For their new film, Sugar, writer-directors Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden cast an actual Dominican baseball player for the lead role of Miguel ‘Sugar’ Santos, a … Dominican baseball player. This employment of a non-actor with appropriate skill of course adds credibility to scenes depicting the sport while also qualifying Sugar as part of the current “neo-neorealism” trend. But Algenis Perez Soto is not the first real athlete to play a fictional athlete onscreen. Recall that before Shaquille O’Neal did his worst playing a genie and then a superhero, the NBA star played a college basketball player in Blue Chips.

Typically, though, casting a real player as a fictional player isn’t necessarily for authenticity; many pros end up starring in films as fantastical as Space Jam and Like Mike, and often they take a back seat to a Hollywood star in the lead sportsman role, whether that actor can truly play the game or not. If he or she can’t, it’s likely they’ll be made to look like they have the moves, and in many cases such an attempt at faking it fails. To illustrate why it might always be best for filmmakers to do as Fleck and Boden have done, we’ve selected five of the most unconvincing sports moments on film.

5. Matt Damon is a terrible swinger in The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000)

It is well known that Matt Damon had never golfed prior to being cast as Rannulph Junnah, a fictional character who goes up against historic pros Walter Hagen and Bobby Jones in Robert Redford’s The Legend of Bagger Vance. And it is widely accepted that Damon’s golf swing in the movie is perhaps the worst ever displayed on the big screen, at least for a character who is supposed to be great. The disapproval from golf fans is too bad considering Damon’s desire to actually appear convincing cost him his chance for authenticity. While practicing his swing for the film during a month-long “crash course,” he very badly cracked a rib, and so during the shoot he was in severe pain each time he swung. Whether or not he’d have seemed more convincing had he not been injured is unknowable, but it isn’t likely the film would have done better at the box office anyway.

4. Buddy the dog is assisted by editors in Air Bud: World Pup (2000)

Sure, it’s one of the Air Bud movies, which you probably don’t think are supposed to be all that convincing anyway. But in the first movie, the dog portraying Buddy can actually successfully shoot a basketball. We know this because the shots of him making baskets are uninterrupted. They may have been setup for the stupid pet trick, but it’s still pretty legit. Even for the first sequel, Air Bud: Golden Receiver, which uses more cutting in the depiction of the dog’s ability to play football, we can trust that the canine can indeed catch a ball and run downfield with it for a touchdown. But with the third movie (the first of many direct-to-DVD installments), the soccer-centered Air Bud: World Pup, it’s completely unbelievable that Buddy can tend goal so well. And the editing of his skills doesn’t help to convince us in the slightest, either. Never mind that a soccer player should be primarily using his feet and not his snout, this movie could have been better had the filmmakers found an animal that can perform soccer tricks as well as the first film’s dog shot baskets. The series only gets worse from here, too, as there is nothing at all believable or convincing in the way Buddy hits baseballs with a mouth-held bat in Air Bud: Seventh Inning Fetch.

3. Woody Harrelson really can’t jump in White Men Can’t Jump (1992)

According to White Men Can’t Jump trivia, both Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes were good enough players after their pre-production training that their off-screen coach, Hall of Famer Bob Lanier, claimed they had reached NCAA Division III skill level. But if Harrelson was so good, why did the filmmakers need to fake his ability so obviously? Not only does the shot of him dunking a ball clearly seem to be using a lowered hoop, it also looks like the actor is stepping on something off-screen to help him get up to that rim.

2. Four seconds is a lifetime in Any Given Sunday (1999)

One of the worst sports movie clichés of all time is the slow-motion win in the final seconds of the championship game. The slowed speed of these scenes, whether it’s for a last-attempt basket, goal or touchdown, is to prolong the moment, to add tension and suspense, while also making it difficult for the audience to notice how implausible the achievement really is. No such scene is more ridiculous, however, then the final touchdown in Any Given Sunday and how extended those last four seconds become through Oliver Stone’s use of both slow motion and stylish montage to allow Jamie Foxx’s character time to think, then act, in order to run over (or leap over?) a pile of players and land just past the goal line. It would be one thing or another to have to believe the play was made in four seconds or to believe in that amazing jump. But with the combination of feats, they’re each canceled out and made even less convincing.

1. Rodney Dangerfield presents the Triple Lindy in Back to School (1986)

As the guy in the crowd states, the Triple Lindy is impossible. And though somewhat funny, it’s not believable in the slightest that anybody, let alone the overweight, slobbish Rodney Dangerfield, could accomplish such a dive. Obviously it’s all meant for comedy, perhaps even the clarity with which we can spot the stunt double, but that doesn’t make it any more convincing. Maybe it’s because the scene is completely superfluous and over the top (Dangerfield’s achievement with his exams isn’t exciting enough cinematically to be left alone as a climax) that it’s so easily criticized. Fortunately, this is only a single unacceptable moment in an otherwise enjoyable movie.