she is an indentured waitress. One of the few exceptions to this trope is Rhonda, who even lets Sam move in with her at the end of the film.
• Deadpool (2016) is more of a parody of a superhero movie than an actual one where both the "heroes" and villains are Psychopathic Manchildren who clearly love using their superpowers and expertise for violence, vengeance, or profit. Common townsfolk are shown to have Jerkass moments too. The two exceptions are Colossus, Wade's mentor, and Vanessa, Wade's girlfriend.
• The Dictator is set in New York City, where a cruel, reckless dictator of an impoverished African country gets deported there by his own uncle, who's in league with major oil companies wishing to drill populated areas for oil reserves. Everyone in NYC, from ordinary civilians to the police, is a racist xenophobe, including the Granola Girl the dictator falls in love with, who herself is ultra-oppressive and tries to "correct" everyone around her for the sake of equality and justice.
• Due Date centers on Peter Highman, who gets the short end of the stick from everyone except his wife and best friend. Ethan causes nothing but trouble for him and steals his wallet to force him to become his company; everyone else beats him up, screws him over, irritates him, and is apathetic to his problems.
• Falling Down: With the exception of Prendergast and Sandra, none of the characters in the film are likable. D-fens is an emotionally unstable ticking time bomb that finally goes off, Prendergast's boss and colleagues are condescending jerks, and the people D-fens encounters range from run of the mill obnoxious panhandlers and rude store clerks to violent gang members and a Neo-Nazi.
• Fist Fight: From the roudy teenagers to the equally dysfunctional faculty, this trope is in full effect. Even outside the school, the other characters (except Campbell's wife and daughter) aren't much better. Even Campbell himself is proven to be a Dirty Coward, with no qualms against framing others for drug possession and staging a prison fight.
• Freddy Got Fingered: Gord is a Psychopathic Manchild with an abusive father; the other characters are selfish maniacs with an unhealthy addiction to sex and violence.
• God Bless America: Every character in this movie, including the main characters, are unlikeable assholes who are extremely selfish and unrepentant about their actions.
• Multiple Godzilla movies utilize this trope. As much as Godzilla is a violent giant dinosaur who trashes human cities, his human adversaries can be just as ruthless as he is determined to get rid of him. And then there are kaiju who cause even more destruction and are more hostile than Godzilla himself, forcing the humans to let Godzilla fight them.
• Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) consists of Anti Heroes, criminals, and an extremely repugnant Big Bad. Even Groot, the Token Good Teammate, isn't without his moments of being trigger happy.
• The Hangover: With the exception of Stu, Doug, Jade, and Lauren, pretty much everyone is either an apathetic jerk, a criminal, or downright insane.
• The Happytime Murders: Being a Subverted Kids' Show, most of the characters are foul-mouthed Jerkasses who engage in inappropriate behavior.
• The Hateful Eight, as indicated by the title, centers around a group of unpleasant and reprehensible people showcasing their bitterness, racism, and proclivity for violence, most of whom are criminals or secretly in cahoots with the bad guys.
• Home Alone is set in Chicago, Illinois, where our hero Kevin McAllister is surrounded by Jerkasses. His mother banishes him to the attic without dinner for a mess that was actually the fault of his Big Brother Bully, with the entire family supporting Kevin's punishment, triggering the plot of him getting left home alone to fend for himself against two burglars. He's also trying to stay clear of his neighbor, Old Man Marley, who gets a bad rep for allegedly killing his daughter but is revealed to be a false rumor; Marley becomes the Big Good Big Damn Heroes at the end, making him the sole exception to this trope.
• Hot Tub Time Machine: Just about everyone is either dysfunctional, obnoxious, hedonistic, violent, or a combination of all four.
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas!: The Grinch may be a Villain Protagonist, but the Whos prove themselves no better, commercializing Christmas and tormenting the Grinch both as a kid and as an adult. With the exception of Augustus, the Whos do see the error of their ways in the end.
• Hubie Halloween: The entire town of Salem. Almost everyone, even the nicest among them, takes great pleasure in making Hubie's life a living hell simply because they can. Thankfully, they do treat him nicer by the end of the movie, even electing him mayor.
• Idiocracy: With the exception of President Camacho, every single character of the eponymous future notably appears to be totally incapable of feeling empathy, behaving like obnoxious, aggressive wretches every waking moment (on top of being nightmarishly mentally deficient). There is nary a Kindhearted Simpleton in sight.
• John Wick: The titular character is The Dreaded Hitman with a Heart, while the rest of the cast is made up of merciless criminals (some of whom are Affably Evil, however) who are prepared to hunt down and kill one another for money, pleasure, or vengeance.
