Unflinching Faith in the Brakes

The hero is standing directly in the path of an oncoming large, heavy, extremely fast moving object. However, he shows no signs of nervousness. This is because he has just done something that will bring said object to a halt. Specifically, it will bring the object to a complete halt, a matter of inches in front of the hero, thus allowing him to stand there unflinchingly.

If the object in question is a vehicle, this requires Unflinching Faith in the Brakes. It's not a Crowning Moment of Awesome (though it can be a part of one); it's just a little bit of awesome thrown in as seasoning.

To some extent the opposite of Unflinching Walk.

Examples of Unflinching Faith in the Brakes include:

Anime and Manga

• In Murder Princess, after titular character becomes The Berserker and is about to attack the closest living thing; a small child; her Meido steps in front and holds her hands out; confident that the Murder Princess will not kill her; either due to their close relationship or the fact that it's her old body. Despite a sword lunge from the height of a three story building, the sword stops at just minorly grazing the maid's cheek; who is smiling the whole time because she apparently knows this would happen.
• In the Street Fighter II animated movie, Guile threatens to run over Chun Li if she doesn't get out of his way and leave him alone. She calls his bluff. Vroom, screech.
• In the anime version of Suzumiya Haruhi, Yuki stands still while a giant cave cricket charges at her. It collides into an invisible forcefield so hard, it forces it into the visible spectrum. That, or Yuki made it at the last second. Whatever the case was, it's made even more badass because she took Kyon's words literally and didn't move until he reminded her that they should leave.
• Done twice in Gaara's fight with Kimimaro in Naruto. One at the start of the battle, when Kimimaro fires bone bullets at Gaara and he protect himself with his sands; the bone bullets slowly stops before they hit his face. And the other one is before the battle finishes, in which Kimimaro appears suddenly in front of Gaara and trying to stab him in the face. Because Gaara's chakra is almost depleted, he could only stays still... But then Kimimaro succumbed to his illness and his hand stops before it can stab Gaara, right in front of his face.
  • Later done when Kakashi is inches away from stabbing Deva Pain in the face who doesn't flinch as he sends Kakashi flying backward, and with Kinkaku when Ino possesses him and narrowly stops his attack on Shikamaru from landing.

Film

• The Trope Namer in this case is Michael Keaton in Batman. He steps directly into the path of the speeding Batmobile, and murmurs "Stop" into his glove. The Batmobile stops, of course, with inches to spare.
  • Batman: The Brave And The Bold pays Homage to this scene.
• 300, in which a Spartan performs this maneuver with a charging rhinoceros he's just brought down with a spear—he does have to step to the side just a bit, as the animal's body slides a bit before it actually comes to a complete stop.
• The ending of Men in Black. This case is particularly funny, as Jay clearly wants to beat feet and get out of the way, only staying in place because of how Kay is stoically standing there.
• Invoked in Brick, where Tug puts Brandon through a test of character by driving a fast-moving car just an inch away from running him over. Brandon doesn't get the "unflinching" part right but at least he doesn't jump away, which impresses Tug enough.
• Somewhat of an inversion but still in the spirit of the trope, in Back to The Future, Doc Brown has unflinching faith in the his time machine's accelerator. If the car doesn't get up to 88 mph before it reaches him and Marty, then they're going to get flattened. As it happens, the time machine blinks out about 20 feet before it hits them.
  • Well, faith in the accelerator and the flux capacitor. If that hadn't worked; well, 88 mph would have been much less helpful to their continued life functions.
  • Possibly subverted sixty seconds later when the time machine reappears and almost runs them over. This time, they jump out of the way at the last second.
• In Police Story, Jackie Chan stands in front of a car and fires his gun into the air to stop a bus some bad guys are escaping on. It stops so quickly that some of them are sent flying out the front.
  • This is a Crowning Stunt Of Awesome, as you can clearly see one of the stunt players dive through an UPSTAIRS front window of the double deck bus and land on the TARMAC. Ouch.
• The Avengers 1998. Alice calmly stands in the path of Mrs. Peel's oncoming car. Mrs. Peel manages to brake to a stop just inches away from her.
• Yellow Submarine. While Old Fred is in the mansion, Ringo drives a car right at him. Fred stands with his hands out, calmly assuming that Ringo will stop in time.
• Tomorrow Never Dies has both James Bond and Q stand in front of a remote controled BMW 750i, the remote of which Bond was using for the very first time, steering towards them at at least 30 mph. Bond makes the car brake (break it he does, too, but later) and the two-ton vehicle stops very close to their shins. Makes Q quip: "Grow up, 007!"
• The a Team movie. At their first meeting, Hannibal steps out in front of BA's oncoming van.
• Dennis Farina does this near the end of Big Trouble. After he and his assistant abandon their rental car in the middle of a traffic jam, he steps into the path of an approaching airport bus. Not only does the bus stop just short of hitting him, he also manages to plant a hundred dollar bill on the windshield.
• Averted in Hellboy, where the SUV in question refuses to stop at all and our hero has to resort to other means to avoid a car to the face.

