Solving contextual math problems has been a central activity in mathematics education for decades, as they are believed to meet the requirements of being meaningful to students due to their contextual relevance and enable them to engage in deep learning characterized by the use of higher-order skills. Deep learning is activated when students are not provided with a clear computational procedure to follow, which is the case with some nonstandard word problems. Inspired by the movie Stand and Deliver, the paper focuses on using realistic considerations in solving math problems by presenting a modification of a word problem extracted from the movie and discussing didactical nuances of using realistic and open-ended approaches in mathematics. Moreover, the paper presents a study on pre-service primary teachers (N=54) focusing on using realistic considerations in solving a nonstandard word problem and their ratings of solutions to a similar word problem. The findings confirmed that most prospective teachers tend to disregard realistic considerations when solving math problems and prefer solutions that do not incorporate potential external real-life experiences.