• Joker (2019) is set in early '80s Gotham-reminiscent of The Big Rotten Apple, where the middle-class lives in streets that are gritty, dirty, and filled with "super rats", and the rich live in clean, comfortable, walled off houses. Arthur Fleck, the man who will eventually become Gotham's worst nightmare, is shown getting abused by his co-workers, Wall Street yuppies, and even teenagers, and everyone around him is very apathetic to his problems. It also helps that the six people he kills in the movie deserve it. When invited to Murray Franklin's show, Fleck rants on about this trope saying that everyone he knows is only out for themselves with Murray firing back "Not everybody, and I'll tell you this, not everyone is awful." but Fleck doesn't buy it adding Murray mocked his misery on TV for profit before offing him.
• The Last Boy Scout is filled with a lot of unpleasant people, with McCaskey being the sole exception:
  • Joe is an unhinged, misogynistic, cynical, foul-mouthed drunk.
  • Joe's wife, Sarah, cheats on him with Mike Matthews and says that "she was lonely" as an excuse for her cheating.
  • Mike, Joe's "best friend", considering he slept with his wife, Sarah and probably set Joe up to get killed, he does die in a car explosion when he was about to leave.
  • Darian, Joe's daughter is a callous, unpleasant teenage brat who has a filthy mouth and is ungrateful and rude to her father.
  • Milo is a slimy, sociopathic hired killer with zero scruples who frequently and smugly mocks whatever poor bastard he has in his sights the second he gets the opportunity while putting on a smarmy and obviously fake "nice guy" act.
  • Chet is a sadistic bully who gets off hitting Joe, thinking that he can't fight back. Turns out he was dead wrong.
  • Downplayed with Jimmy. He cheats on his girlfriend and is a strung-out, drug-addicted mess, but he tries to do the right thing most of the time and is a Friend to All Children.
• The Leech Woman depicts a world full of abusive, philandering men, alcoholic and selfish women, racist Great White Hunters, and scheming, murderous Africans. And that's before the murders start.
• Little Miss Sunshine: With the exception of Olive, Miss California, and Kirby, pretty much everyone is either dysfunctional, unpleasant, apathetic, perverted, or all the above simultaneously.
• Little Shop of Horrors takes place in a shoddy downtown where employment scarcely pays or there just isn't a job at all and almost everyone is a selfish Jerkass while the main villain is a talking alien plant that wants to devour humans. It's not a real challenge for the plant, since it manipulates the protagonist (and later other people) into feeding it and its offspring other humans with promises of fame, fortune, and romance. The sole exception is Audrey (who trusts people too much).
• Meet the Feebles is a ridiculously cynical take on The Muppets with nearly every character being a drug-addicted, sex-deprived asshole. Throughout the movie, everyone goes through a variety of problems, often caused by their own selfishness, and performs horrific, inhumane acts.
• North Country: Most of the men (excluding Kyle and Bill) are cruelly misogynistic to the women that work in the mines, especially towards Josey.
• Paul Blart: Mall Cop: With some exceptions (such as Amy, Margaret, Maya, Leon, Vijay, and Chief Brooks), pretty much everyone has no respect for Paul and gives him the cold shoulder, especially Commander Kent and pen salesman Stuart.
• Peter Rabbit: With the exception of Benjamin, the major cast members brutally abuse Thomas McGregor so they can pillage his vegetable garden. They do, however, eventually realize the harm they did.
• Pineapple Express: The main characters are dysfunctional stoners who cause mayhem around town and make bad choices that only make matters worse. The rest of the ensemble is made up of homicidal criminals who are eager to turn on one another. Angie Anderson and Grandma "Bubbie" Silver are the only rational characters in the film.
• Pink Flamingos, as befits a story where the characters are competing over the title of "filthiest person alive".
• Problem Child: The number of genuinely nice people you'll find in this setting can pretty much be counted on one hand. Kids Are Cruel (not just Junior, but many others as well, whom Junior often gets brutal revenge on), adults are passive-aggressive at best and sourpuss Jerkasses at worst, and often times the only one who seems to have a heart is Ben Healy.
• Project X (2012): The main characters are hedonistic, perverted, drug-addled individuals who destroy a great deal of property and wreak havoc in their quest to have a good time. The other characters aren't much better, being punching bags at best and downright violent at worst.

Q-Z

• This is practically a trademark of Slasher Movies, and "body count" horror films in general, the logic being that if the person dying on screen is an asshole, you'll feel a lot less guilty about enjoying it. There's a reason why the Developing Doomed Characters trope was originally called "Twenty Minutes with Jerks", and why the most likable characters in these films typically make it to the end.
  • Several Rob Zombie films are this way, with 31 and Halloween (2007) standing out, as even the protagonists are quite hostile most of the time. Notably, in his Halloween reboot duology, Michael Myers' parents become a pair of abusive Lower Class Louts who wind up being the reason he becomes a psycho, Laurie Strode (who, in the original film, was the Trope Codifier for the Final Girl) is introduced miming sex with a bagel in front of her outraged mother, Dr. Loomis becomes an Attention Whore exploiting the Michael Myers case for fame and fortune, the profanity is upped to Cluster F-Bomb levels, and a deleted scene has Lynda bullying two of her classmates. The Cinema Snob went so far as to ask "is everyone in this universe a potential killer?"
