Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Don’t you wish evil would prevail?
Be honest: in Diehard, whom do you want to survive:
this guy 
or this guy? 
If you’re my wife, the decision is easy. At the pivotal moment when Hans (Rickman) has the drop on McClane (Willis), Karen yelled at the TV, “Kill him! Shoot him now! Shoot him in the balls, then shoot him in the head, then kill his wife, too!”
Naturally, this made me think about all the other times when I really really wished the bad guy had snuffed the good guy. Here is my list of bad guys who should have prevailed.
1. Hans in Diehard. Watching Moonlighting, did you ever once think that Bruce Willis would grow up to become Mr. Action Hero? Me neither. Sure, he was likable enough (Karen disagrees vehemently), but I figured his career would fizzle once the show tanked. Silly me. Anyway, how could any male lead go up against Alan Rickman and not look like a dweeby hack? More on that below.
2. Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest. This was Bogart’s breakout role, and oh, did he sizzle. The good guy — hey, pop quiz: does anyone remember the good guy? Yeah, I know, none of you are old enough, so if you’re not a Bogie fan you’ll take a pass on this one. Well, it was Leslie Howard, who had all the personality of a sea cucumber. Blech.
3. Gene Hackman in Superman. I know it’s wrong to speak ill of the dead, but this one isn’t Christopher Reeve’s fault. No one could make Superman interesting. Bad enough he’s invincible; he’s a goody two-shoes as well. The guy has no character flaws. Kryptonite is not a character flaw. Now, if Superman had been a closet foot fetishist ultimately defeated by his fondness for sweaty toes, that would have been interesting. (Compare Samson.)
4. Any ape in Planet of the Apes. You know how Karen is about Bruce Willis? That’s how I am about Charlton Heston. It’s not that the apes are so cool, but that Heston is so not.
Think about it. “Damn dirty apes”? The guy’s a racist. Or a speciesist. And at the end of Beneath the Planet of the Apes, the asshole nukes the planet for no good reason. At the end of the first movie, he could have lived out his life in peace, boinking Linda Harrison as much as he pleased, making lots and lots of future NRA members. But no. He had to go looking for trouble.
5. The Archangel Gabriel in The Prophecy. This is Christopher Walken’s finest role, bar none, and Elias Koteas simply cannot compete. Walken gets to be Walken, and he has some kickass lines:
Catherine: Go to hell!
Gabriel: Heaven, darling. Heaven. At least get the zip code right.
Catherine: It’s all the same to you, isn’t it?
Gabriel: No. In heaven, we believe in love.
Catherine: What do you love, Gabriel?
Gabriele: Cracking your skull.
Viggo Mortensen’s Satan: another fine character, but since he doesn’t munch it at the end, he doesn’t qualify for consideration here. However . . .
6. Satan in The Exorcist. Admit it. You know Linda Blair becomes oodles more interesting when she grows that potty mouth.
To prove I’m not pandering only to the women in my audience, here’s a picture of Linda Blair’s bare boobs.
7. The Lord of Darkness (AKA Tim Curry) in Legend. I knew going into this that one of my loathesome heroes would have to be Tom Cruise. I’ve had a deep and abiding hatred for El Cruise, long before he turned his marriage and his wife’s pregnancy into a nine-month-long media stunt, long before he went after South Park, and long before he used Oprah’s couch as a trampoline. He’s ugly, talentless, and arrogant. But, on which Cruise movie should I level my sights? Eyes Wide Shut was a close runner-up; I would have dearly loved seeing Cruise get the shit kicked out of him by all those topless women. End of movie.
Tim Curry may not get the most wonderful lines in Legend (no one does — the screenplay sucks), but he’s the only watchable character on camera.
We started with Rickman, and we shall end with Rickman.
8. The Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. I have never watched this movie without fast-forwarding through the Kevin Costner bits. They’re simply too painful. Rickman, however, dominates every scene he’s in. Remember the end, when the Sheriff needs to deflower Marian ASAP in order to fulfill a prophecy? Now, that’s physical humor at its best. I watch that ending every chance I get, hoping against hope that this time, he’ll nail her.
Your turn.
D.
LOL – definitely the sheriff in Robin Hood – I’ve always thought there was a huge mistake in casting there. If Costner could have put his pride away and played the bad guy, I would have rooted for Rickman to the bitter end. As it was, this film was so bad that Nothing could save it.
