Is it just me or are these kids stupid? - Cop Car (2015) Discussion

[–] Iloveet-1 9 years ago

Yup. Some of the scenes were ridiculous- putting the vest on and then wanting to test it, aiming the gun barrel in their faces wondering how it worked, etc...
Some of their antics were typical boy behavior but then other actions I was like WTF.

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[–] at7000 9 years ago

Darwin Award Kids. I liked that when they were curious why a gun did not fire, they aimed the barrel right in their faces, and tried pulling the trigger that way.

Surreal.

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[–] junktom 9 years ago

Well, that's pretty much the second thing kids do when they get their hands on a gun, after Frist pointing at people.

Classics are names that everyone heard, yet most have never seen!!

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[–] nashknight-1 9 years ago

They're not stupid, they're just children.

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[–] Iloveet-1 9 years ago

No. It's stupid...even for children. We all acted like those kids gooffing off in the summers, crazy adventures. But never dumb enough to aim a barrel in my or my friends face or attempt to test the vests, while my best friend is wearing it.

They were exhibiting sign of mild retardation at that point.

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[–] mcmingus 9 years ago

Compared to these adults, those kids look like regular Einsteins...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5cQS0uzmg0

*Danny's not here, Mrs. Torrance*

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[–] bab7410 9 years ago

I don't know about that, at least those adults made it to adult age without off-the fly testing of weapons, adults die of accidental behavior all the time, balance/coordination issues, etc etc. Sometimes they can do this or that when drunk or because they're stupid.

But again, doesn't mean that every child would hold weapon on someone wearing a vest. Kids in the movie knew they weren't toys either. Like Bacon said, "you don't STEAL a COP CAR! lol Same kids would probably grow into the adults in that vid if anything I would say.

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[–] adamjwaite 9 years ago

Yes they're stupid, all children are, but not as dumb as you for not being able to figure that out. I guarantee you did things that were far more imbecile then the actions portrayed in the movie. We all did, even if we don't recall them. The writers did an excellent job of portraying exactly how children's curiosity can get the best of them in relation to firearms. We may find it shocking, but the lesson here is to teach our children about firearms, and how to handle them properly. And guess what, even if we do, they may still act as portrayed, because that's what children do, but you'll significantly lower the probability. Consider this, both children came from broken families, and odds are they've never held a gun before, much less been taught how to handle and respect them.

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[–] bluenotejazz 9 years ago

Yes they're stupid, all children are, but not as dumb as you for not being able to figure that out. I guarantee you did things that were far more imbecile then the actions portrayed in the movie. We all did, even if we don't recall them.

Just because at 11 years old you were one synapse fire away from being barely sentient enough to tell the difference between your ass and your elbow, don't assume we all were.

There was no way in hell that what some these dopey kids did was even remotely realistic. Especially in this day and age of 3 year olds deftly mastering ipads. Staring down the barrel of a gun while pulling the trigger? Get real. Do you have any idea how many thousands of hours of shows on Tv and the internet kids have watched by that age?

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[–] CptHowdy87 9 years ago

Do you have any idea how many thousands of hours of shows on Tv and the internet kids have watched by that age?

Did these kids strike you as coming from an affluent background? They lived in the middle of bumfvck nowheresville in some southern shthole and they were running away from home probably because their drunken ranch-hand father beat them one too many times while their timid uneducated housewife mother never intervened on their behalf. I don't think they sat around reading reddit or whatever on their ipads. Their knowledge and experience of the outside world was probably limited to interacting with other poor kids at whatever lousy school in the middle of nowhere they may not have even gone to. I'm just hypothesizing here but they're obviously not typical modern day suburban kids with access to a wealth of information and knowledge of social norms. A little guess work and filling in the blanks isn't too hard in this instance.

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[–] Howlin Wolf 9 years ago

That still doesn't excuse them being so stupid, though. Even at that age and from whatever background, you know that guns can fire and hurt people - that's partly what makes them so alluring... So, given that you know they can fire and hurt people, there's no way you would point one at your OWN face and fire, unless you were stupid...

Not that I have a problem with them being stupid - because there's plenty of stories of even adults being that reckless and worse... but let's not pretend that they shouldn't have known any better... Of course they should!



"Your mother puts license plates in your underwear? How do you sit?!"

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[–] careycoudini 8 years ago

And yet kids shoot each other every day in America.

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[–] Howlin Wolf 8 years ago

A lot of kids are stupid, so that is logically consistent.



"Your mother puts license plates in your underwear? How do you sit?!"

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[–] charismaseasons 8 years ago

They lived in the middle of bumfvck nowheresville in some southern shthole

the movie takes place in Colorado. Not very southern

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[–] SalvadorDaLee 9 years ago

You should watch ABC's experiment on it. At least I think it was ABC. One kid (not retarded) even pulled the trigger aimed at his own face to check it there were bullets. The action is retarded, but yeah kids are really that dumb in real life.

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[–] Ite 9 years ago

No they are just kids.

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[–] Misko195 9 years ago

You were smarter? C'mon, these kids was smart enough to drive the car, shot with a gun and make some good decisions. I would guess you would be scared as **** if you find yourself in situation like them, at 10. As first, those are kids. What did you expect they to do? Second, their acting at 10, was brilliant!

“Never make fun of someone who speaks broken English. It means they know another language.”

