It is equal parts elating and demoralizing when you’re slogging through a movie, and the characters stoneface some egregiously flippant dialogue. Your face buried deep in your palm, you hold back inappropriate laughter.
Indeed, there are some real artistic landmines in the world of film dialogue, but r/movies is packed to the brim with the best scouts around. They were all too happy to share some of the absolute marvels of bad writing.
One user pointed to the crime thriller, A Good Man, where Steven Seagal stars as a disgraced covert operative turned vigilante. He managed to keep a straight face while quipping the following nonsense. The best part? This movie was targeted by a piracy lawsuit. Whoever would go that far to lay claim to writing like this is among humanity’s most questionable.
A few other responders drummed up ridicule for M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening. The dialogue was about as good as both the film’s title and Shyamalan’s track record would imply.
Others pointed to 2012 as a great example of when to not leave all of your details to dialogue.
Of course, nary a conversation about bad movies can happen nowadays without bringing up Sony’s wet fart of a certain vampire superhero movie.
Let this serve as a message of hope for up-and-coming screenwriters who have trouble building confidence in their work. If some of this writing can make it to the big screen, there’s very little to worry about.