A great story more often than not needs a great villain for our hero to fight and to vanquish. Villains often define our heroes and exist only to torment and create anarchy. No one likes a mass murderer, a master criminal, or a violent thug – but sometimes these villains aren’t pure evil. Morality and nobility are not always simplistic and black and white. Good and effective art examines these cracks in society and illuminates the grey that “heroes and villains” occupy. Sometimes their actions are justified and even right! The villains below are not moral or noble characters – but they are examples of these shades of grey. More often than not these villains are products of their environment and have been affected by the world around them. These are some of the villains that I have always sympathised or at least understood. So now let’s have a look at 10 of our Movie Villains Who Weren’t Really Bad and let the arguments begin!
- Det. Bobby Monday in Premium Rush
We begin this list with the most recent film where Joseph Gordon-Levitt must deliver a mysterious envelope through the NYC rush hour while being pursued by corrupt cop Bobby Monday (Michael Shannon). Shannon’s Det. Monday is under pressure from Chinese loan sharks to get the envelope which will clear his debt. Monday isn’t inherently evil – he’s a desperate man. Sure, he accidentally kills a Chinese gangster but he didn’t mean it! Monday isn’t some scheming genius hell-bent on making the protagonists’ lives misery. He’s a man desperately trying to save his own skin and those cocky little cyclists who have no regard for the rules of the road make his life a living hell. Monday is a victim of serious bad luck and smug cyclists who think they own the roads!
- Ra’s Al Ghul in Batman Begins
Liam Neeson’s Ra’s Al Ghul does try to destroy Gotham but his evil plan is nowhere near the anarchy of the Joker or the mass annihilation of Bane – his is about creating a utopia. In comparison to his successors the microwave emitter releasing fear gas is a pretty innocuous plan to unleash on Gotham. The gas will make people freak out in panic but we don’t see anyone die. The crime wave that would ensue would galvanise the authorities to aggressively clean up Gotham and shut down the violent underbelly once and for all. Ra’s may have a funny way of showing it, but he’s out to save the world! And then there’s his greatest pupil (Bruce Wayne), who he treats like his own son only to be repaid by having his mountain dojo blown up and left for dead. Talk about an ingrate!
- Bruce the shark in Jaws
It’s a shark! Bruce (as he was dubbed by the film crew) doesn’t have any evil intentions nor is he premeditated. He’s a shark after all! The reasons how Bruce ended up in the Amity beach is ambiguous but the Great White is completely lost and out of his comfort zone. Obviously Bruce’s regular diet is not available to him on the New England coast. He probably never saw a naked girl skinny dipping before – how was he to know it wasn’t a tasty fish?
- Biff Tannen in Back to the Future Trilogy
Let’s get something straight: Biff Tannen is an asshole. He’s a bully and he’s a cad but he’s not that bad. He’s not a villain. He’s so much fun to watch when he’s being a complete douchebag. In BTTF2, he throws some local kids’ ball onto a roof. Those kids were playing in the unsafe street where any number of dangers could’ve befallen them. Biff probably saved their lives. His older self understandably wants to make a better life for himself after being a lackey to George McFly his entire life. Who can blame him for trying? He will always be endearing for the line: “make like a tree and get the hell out of my car”.
- Col. Hans Landa in Inglorious Basterds
This one is tricky. Landa is a Nazi. He is the ‘Jew Hunter’. He is a murderer. Landa however is serving in one of the most feared armies in history. His hesitation or his compassion in the Nazi administration would lead to certain death. He even tries his hand at heroics by offering to end the war – killing Hitler and the entire Nazi command for the Allies. He’s as tired of the German’s as the rest of the world and plots to blow Hitler to hell – albeit at a terrible cost to his forehead!
- Loki in Thor
As much as I loved last year’s Thor I did feel there was a lack of a menacing villain. Loki isn’t really revealed to be the villain until well into the second act and even then, he is not inherently evil. He feels betrayed and unloved by his adopted family. He is guilty of some sibling jealousy which we have all felt at some stage in life. Loki deals with some shocking discoveries (he is in fact an adopted Frost baby) and his arrogant brother Thor. It’s a very Shakespearean plot but the bard’s characters were a lot more ruthless and Machiavellian than the God of mischief. Loki does amp up the bad in The Avengers even killing beloved Agent Coulson but in Thor it’s all very teenage angst stuff.
- Roy Batty in Blade Runner
Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty in Blade Runner seems like an avenging angel of death throughout the film. He gruesomely murders Tyrell by crushing his fingers into his “maker’s” eyes and he is responsible for hapless JF Sebastian’s death (although this is not seen on screen). Batty is a highly evolved android who simply wants to prolong his life. He is angry with “God” and the world around him. His true “humanity” is shown by saving Deckard’s life after showing him how easily he could’ve squashed him like a bug. For an android, Batty also has remarkable emotion and depth delivering the celebrated monologue - “tears in the rain”.
- Magneto in X-Men
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Magneto has a justifiable gripe with the human race. He was a survivor of the holocaust and knows a thing or two about persecution. His hostility towards the human race is completely understandable. His plans over the X-Men Trilogy have varied but they usually involve genocide of the human race. That does sound a little extreme but Magneto warns of the “war” between humans and mutants and how human nature is to turn against those that they do not understand and fear. If Magneto could be assured about the human race’s intentions towards mutants I’m sure he could be talked out of genocidal schemes.
- Bill in Kill Bill
The problem I have always had with Tarrantino’s revenge magnum opus is how he undermines the revenge by the end of Vol. 2. The Bride (Uma Thurman) is on a quest of retribution for the murder of her unborn child, her soon to be husband, her wedding guests and the attempted murder of herself. In Vol.2 we learn that the Bride barely knew her new fiancé and was clearly having a shotgun wedding (no pun intended) to get over the disintegration of her relationship with Bill (David Carradine). The wedding guests were practically strangers to her as well. Her unborn baby survived and is reunited with her mother at the end of the film. Bill even admits he “over-reacted”. I always thought they could have tried to get past it and raise their daughter together as only deadly assassins know how.
- Hans Gruber in Die Hard
I’ve always felt through repeated viewings of Die Hard that John McClane is the real villain of the movie. Gruber and co and nowhere near prepared for the sheer brutality that McClane unleashes upon them. Gruber does murder Takagi in cold blood – but that is nothing compared to the sheer psychotic insanity McClane perpetrates on Gruber’s crew. At one point in the showdown with the über-henchman Karl, McClane screams: “I’m gonna kill you, then I’m gonna cook you, then I’m gonna fucking eat you!” Not to mention Karl is trying to get McClane in revenge for killing his brother and after McClane taunts him. He actually taunts him after killing his brother! Hans Gruber who wants to steal bearer bonds in a terrifically executed heist is the villain? Are you kidding me?
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