MOVIES and TV shows make certain skills look piss-easy but if you actually attempted them it would be a disaster. Like these:
Hot-wiring a car
According to films, to hot-wire a car you jam your hand beneath the steering wheel, rip out some wires, touch two of them together at random and – hey presto! – the engine starts. If you actually tried this, in some kind of high-stakes getaway, you’d electrocute yourself and the police officer in pursuit would have to perform CPR before arresting you.
Shooting a gun
Every action film obsessive reckons they would be able to handle a gun like John Wayne, but, as any group of arseholes clay-pigeon shooting on a stag do quickly realise, firing a gun feels like being kicked in the shoulder by a horse. And there’s always one bellend who ends up chipping a tooth from the recoil.
Computer hacking
Having watched D.A.R.Y.L as a kid and then Hackers as a teenager, you think that randomly bashing around on a keyboard for long enough will get you into the Pentagon mainframe. In truth, you can barely send a GIF via WhatsApp, so the United States’ military secrets are probably safe for now.
Flying a plane
There are plenty of films where some have-a-go hero volunteers to land a 747 after the pilot is incapacitated. They just wiggle the stick a bit, press some buttons and touch down smoothly. You, on the other hand, would have an almighty panic and oversteer, sending the plane into a spiralling nosedive. There’s a reason pilots have to train for a long time.
Hanging on a ledge
Action films often feature someone hanging from an enormously high ledge by their fingertips and, because you can manage one-and-a-half pull-ups, you reckon you could do it too. In reality, you would last approximately 11 seconds supporting your own body weight before plummeting to the ground and a messy end.