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[–] emptyspaces153 8 years ago

Well we know nothing about them. I also found those scenes to be insane. I mean, think about it in the sense that maybe they weren't taught ANY type of gun safety. Who knows. They are running away and all the other details unknown. They didnt seem to be afraid of most things that kids are generally afraid of. Even having guns pointed at them only seemed to scare them a little bit. Yes, the scene with them trying the vest was very much "WTF" but in that way it kinda reminds me of something Gus Van Sant might have made. This movie is definitely meant to be mysterious or at least very vague.

I thought in general it was cool

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[–] nhomonko 9 years ago

Hahahahahahaa...no.

These kids are Fing STUPID. There are 10 year olds out there that understand that a gun is something that can KILL you. Sure, kids play with toy guns all the time, but a 10 year old knows the difference between playing with a fake gun and a real gun.

I just got done watching the movie and holy hell did those kids aggravate me. I just wanted it to be over by the end because of all the momentous stupid decisions those kid's made.

Although I guess it's to be expected from a pair of kids that actually run away from home that young.

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[–] slr-42753 9 years ago

You mean just like all these kids. They all totally know the difference

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=kid%20accidentally%20kills%20friend

Why don't you scroll through six or seven pages and tell me they know

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[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] washclothrepairman 9 years ago

No, they're stupid. Even for children they're stupid.

Not all children are special or wonderful or precious. Some people are dumb. They don't become dumb, they're born that way, so obviously there are dumb children. Harrison and Travis are dumb children.

Intelligent children don't run away with nothing but a single Slim Jim for two people, they don't point guns at each other, they know that guns have safties, they know, at least a little, how a police radio works, they know that people will be looking for them, they know, at least basically, how a car works, they know what a defribulator is, if only from cartoons.

Harrison and Travis are stupid.

Never trust a black man named "Chip." 

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[–] Soodinum 8 years ago

They're AMERICAN children.

'Then' and 'than' are different words - stop confusing them.

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[–] mcmingus 9 years ago

You may want to rephrase that question...

*Danny's not here, Mrs. Torrance*

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[–] statuskuo 9 years ago

They were a special kind of stupid.
Ones that existed for the plot.

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[–] jeanpirise 9 years ago

Duh...all art and movies is unrealistic....because its just a vehicule to pass on a message.

Duh

Oh what a day. What a lovely day!

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[–] Smokey_T 9 years ago

There's realism, and surrealism, expressionism, and whole bunch of other isms.

Failing hard at realism is not the same thing.

This film had no particular message that would have represented an obstacle to realism, with a decent script and director.

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[–] DeepFriedJello 9 years ago

I wouldn't say they are stupid, just curious, and not real bright.

And as someone above mentioned, you may want to rephrase the question.

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[–] Smokey_T 9 years ago

I never asked a question.

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[–] DeepFriedJello 9 years ago

Sorry Smokey. I should have replied to the OP.
The way he phrased his question.
Is it just the OP who is stupid, or are the kids stupid also?

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[–] jeanpirise 9 years ago

It didnt fail at realism though. You're so close yet so far....

You tripped over before the finish line ROFL

Oh what a day. What a lovely day!

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[–] postagerequired 9 years ago

Most children are being children, who are curious about the world they live in. Especially in rural areas where they probably don't have cable and for these kids maybe their parents didn't teach them these things.

You can't expect children to be just as intelligent as an adult with real world experience.

I remember when my father was stationed overseas, I used to climb trees and pick fruit and eat it, I jumped off the roof of the house, in a house they were building we climbed into the rafters, my foot slipped and went through an plywood like ceiling they were nailing in and upon slipping through it I didn't realize a nail had sliced a huge chunk of my skin off, when we finally climbed down I felt something wet dripping down my leg and it was blood. I still recall the white adipose (fat) tissue that was visible in place of where my skin had been. I used to catch all kinds of insects without knowing if it was poisonous or not, go caught in a hurricane one time that almost swept my 60lb frame off it's feet, I even dissected a goldfish one time because I was curious. I had a neighbor down the street whose family built a club house in a tree. This clubhouse was very high up. As a kid it looked to be about several feet high. The girl I knew that lived there climbed up into the treehouse, the treehouse had no side, and she put her roller skates on and ended up falling to her death.

I am sure there are many of you with stories from your childhood and thought to yourself you probably should be dead by now. Well these kids are doing just that, living a life of curiosity and adventure. I a lot of things they did I could see myself doing. But playing with the guns scene really made me cringe. Most of us are not beyond what they were doing.

And they seem simple to us because we have the knowledge and experience to know a little bit better than them at that age.

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[–] adrossan 9 years ago

Yeah I agree with postage.

Factor in the crap seen on movies with people being shot whilst wearing a bullet-proof vest, and just saying "ugh" & shaking it off.

Video games & playstation teach kids how keys work in cars, press accelerators etc.

I froze when I saw that scene with the kid in the vest, in law it's called "doli incapax" - children under 10 don't understand the criminality of some actions. I've seen children through sharp spears at each other, muck around with petrol in bottles, put spray cans in fires, all without understanding the danger they're placing themselves in.

I liked the Cormac McCarthy style of storytelling also - while not explaining very much, your interest is maintained and the plot unfolds continuously, and the viewer fills in whatever is needed while the action keeps you riveted.

Well shot, well acted, great photography, an adult story well worth watching.

8 out of 10 thumbs up from me.