Villains. They are the unsung heroes in almost every movie...which makes this whole "unsung hero" thing seem contradicting. Let's face it, a great villain sets the stage for making a hero look heroic or making circumstances seem impossible to overcome by their ruthlessness and cunning. There are so many villains that we have seen in movies over the many years of cinema that we often look over some of the really great ones. We sometimes miss these great villains because the movie itself wasn't that great, or we just haven't had the chance to watch the movie.
So this Top 10 list of MY (my opinion, don't take these as gospel!) favorite villains is mostly comprised of characters you may have forgotten about or never knew existed! Still, my first two picks are the super obvious and famous villains almost everyone knows because they were just too awesome to not have on my list...but then the rest are (what I think) the lesser known villains.
So let's get this started!!
Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage), "Face/Off"
Before you go crazy on me, let me explain: I LOVE Castor Troy, but the Castor Troy in the first 10-15 minutes of Face/Off where Nicolas Cage is actually the bad guy. He just had a nonchalant craziness about him that John Travolta couldn't capture (although he did a fine job acting as Castor Troy in Sean Archer's body). Even the brief 2 minutes with "evil" Castor Troy waking up from his coma, Nicolas Cage delivered the goods (or 'bads'?) again!
The next two Honorable Mentions are not "movie" villains, but are such great villains on their television shows that when I think about bad guys in movies, they STILL pop in my mind!
Mark Pellegrino - Lucifer & Bishop - "Supernatural" & "Being Human"
I'm acknowledging the actor Mark Pellegrino right now because of his ability to play the "nice guy" villain in both Supernatural (as Lucifer) and Being Human (as Bishop). He just has a way of speaking in these roles where he almost makes you believe his intentions are pure with his words, but the intense evil in his actions prove otherwise.
Giancarlo Esposito - Gustavo 'Gus' Fring - "Breaking Bad"
Unassuming chicken food chain owner Gustavo is more than he seems to be. He may look like a pencil pushing office worker, but one mistake and this man will slit your throat without blinking! While he doesn't get physical too often, Gus has no qualms about putting hits out on people from DEA agents to cartel bosses! No matter what, everyone knows not to cross him because he WILL spill gallons of blood to make sure his business stays intact.
As much as I try to stick to the lesser known movie villains so that you can get to know some characters you may have never seen before, there are still some that absolutely CANNOT be pushed off my list no matter how bad the villains I like are. Here are my 2 super obvious villains:
#10 - Anton Chigurh, "No Country For Old Men"
Cold, remorseless, vicious, uncaring, clever....these are just a few words that describe hitman Anton Chigurh. Although he kills people who aren't in his contract to kill, he lives by a kind of moral code; having a coin flipped to decide whether or not a person will die. He carries a pistol, a WICKED sound-suppressed semiautomatic shotgun and (probably the most bizarre yet insanely awesome weapon in his arsenal) a captive bolt pistol to dispatch of his victims.
What can be said that no one already knows about this man? Now, I'm trying to talk only about the villain characters on my list, but I have to talk about the actor when it comes to the Joker. Heath Ledger convinced me that the Joker could actually be a real person who is criminally insane. He brought an intense sense of realism to a character that has always been made to be over the top and unrealistic. Heath Ledger's Joker made the whole movie good for me and made the Batman character that much more interesting because I was left wondering "can Batman ever catch or kill this guy?"
#8 - Chong Li, "Bloodsport"
Bolo Yeung has appeared in many a kung fu movie and has almost always played the bruising villain. If you know about classic kung fu movies or old school B movies, you have seen Bolo opposite of Bruce Lee (although they did not fight, which was a crying shame), Brandon Lee, Cynthia Rothrock (the queen of kung fu at one time), and Van Damme (in 2 movies).
**pop trivia: what was the one mainstream American movie where Bolo Yeung was a legitimate hero and not a villain pretending to be a hero?**
In every movie he was in, he was just a scary dude...but something about him as Chong Li in Bloodsport made him just dangerous beyond belief. In his other movies he hurt and killed people, but in Bloodsport he actually shows how he thoroughly ENJOYS hurting and killing people! If you haven't already, you MUST see Bloodsport....NOW!
**answer: TC2000**
#7 - Silverio, "Only The Strong"
Silverio is a personal favorite of mine more because of his accent than anything. Yes, he's a great fighter and he has a mean streak (like setting a school on fire, killing a kid in the process), but the fact that he does what he does whilst sounding like Razor Ramon makes him that much more awesome!
#6 - Fender Tremolo, "Cyborg"
Forget that this man is named after a part of a musical instrument, Fender is one of the GREATEST villains of all time! He's ruthless (he slit a woman's throat in front of her husband then killed him by jabbing a staff down his throat), he's mean (he cut off the head of man with a hunting knife), he's uncaring (he CRUCIFIED the hero of the movie at one point!), he's got no conscience (he made a little girl grab barbed wire) and he just LOOKS scary! Throughout the movie Fender just gets increasingly violent, and at the end he's just monstrous in his fight scene. Not much more to say other than: SEE THIS MOVIE!
#5 - Cyrus 'the Virus' Grissom, "Con Air"
In a movie where basically all the main characters and extras are villains, there's one that stands out (and NOT just because he was the supposed to be the main villain) above the rest: Cyrus the Virus. He was not only a genius, but an uncaring genius who held a stuffed rabbit at gunpoint. How much more proof do you need that this guy is just bad news?
#4 - Simon Phoenix, "Demolition Man"
He's a blast from the past! The man with one brown eye and one blue eye, Simon Phoenix, is a dangerous psychopath who just loves killing people and causing mayhem! Phoenix is awesome for a whole lot of reasons, but what makes me see how vicious he can be is when he beats an elderly man to within an inch of his life and plucks out his eyeball with a pen so that he can use it to scan his way out a building. 'Nuff said.
#3 - Gabriel Yulaw, "The One"
There are multiple parallel universes where we exist, but we are different in each universe. One guy decides (after accidentally killing "himself" in one universe) that he will test the theory that offing your counterparts until you're the last one will make you god-like. In the process of his murder spree, he kills the hero's wife, kills his former best friend, picks up two police motorcycles and claps them together on a policeman. While all that makes a great bad guy, the top moment for me is when he's surrounded by thousands of prisoners and STILL insists he isn't to be trifled with...then he just starts kicking butt. Forget Neo, Yulaw is The One!
#2 - Ryan Gaerity, "Blown Away"
If there's one kind of bad guy that's scary, it's one who can "make a bomb out of Bisquick." Ryan Gaerity is an Irish terrorist with a serious pyro problem. He LOVES building bombs and blowing things up, Why does this make him special? Because the bombs are more booby trap than straight up bomb, and the places he sets them are insane (you can't even listen to your music when this guy is around because your earphones could have a bomb in them!)
My number one villain of all time! I'm gonna keep this short and sweet because you have to see the movie and because he deserves respect for being so awesome. John Doe is my favorite simply because of the way he kills people without remorse, his insane intelligence, and the fact that he uses that intelligence to orchestrate EVERYTHING that happens from beginning to end. He basically shows you that the police had absolutely no chance of catching him without his own help! If you haven't seen Se7en, just watch it. Go..NOW!
Hope you enjoyed and I hope I introduced at least one new villain or movie to you!
Have a great one
Jay
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