When suspended disbelief crashes down

Let's talk about handbrake moments.

Those are the points in a story where the suspension of disbelief, needed for so much genre fiction, finds the pull of gravity so strong that it comes crashing back to earth.

I experienced that recently, not with a book but a movie. 

This film started off so well. Almost a chamber piece, with the protagonist, a woman, locked in a small space on a bomber while all sorts of things were going on around her. It was set during war time so there were various threats - from the enemy, from the misogynistic crew members and, not the least, a vicious creature.

Yes, it was a horror thriller and for much of its running time a damn decent one. Characterisation, performances, dialogue, effects, pace all contributing to a hugely enjoyable watch. 

(I won't name the film although some of you may have already identified it. I apologise to anyone connected with the production  but I'm afraid this is the way I saw it. Also, if you haven't seen it and want to , stop reading now as there may be spoilers ahead.

(Anyway...)

I just about swallowed the protagonist crawling along the plane's undercarriage while it was a few thousand feet off the air, under attack both by fighter planes and the creature on the loose. I accepted with some reservations that a bag containing something important to the plot was dangling by a strap from a shard of metal and not blown off by the slipstream. I was still invested in it at that stage, the old disbelief still hanging up there with that bag.

But then they went - for me - too far.

(Seriously, spoiler coming - look away now!)

While clambering back into the plane, she lost her grip and began to plummet to the ground - just as an enemy fighter blew up underneath her. Caught by the air disruption she was blown back through the hole in the undercarriage and safely into the plane.

I expressed my incredulity with some vehemence. Mickey, the dog, looked up. Even Tom, the cat, opened one eye.

All the tension the film makers had skilfully created went up in that ball of flame and everything that happened afterwards mattered little. They had lost me and there was no getting me back. 

This is the handbrake moment. That moment when you just stop and say - whoa! I'm grateful to my friend, author Gordon Brown also known as Morgan Cry for the term, by the way.

I find this is becoming more common as I grow older - and there may be something in that phrase that carries a hint as to why I have become less forgiving.

All those action movies where the bad guys can't shoot for toffee (as we used to say in Glasgow) while the hero strides through with nary a scratch. Yes, I'm looking at you John Wick.

The brutal, bone-crunching fights, often involving a number of combatants, where people get up and have at it after receiving a blow that would have felled Goliath. Yes, I'm looking at just about any modern action movie here.

Add to that the way they come at the protagonist one at a time. Oh, it's disguised quite often but when you have opted out of the reality of the piece then you often see the stunt men hanging back.

And don't start me on CGI stunts.

But it can be a lack of attention to detail that will ruin things for me. The book where they get something very basic very wrong, either procedurally (at least two TV series here in the UK have shown a complete lack of understanding regarding Scots law) or, in the case of one novel I read recently, the mention of an actor who didn't make his film debut until five years after the year it is set. Yes, I'm being pedantic but for goodness sake it's a very easy check!

OK, we all make mistakes. We can all get something wrong - I know I have. In one of my books I made an error regarding a Glasgow street. Yes, the city of my birth! In another I made a huge blunder regarding a gun. I was criticised for both and if those stupid mistakes led to the readers hurling the book across the room I understand.

As for long form TV! I've mentioned before that they can be too long form, with eight or ten episode runs carrying a four or six episode plot. There was an incredibly popular series recently that I was thoroughly enjoying, even if it was somewhat padded, until I discovered the plot hinged on a number of points that I just did not buy.

The fact is, if we had done that in a book we would be lambasted, I'm certain of it. 

I know I was!

Once again I'm not sure what my point here is. Perhaps I'm in a bad mood (crabbit, we say here). However, I'd be interest to hear from any what their pet peeves are in this field. What will turn you off from a book, movie or TV show?