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Most nonsensical twists

Who? What? Where?

Most nonsensical twists
17 February 2011

It's generally an unwritten rule that films should make sense. Call us traditionalists but we like to leave the cinema without feeling angry, bitter or cheated.

But try telling that to those damn sneaky screenwriters. Throwing in curveballs that seem more suited to daytime soap operas or bizarre alcohol-fuelled nightmares, we've often spent the end credits throwing popcorn at the screen and muttering obscenities.

Here's our list of the wildest, most improbable twists in cinema.

Oh and, needless to say, there are spoilers ahead...

(Images: Rex Features, All Star)

Shattered

SET-UP: Tom Berenger has a disfiguring car crash and loses his memory. After re-constructive plastic surgery, he learns that his 'caring' wife was cheating on him.

TWIST: Tom Berenger isn't Tom Berenger at all. He discovers his OWN dead body and finds out he's actually the guy his wife was having an affair with. The plastic surgery changed his face to look like him.

PROBLEM: Ermm, his voice? His body? His height? His hair? Does plastic surgery sort all that out as well?

Perfect Stranger

SET-UP: Reporter Halle Berry goes undercover to ensnare Bruce Willis, who she believes to be the killer of her friend.

TWIST: Halle Berry was actually the killer and wanted to try and frame Bruce Willis for the crime. Wait, what?

PROBLEM: Apart from the entire film being a cheat, all scenes of Berry 'finding evidence' or being 'scared' of Willis make absolutely zero sense. Rather like the reason why we actually watched this film in the first place.

The Life Of David Gale

SET-UP: Kevin Spacey is a passionate campaigner against capital punishment who finds himself on death row for raping and murdering fellow activist Laura Linney. It's a crime he claims not have committed and tells his story to reporter Kate Winslet.

TWIST: After he gets sentenced to death, Winslet watches a tape which reveals that Spacey and Linney conspired together and that she killed herself but they wanted to prove that an innocent man could still be on death row.

PROBLEM: Does anyone care enough about the death penalty to murder their willing friend to 'make a point'?

Seven Pounds

SET-UP: Will Smith causes a car crash which kills his wife and six others. He then goes on a journey to help the lives of seven people. But how? And why does he have a pet jellyfish?

TWIST: The seven people he's befriended all need organ transplants so he commits suicide by letting his jellyfish sting him to death in a bathtub, allowing his organs to be utilised.

PROBLEM: Would a hospital really get the right organs to the right people? Oh and more importantly, who keeps a damn jellyfish as a pet? How do you feed it? Where do you get it from?

Hide and Seek

SET-UP: After Robert DeNiro's wife kills herself, he takes his daughter Dakota Fanning to move out to the sticks in an attempt to get over it. She makes a new invisible friend who becomes increasingly sinister and soon starts killing the locals off.

TWIST: Her "invisible" friend is actually Robert DeNiro who is suffering from a psychotic break and killed his wife in the first place.

PROBLEM: As Dakota Fanning is blamed for many of the bad things that happens, she never once tells her father that he's actually the one responsible. Or that he's totally bat-s**t crazy.

The Village

SET-UP: An isolated village in 19th-century America suffers from creatures who live outside of the very strict boundaries. Because of this, the inhabitants are forced to stay within the confines of a small area.

TWIST: There are no creatures and, more importantly, it's not 1897. IT'S 2004. The 'elders' have pretended to their kids that they live in the past.

PROBLEM: How on earth would they avoid all modern trappings in this wildlife reserve? Sure, air traffic is 'being diverted' but has no one asked why? Who is controlling it on the outside?

The Forgotten

SET-UP: Julianne Moore grieves for a son that she apparently never had. Everyone around her denies his existence and claims she's crazy.

TWIST: She did have a son but aliens nabbed him as part of an experiment to test the bond between mother and son.

PROBLEM: Why the hell would aliens spend so much time and effort (and probably alien money) for such a lame experiment? Why would they even care? Worst aliens ever.