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We all love strong characters.  Whether they have the inner will to just say no to drugs or the physical prowess to flip over a Porsche and drive off with a babe in the passenger seat, we dig on that.  No one wants to see John McClane pull his calf muscle when chasing down a runaway garbage truck and no one wants to see abdominal cramping sideline Matthew McConaughey from taking his shirt off while doing, well, just being in the movie really.  That being said, there is a limit to what I’m willing to accept.  For us to totally believe in John McClane’s plight, we have to believe that he really is just a regular cop in a shitty situation.  If he can bench press a Volkswagon, it takes some of the special out of it.  Sure, we buy Arnold Schwarzenegger flipping over a car because he’s a 240lb monster who can actually flip over cars.  Looks aren’t deceiving in movies – regular people can’t really do extraordinary physical feats.  No matter how much adrenaline is pumping through your veins, if your daughter is pinned under a 3200lb bank vault door, the kid’s a pancake and you’re not budging that thing.

Clearly that example should bother anyone not watching a Spider-Man flick, so I’ll scale it back to what bothers me the most right now and that is the strength of an average person’s latissimus dorsi muscle.  For our non-latin speakers, I’m talking about a muscle in the back that is responsible for your ability (or more than likely inability) to do pull-ups, chin-ups, or prevent yourself from falling hundreds of feet to your death.  No doubt in film you’ve witnessed an innocent bystander or kidnapped girlfriend slight down a damaged building, only to be grabbed by the hand last second and pulled to safety.  Sometimes they dangle below for a few minutes.  Sometimes there is even a second person clinging to them by the ankle.  Let’s take a look at that chain of strength – the bad guy needs to engage his lats and his grip to hold on to a person’s legs. That person may or may not be gripping back onto the hero (using the same muscles as the villain), while our hero is using only one side of his body, his lats, and his grip to hold onto between 130lbs (average weight of a woman) and 300lbs (approximate weight of a villain holding onto a woman).  Not only does he hold on to the woman, often he’ll just use one arm to pull her up, all after enduring a knock down, drag out fight with a bevy of bodyguards.  To get an idea of this difficulty, go find something to hang off of, one handed, and see how long you last.  After age 12, most of us lose the ability to freely swing from monkey bars and dead hang at a moments notice.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.

That didn’t take long, now did it?  Don’t be ashamed, most people can’t hold on for more than a handful of seconds.  But anyone in the movie world can thanks to the wonderful set of wires skillfully removed from the frame.  It’s one thing if John Matrix or some body builder grabs on, but everyone is capable of wrenching someone to safety from business men in the wrong place to the 16 year old girls of iCarly, who take turns rescuing each other from dangling off a window washer’s trolley.

Similarly related, is our hero’s grip strength when he himself is in danger.  He can hold on, with a single hand, to helicopter skids, power lines, ropes, and anything near enough for him to wrap his fingers around.  He can hold and hold and hold until it’s time to flip inside and kick a henchman out the other side of the chopper.  But since our hero has to appear stronger than the damsel (who can hold on for a limited time) our hero needs to only use his fingertips.  I won’t pressure you into further embarrassing yourself by suggesting you go hang onto something with just fingertips.  After all, you’re no action hero and neither am I.  So, if either of us were thrust into the movie Outlander and found ourselves barely hanging onto the wet rocks around a waterfall with a 1200lb space dragon hanging onto us, we’d be screwed.  Jim Caviezel, on the other hand, can hang for as long as need be to shake that pesky creature off.

I’m not sure what it is about hangers-on that bothers me so.  Perhaps my despising of pull-ups because of their difficulty has made me feel the urge to point out any feat of strength that mocks that might exercise on screen.  Pull-ups are hard.  Hanging on with one hand is harder.  Hanging on with your fingertips while a monster tries to eat your gonads – you get the idea.  I’m all for the suspension of belief in most situations.  You want me to believe aliens exist and they’re fighting vikings?  You got it.  You want me to believe the future is policed by “Judges” on hover-bikes who fight inside ruined monuments?  Sure thing.  But you want me to believe relatively average people can hang on and on and on without falling?  Sorry pal.  Anytime I see some slight, average, small, or wussy person pulling off an amazing Olympic-level handhold for more than the time it takes to say ‘oh shit’ I cling to my boiling point for dear life.

Can’t get enough of Robert Fure’s rants? Get them in real time on twitter: Twitter.com/RejectRobert. Also, check out the Boiling Point Archive.