Hellboy: Red means STOP!

• In the movie Priest, the eponymous Priest leaps into the air, stepping off a couple of rocks flung by his Priestess sidekick, and slices the guts out of an enormous vampire Hive Guardian. The Priestess stand perfectly still as it flies, then slides, directly at her, coming to a halt with inches to spare.

Literature

• Death did this in Reaper Man when the Combination Harvester (possessed by the New Death in a last-ditch effort to claim him) charged at him. Death had secretly pulled out the three-eights gripley, so the elliptical cam had gradually slid up the beam shaft and caught on the flange rebate, with disastrous results, before it reached him.

Live Action TV

• Done in an episode of The Bill where a rookie policeman stands in front of a speeding getaway car with his hand out in the stop position. And the bad guys actually stop, as per this trope, mere millimetres from running him over.
• Near the end of Season 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Willow does this with a bus while tracking down Warren.
  • Of course, seeing as how she was charged up with an insane amount of magic and was using THAT to stop the bus...
• An episode of Top Gear had James May introducing drifting legend Ken Block as his car approached dangerously close to him and turned away, without May so much as looking behind him.
• Ruby performs this action in Supernatural in the third season. Given that demons cause electricity to go a little wonky, she's actually causing the boys' Impala to come to a stop by killing the engine; she still has unflinching faith that the car will stop in time with no real braking from Dean.
• In the "Liars, Guns & Money" trilogy of Farscape, Zhaan stumbles back when a retrieved bank vault (moving at high speed) stops mere inches from her face. This is greatly amusing to Natira (the bank supervisor), who doesn't flinch as she knows exactly where the vault will stop.

Tabletop Games

• One Paranoia mission has a NPC who stands still while a vehicle fails to stop in time, wrapping its bumper around his knees. "He appears not to notice. (Can you say Macho bonus?)"
• Depending on the character in the vehicle's path, Death or Glory attacks (wherein a character stands and shoots at a charging tank rather than leaping out of the way with the rest of his squad) in Warhammer 40,000 are either this, or sheer desperation. Specifically, if the attack succeeds in either destroying or immobilizing the vehicle, it stops just inches from the shooter. If it fails...

Video Games

• At the end of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, after their final battle, Samus stands calmly as Dark Samus makes a last stand and menacingly advances on her. Fortunately for her, Dark Samus's body comes apart inches away from touching her.
• In Resident Evil 4, a truck at the end of the village will crash just before the point you step onto to trigger the event. So if you shoot the driver or the engine, you can get this trope just by not moving forward after the cut scene with the truck starting (NOTE: you do have to shoot the truck first, or else splat).
• In Max Payne, you can comfortably watch as the crane rolls at you after you block its path in the first shipyard level.
• Played straight in one of the trailers of The Force Unleashed, as Starkiller pulls a Star Destroyer out of the sky and stops it just before it hits him. However, it's averted in the actual game as Starkiller holds the destroyer for as long as he can, but eventually has to retreat before it flattens him.

Web Original

• Used in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog when Captain Hammer stands unflinchingly in front of a speeding van, trusting in his super strength to stop it when it hits him. Doctor Horrible's damaged remote control device starts working again just long enough to finally hit the brakes, and the van stops with inches to spare.
• The Big Bad in Suburban Knights does this, stopping a car inches from him by blowing it up with his mind as he crosses the street.
• Parodied in Kickassia when the reviewers are charging at President Baugh. He stands perfectly still as they approach, then puts his Unflinching Faith in the machine gun he has hidden behind his back.

Western Animation

• J'hon Jonzz in Justice League does this a lot... sort of. It's not so much that whatever he's standing in front of will stop so much as it will just pass right through him.

Real Life

• A common science trick is to dangle a bowling ball on a rope, stand off far to the side with the rope taut, and let the bowling ball swing like a pendulum. It's impossible for the ball to reach you on the return trip with just the potential energy it has at the level of your face, as the swinging can't be perfectly efficient.
  • If you actually attempt this, be careful. When you are holding a heavy object in front of you, you naturally lean backwards. If you lean forwards again when you release the bowling ball, it will hit you right in the nose. Also, make sure not to add any extra energy to the ball by pushing it forwards or downwards.
    • Standing firmly against a wall can both add to the theatre of it with some increased (perceived) danger, as well as providing a fixed point...just don't give the weight a push.
  • Demonstrated in an episode of Beakman's World...with way too many rhinoplasty jokes to be a sane demonstration.
  • Characters in the novel Contact experiment with this as a test of faith.