A man in Arkansas who sought to show off his heroic side to a love interest decided to speed up the process by staging a rape attempt while the two were on a date.
Had he kept watching the screwball comedy he clearly borrowed that move from, he would no doubt have learned that these types of set-ups always end badly.
Police in Jonesboro say Jeffery Tyler Siegel, 26, and his lady friend were leaving the lookout pavilion at Crowley's Ridge Nature Center, when they were attacked by a masked man brandishing a large knife.
The attacker reportedly said to Siegel, "You can go; but, your girlfriend stays."
Rather than stick around to watch her knight in plastic armor try and fend off her imminent rape, the woman instead decided to get the hell out of there and call the cops.
Realizing that his plan was going nowhere good, Siegel "scraped himself" to appear as though he had been "cut by the attacker's knife."
Following an initial round of questioning during which Siegel claimed to have kneed the attacker in the stomach causing him to flee the scene, a search was conducted for suspect which, unsurprisingly, turned up nothing.
A subsequent interview with the "damsel in distress," however, resulted in suspicion being cast in Siegel's direction after his date told police she found it odd that he had been texting just prior to the alleged attack.
A follow up with Siegel ultimately brought out the truth: He had asked a friend to help him stage a fake attack in order to increase his chances with the woman.
"He did not ever intend on it going this far and that he did not plan on the police being notified," the police report stated. "He said it just really got out of hand very fast."
The good news is, in exchange for coming clean, police agreed not to move forward with charges against Siegel.
The bad news is, the woman said she plans to break off all contact with Siegel, telling Region 8 News she thought what he did "was not very heroic."
[H/T: Guy Code Blog, screengrab via KAIT8]