  • In the Child's Play films, with the exception of The Hero and an ally firmly on his or her side, almost every supporting character is a Jerkass or characters who eventually Took a Level in Jerkass and would all end up as Asshole Victims of Chucky.
  • Black Christmas (2019): The men are jerks and/or killers, the women are superficial and insufferable, and everyone is bigoted in one way or another. Riley and Landon are the only exceptions.
• The Social Network: The few genuinely decent characters (namely Eduardo and Erica) suffer because most of the ensemble, especially Mark Zuckerberg, are totally abhorrent.
• The Squid and the Whale is about a family of four, all of whom are selfish jerks in their own way. The father is a neglectful and self-absorbed snob, while his estranged wife cheated on him for seemingly shallow reasons and neglects her kids. The older son is a sexist, entitled Know-Nothing Know-It-All, while the younger son is full of Troubling Unchildlike Behavior and seems to harbor disturbing feelings for his mother. The rest of the cast are fairly minor and are either oblivious or serving to highlight the flaws of the main cast.
• Straight Outta Compton is based on the early years of Ice Cube and his crew, who are all foul-mouthed, hot-headed, misogynistic delinquents with no respect for authority. They are also countered by Corrupt Corporate Executives as well as Rabid Cops who specialize in Police Brutality and Profiling.
• Submarine: A romance between two equally jerkish teens. Jordana is a cruel bully, while Oliver is selfish and pretentious. Oliver's emotionally closed-off mother is cheating on his pathetic father with a philandering snake oil salesman, and Oliver's school is full of bullies that are worse than him. The only truly sympathetic characters are minor ones like Zoe Preece or Jordana's parents.
• Superbad is a Coming of Age Story where our "heroes" are sex-obsessed perverts who will do everything to get bedded and frequently surround themselves with obnoxious, insane, amoral, or disinterested individuals.
• Synecdoche, New York is slightly downplayed but sticks out in regard to this trope. Many characters seem to have it in for protagonist Caden Cotard, who was just trying to create the most impressive play possible before dying from an illness slowly killing him. Unfortunately, he makes a few regrettable mistakes himself. The only character who is an exception is Hazel, who actually cares about Caden, but one of his mistakes is not marrying her despite their true feelings.
• Thirteen (2003) is about two girls who engage in selling and doing drugs, partying hard, having sex with their customers, and shoplifting. The protagonist is very hostile to her mother and brother and cuts herself on the arm to cope with depression. The mother and her Manchild boyfriend aren't much better and only make heated arguments worse.
• This Is the End: The Apocalypse creates a literal example of this — all the good-hearted people are carried into Heaven by blue beams, while those who stay on Earth carry on with their self-centered, foolish behavior.
• The Three Stooges: The titular trio of Lower-Class Louts verbally and physically abuse each other (half the time by accident, however) and are stuck in a Crapsack World^note a large chunk of their movies came out during the Great Depression of 1929-1939 and World War II where employment is scarce; the people they meet are mostly selfish pricks.
• The Transformers films increasingly slide into this as time goes on. By the time of Dark of the Moon, Sam is a whiny, entitled jerk who has learned approximately nothing from his experiences. The other humans (especially the government) are ungrateful, useless, or incompetent. A good chunk of the Autobots are mostly Sociopathic Heroes of various stripes. The only voice of morality is Optimus Prime, who is also borderline Ax-Crazy.
• Tropic Thunder has a Dysfunction Junction of self-obsessed, borderline insane Hollywood celebrities and a corrupt producer who are faced with a hostile drug gang that is headed by a child. Kevin Sandusky, a newbie to the industry, and Rick Peck, a film agent, are two of the few rational individuals.
• Uncut Gems has a foul-mouthed cast made up of a Manipulative Bastard of a protagonist, hot-headed criminals, and dishonest low-lives.
• Unfriended has absolutely zero decent human beings in the cast. They are liars, cheaters, and bullies; some are quite possibly sociopaths. All on-screen characters are still in high school, except the dead one (who was just as horrible in life as any of the others).
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit is set in The '40s, where humans are bigoted and manipulative towards toons, with the toons themselves being quite obnoxious in their own right. Roger Rabbit himself, despite his wackiness and hijinks, is one of the few genuinely decent characters in the film.
• The Wolf of Wall Street is populated by foul-mouthed criminals who have no qualms about swindling innocent people out of their money, treating women like objects, abusing drugs, menacing those who get in their way, and being disloyal to one another.
• Zombieland: The main characters are jerkasses who are dishonest and bordering on insane, destroying property and turning on one another for personal gain. Columbus is primarily an exception to this, although he does occasionally display Not So Above It All behavior.

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