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7 Movies Based on a True Story (That Are Complete Bullshit)

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#3.
Victory (AKA Escape to Victory)

The Hollywood Version:
During World War II, a group of Allied prisoners that included the unlikely trio of Pele, Michael Caine and Sly Stallone (who was between Rocky II and First Blood) spent their time in a Nazi prison camp playing soccer. The Nazis, being the clever bastards they were, came up with a can't-miss propaganda extravaganza in which a team of their best and brightest would take on this Allied side, clearly having never heard of Pele.

The Allied team accepts, hoping to use this match as a means of escape. However, once they get their perfect opportunity to escape during halftime, they choose instead to return to the pitch and try to beat the Nazis thus winning respect, rather than their freedom. It should be noted that they were relying on Stallone as their keeper. After a miraculous save by--you guessed it--Stallone, there was much rejoicing, and the Allies escape during the ensuing chaos.

In reality ...
Well, for one thing, there was no Allied team. That means no random Brazilian like Pele, that means no cheeky Brit like Caine, and that certainly means no out of place palooka like Stallone manning the net. Instead, this story is inspired by a group of Ukrainians who were forced into playing the Germans while their country was occupied during WWII.

The Nazis lost to the upstart club miserably and repeatedly, with the Ukrainians destroying them in the final match by a decisive and wholly embarrassing 8-0 score. So that's pretty inspiring, right?

Well, shortly thereafter, the Gestapo found various reasons to arrest and then torture several members of the Ukrainian team. After all, the Gestapo were assholes like that. One player died during the torture process, while the rest were shipped off to a work camp. And, well, executed.

God, that's depressing. And that's precisely why Hollywood chose to Stallone the shit out of it.

#2.
Good Morning, Vietnam

The Hollywood Version:
Vietnam, it would seem, was not a good time. What with all the crazy flashbacks, Forrest Gump getting shot in the ass while Willem Dafoe strikes a Jesus pose, and the ridiculous amount of protests that it inspired. How could a regular man or woman make it through without blowing their fucking brains out?

Adrian Cronauer, that's how. A radio disc jockey from Detroit, Cronauer basically told authority to stick a pickle up its ass while ranting and raving with the funniest damn shit you've ever heard, accompanied by a fantastic '60s rock and roll soundtrack, while also teaching impressionable Vietnamese citizens to curse angrily and play baseball along the way.

Cronauer, as portrayed in the movie, is a staunch anti-war liberal. Half of his rantings have to do with how ridiculous the establishment is, or why Army fashion is really awful. He told the Army to stick it repeatedly and with great emphasis, and for his troubles he was sent off to (hopefully) be killed by a commanding officer and then had his ass booted out of the Army.

In reality ...
Well, Army fashion sense notwithstanding, everything else we've mentioned is pretty much fabricated. We hate to break it to you, but it turns out that, shockingly, Adrian Cronauer's story was completely re-tooled in order to fit the manic (and pre-family friendly) comedy stylings of Robin Williams.

In reality, while Cronauer did indeed play some sweet tunes, he rarely resorted to flat out comedy bits, and in fact stated that pretty much everything Williams did in the film would have gotten his ass court-martialed. He was never booted from the military, either. No, he had a far more controversial exit: he went home when his tour was over.

As far as being a staunch anti-war liberal, all we can tell you is this: Cronauer, now a lawyer, is “lifelong card-carrying Republican” and was a vice-chairman for the 2004 Bush/Cheney re-election campaign.

#1.
The Hurricane

The Hollywood Version:
The Hurricane is the story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a boxer boasting great talent, a really sweet nickname, and a badass Bob Dylan song he inspired. The movie tells us the story of how Hurricane was a promising middleweight who was falsely accused and convicted of a triple homicide, derailing his boxing career but making him prime to be the subject of a great protest song.

Luckily, after 20 years in prison as an innocent man convicted by a bitterly racist system, three young white people from a magical land called "Canada" took up his cause and, after discovering a key piece of evidence, proved Hurricane's innocence and set him free.

In reality ...
First, there is a scene in the film where Carter beats the shit out of an inferior white boxer (Joey Giardello) only to lose when blatantly racist judges award the fight to the white man. In real life, Carter lost the fight so badly that the real Giardello sued the filmmakers over the scene and got a nice settlement out of it.

But far more disturbing is the whole murder thing. We're not saying Carter committed the crime, we'll just casually point out that by the age of 14, the Hurricane had already been arrested for assault and armed robbery. By 22, he had been imprisoned twice for "brutal street muggings." He was booted from the military after being court-martialed a whopping four times, being described as "unfit to serve." But, hey, nobody expects boxers to be model citizens. It doesn't mean he killed anyone, right?

Well, when it came to the murders, there was enough evidence to convict him twice (both times set aside due to procedural errors by the prosecution). Carter failed a lie detector test--miserably--and then was given a chance to re-take it after he'd been imprisoned for awhile. He refused. At his second trial, several witnesses who had provided Carter's alibi admitted they had been asked to lie for him.

But what about that evidence that proved his innocence? Well, there was in fact none. The judge was forced to throw out the conviction because the prosecution had failed to turn over some evidence and thus didn't give Carter a fair trial. The prosecution could have chosen to re-try the case from scratch to convict Carter a third time, but they decided it wasn't worth doing since 22 years had passed and all of the people involved were either dead or ridiculously old.

Of course the law is the law and the law said Carter could go free. But it's probably not quite accurate to use Carter's story as proof that the criminal justice system is run by the Klan. The whole thing has really made us question Bob Dylan's research skills.