Is that really Linda Blair now? Do her boobs spin around? She’s certainly worth the odd Satanic thought or two…
I think Frodo should have been topped. All that gay stuff on the bed at the end was a bit much. And any of the Bonds would be fun, particularly if one of the daft ‘die, Mr Bond’ schemes thought up by the bad guy actually worked.
I would have been happy if Michael Myers had, at the end of the Halloween, just ripped off Laurie Strode’s head and walked off camera. Not the first time I saw it, mind you, but now that I’ve seen it dozens of times, being a staple in my seasonal repertoire… well, you start to feel sorry for the guy.
Does Rickman play Snape? Look at that picture you have posted then at the picture of Snape — if it’s not the same guy they’ve got a family tie… And yeah, Willis hasn’t had a good role since he nailed Maddie.
I am so uncool. I Goddess of the Rose. Here are the deets.
Okay, that’s weird. What I meant to say was:
I am so uncool. I [heart] Bruce Willis. Of course, I [heart] Alan Rickman, too. I do agree with Karen, though, on killing the wife in Die Hard. Gak.
Leslie, of course Rickman = Snape. I’ll re-watch Robin Hood just for him. Wonderful.
Also ditto on Tim Curry in Legend. Or Tim Curry in anything, going back to Rocky Horror. Frank was a bad guy in Rocky Horror, right? Sorta?
Little bit of trivia about Tim Curry’s character in Legend: that’s the image P. C. Cast based the hero on in Goddess of the Rose. Here are the deets.
Hope that worked better.
I read through your post, thinking, how could he have forgotten the Sheriff? But then, there he was.
A link for you. It’s usually Canadian politicians, but right now they’re photoshopping GW.
You nailed down the best of the best villians – lol, especially Rickman, IMO. I also liked him as the bad guy in “Quigley Down Under”.
And don’t shoot me, but I liked Christian Bale in “American Psycho.”
Empire Strikes Back. Darth Vader. That is all.
(Oh wait — in that one, he does win.)
Gracias, everyone.
Keith, don’t get your hopes up too high; I suspect that Linda Blair photo is about 20 years old. And I agree on James Bond, especially when Max von Sydow played Blofeld (IIRC).
Leslie, I liked Willis in Sin City and Pulp Fiction. I don’t mind him nearly as much as Karen does.
Darla, yup, Frank’n’furter was definitely supposed to be the bad guy, I guess. Although Brad and Janet seemed to like him well enough 😉
Pat, agreed.
Thanks for the link, Maureen. Many of those are excellent. Wish I could have joined the fun!
Lyn — gah! I can’t take Tom Selleck, even if Alan Rickman is in it.
[…] Doug’s wife, taking aim at Bruce Willis rather than the nearest zombie, who looks like Alan Rickman. […]
I don’t know the others but I’m totally for Rickman’s sheriff. Robin Hood was just boring.
The black guy was cool, though.
does liking Barbossa and Jack Sparrow more than the dreely leads in Pierats of the Carribean count? We don’t watch a lot of movies with horrible bad guys. Oh wait, we’re on a western kick lately and I do think that the bad guys in The Good The Bad And The Ugly were way cool.
Not that Eastwood is horrible, but Lee Van Cleef is always more interesting. And in For a Few Dollars More the laughing maniac with the watch? Spookier than Eastwood Heh heh heh heh
Spike from Buffy. Yeah, I know, he was evil incarnate, but he was the only character who made that show marginly bearable.
Bluto from Popeye. So he had a weight problem, and poor self-esteem, and a little hypertrichosis.
Eric Lensherr (Magneto) from the X-Men movies. Nothing could make me hate Ian McKellan.
Dracula. Whether he’s played by Frank Langella, Gary Oldham or anyone else, and no matter how scary the movie is, I always felt sorry for him at the end.
Damn it, I’d meant to include Dracula! Honest I did. Slipped up somewhere between the brain and the keyboard.
Ian McKellan, that’s a good one, too.
Kate, I’m with you on Lee Van Cleef.
I own a tape of Robin Hood for Rickman, but I won’t watch it. Fer sure Costner is just too awful.
And why watch it when you can watch Truly Madly Deeply?
And since nobody has mentioned it yet, I am so totally rooting for Philip Seymour Hoffman as the villain in MI3. He’s a sex god. I’ll be blogging on him as soon as *%#^%@(*^)($ Blogger comes back up.