For an article in which we call bullshit on more of your favorite flicks, check out 11 Movies Saved by Historical Inaccuracy or our look at 5 Things Hollywood Thinks Computers Can Do.




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142 Comments

I agree with Carsonnik. *nods*

Posted on 8/23/2008 6:18:16 PM

Texas Chainsaw Massacre should've been up there. Considering that seemingly every person who's seen it tries to pretend that they know all about the life of the real serial killer. This only shows are moronic they are, since they never even heard of the name Ed Gein.

Posted on 8/22/2008 4:45:40 PM

neither Cheech NOR Chong made a van out of yesca.

Posted on 8/21/2008 8:22:53 PM

skrag2112 has it right. stroud was an asshole and this movie should have been included on the list. he wasnt anywhere near as noble as lancaster portrayed him. he could easily make your list of douchebags. another movie that should be listed is oliver stone's jfk. he starts the fact right but soon puts his own spin on the events and finally makes things up. the only thing he doesnt have is lee harvey oswald being transported to the book depository by the klingons.

Posted on 8/14/2008 11:18:26 AM

Manny: With a name like '300' that purports to tell the true story of the Battle of Thermypylae, a much closer reflection of the established historical account would be in order. For that matter, portraying the Athenians as bisexual weaklings, the Persians as depraved and the Spartans as uber macho will do nothing to further that end.

In fact, the SPARTANS were best known for taking a male child fron his mother by age 9, and 'initiated' by an older man around age 12. Needless to say, there was some lance waxing going on. In fact, the ONLY time Spartan men were allowed home on leave was to make little Spartans to further their military efforts.

Yes '300' is only a movie. It's a few hours of good, solid, manly chest thumping entertainment.

But...if you're going film a movie based on an established event, you better make sure you at least get the gist of the story right.

Posted on 8/14/2008 2:38:22 AM

Manny_Calavera...An Imperial Star Destroyer would have blown the living shit out of the Enterprise. The Star Destroyer was 900 meters long and 564 meters wide, while the Enterprise comes in at a scant 288.6 meters long and 127.1 meters wide. That my friend would be quite the space based anal rape. This is all historically accurate of course, thanks google!

Posted on 8/13/2008 10:33:00 AM

I didn't bother to read all of the 135 comments, so I don't know if this has already been mentioned, but 300 should have been on the list. Granted the basic storyline was true, but it was stretched so far out of proportion that the movie is total bullshit.

@)-----

Posted on 8/12/2008 6:25:28 PM

Come on guys Fargo should have been #1 for sure. The Cohen bros. made a film pparently based on a true story, but as it turned out was ENTIRELY fictional. Not a single character was based on someone from real life. That was a shoe in for #1. Oh and Wiffleball, don't knock Braveheart it's a good film.

Posted on 8/11/2008 6:08:45 AM

How does Braveheart not make this list? I've been to Robert the Bruce's castle and everything in the movie is basically inaccurate. Not only did they not wear blue warpaint, they did not wear kilts, and the Battle of Stirling was only won because the English had to cross a tiny bridge--thus making their massive force succeptible to Scottish archers and footsoldiers. There are about 40 other mistakes in the film...but hey, that's Hollywood, right?

Posted on 8/5/2008 6:55:47 PM

what about invincible? you can't return a muffed punt for a touchdown! it's actually impossible.

Posted on 8/5/2008 12:14:13 PM

Next up for Hollywood, the story of 6 people in Bejing during the Communist revolution. Starring the cast of Friends. There may be Asians as extras...maybe.

Posted on 7/29/2008 10:37:29 AM

What, are you kidding? Don't you know that Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine and Pele beat the shit out of the Nazi's in real life? It's in all the history books.

Posted on 7/28/2008 12:40:04 PM

A Beautiful Mind is almost total bullshit. The movie over looks John Nash's bisexuality, his divorce from his wife, and his attempts to disavow his citizenship. It compensates by having Nash see people that weren't there(he never did), thinking his way out of his mental illness (it took real heavy duty drugs to do that), and a gee-whiz acceptance speech (which he never made). Somehow having an Australian play the bullshit part of a West Virginian just seems to cap it all off.

Posted on 7/23/2008 4:35:15 PM

I did my student teaching at Eastside and I can tell you for fact that the school is nothing and was never like it was in the movie Lean on Me. And the test scores still suck even though they were taken over by the state!

Posted on 7/21/2008 10:46:04 AM

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Posted on 7/19/2008 11:13:23 AM

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Posted on 7/18/2008 8:24:41 AM

I wrote a movie based on my life (6 months of it) and I guess I should apologize to all those there not written into the script. Though I was more determined to apologize to actors whose fine performances we had to cut...

The Waterdance by the way.

Posted on 7/18/2008 1:04:47 AM

I love how so-called history buffs say "Well, the Battle of Thermopylae was actually THIS!" You guys realize that not only was the notion of professional, accurate, impartial historians completely unknown, and would remain so for a couple thousand years, but that no one who actually witnessed the fucking battle wrote an account that we can look at today? Arguing about what did or didn't happen is like dorks arguing about who would between an Imperial Star Destroyer and The Enterprise. Don't be Those Guys, just let it go, "300" is a fantasy piece.

Posted on 7/17/2008 1:55:02 PM

I just discovered that "Anal Violations 6: Analocalypse" took severe liabilities with the truth. The real Jet Suxx could only ever take one up the jacksie. What a gyp.

Posted on 7/16/2008 4:57:37 AM

So interesting , check out this Black Sugarmommydate do t co m

Posted on 7/15/2008 6:35:45 PM

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