That moment when you figure out the "hero" is the villain. For more awesome content, check out: whatculture.com/ Follow us on Facebook at: / whatculture Catch us on Twitter: / whatculture
Michael Douglas' line of "I'm the bad guy!" will always be iconic. D Fens is an example of a tragic villain, who initially believes that he's the hero trying to reunite with his ex wife and daughter.
I can see that scenario playing out in real life all too often these days. i still don't believe that he was a bad guy per se, but he did many unrequired things in his walk across town.
No, Michael Douglas is the everyday man anti hero. A middle class factory worker forced by cultural norms to bottle up his emotions. His family abandons him after it becomes apparent that they can't take advantage of him as the bread maker. Understandably he has mental breakdown after being laid off. From the perspective of the detective chasing him, he looks like the bad guy. The people he fought weren't good guys either. The question is meant to be ambiguous as the commentary is on perspective.
When Duvall confronts D Fens and tells him that he was going to murder his wife and little girl, he tries to deny it, but it was clear that in his deranged mind he saw it as the only way to keep the family together. The part of him that realized that he'd gone too far pushed him to draw the water pistol, forcing Duvall to shoot him. It's a brilliant scene in a fabulously underrated film.
Nightcrawler is totally brilliant and Gillenhall's performance is one of the best I have ever seen. How he didn't win an Oscar, I will never know. Not for a second did I think he was supposed to be the "hero" though.
I've always viewed Ferris Bueller as the antagonist to Cameron's protagonist, and thought it was brilliant to view a movie through the perspective of the former. It could even be argued that the actual climax of the movie isn't when Ferris is racing to get home before his parents do, it's when Cameron finally loses it and destroys his father's car.
I really don’t know where this idea comes from that people didn’t know that Starship Troopers was satire at the time of release. I saw it in the theater when it released, and it was obvious.
Critic reviews. If you read the ones that were given on release. You’ll see, it was obvious, lots missed it, yeah, lots understood but it doesn’t take away the fact that it’s seen as a better movie now, in hindsight, because the majority understand it now. I was a kid, like 13 when I first watched it, I thought it was a funny action, so I do think I got it more than the critics did, again, as a kid 🤭 but the reviews are pretty easy to find. The public look at things and are able to not take them too seriously, critics can be a little too pretentious. 🤷♀️
@@keith6706 Yes, it's literally as skin deep as the hostile director who hated the source material putting them in bad guy costumes. That is the only "bad guy" thing in the movie.
Edward Norton’s character in ‘Fight Club’ wasn’t named Jack. The whole “I am Jack’s ___” came from old magazine articles written from the POV of “Jack’s” organs. We never actually hear his real name, aliases he used for the various support groups he went to.
Unless you include the Fight Club ps2 fighting game, in which Narrator is legit named jack However, hearing him called jack over and over did hurt my brain enough to cause me to hit the comments, soooooo….
The best analysis of Fight Club makes a pretty compelling case that we DO know the name of Ed Norton's character: Tyler Durden. Furthermore, everything that happens is a delusion that exists only in his own mind (hence the opening sequence of synapses firing in the brain, and the closing song "Where Is My Mind"). Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter's characters are completely imaginary, representing the masculine and feminine sides of Norton/Durden's personality as he comes to terms with the fact that he has testicular cancer and will have to be castrated to save his life. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wHE7oBvOk9U.html
@@esm82ify Broke: Frankenstein was the monster Woke: Frankenstein was the scientist who reanimated a corpse which went on to do terrible things Bespoke: Dr Frankenstein was the monster
One of the things that no adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune ever seemed to achieve was Herbert's own assertion: Paul Atreides is a villain. Herbert put it like this, I believe: "There's nothing as dangerous as a charismatic leader." He used John F Kennedy as an example. Paul uses the legends he knows about to help him rise to power, and leads a war against everyone. There really aren't any heroes in Dune.
It important to note that Paul was fully aware of this (and his prophetic abilities showed him that it was inevitable), and actually tried to minimize possible damage.
The first time I watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off I was already an adult. It was one of those movies that everybody talked about but that for one reason or another I didn’t see as a child. When I eventually watched it I honestly couldn’t understand why anyone would ever find Ferris anything other than a complete douche.
You answered your question with your description of Buehler, everybody deep down wants to do doucy things now and again but the majority of us are not sociopaths or psychopaths like good old ferris is. We often admire people who have traits we wish we possessed, good or bad.
@@scottvincent3062 I just assumed it was because as an adult watching a movie about cutting class just seems kind of goofy. Whereas watching it as a kid there is a sense of heightened freedom and rebellion associated to the idea. Maybe if he weren’t such a jerk to his friend, I could have warmed up to him.
I Am Legend. Will Smith's character is the one hunting the mutants. He is a legend to them, as a grim reaper of sorts. It's the direction the book takes if I'm not wrong.
You should watch the first movie made from that story called last man on earth starring Vincent price it is more true to the story than that dumbed down modern Hollywood tripe.
@@Richardiba Yeah, but the book ended with their society capturing him and holding him prisoner, to be executed. The whole point was him learning that he was the monster. The alternate movie end still has Will Smith as the 'good guy' finding a cure.
@@scottvincent3062Yes the Vincent Prce version is amazing and depressing, I love it. There is a version, starring Charlton Heston, Omega Man, I haven't watched it yet to really be able to comment on it. I'm going to have to check it out sometime soon.
I disagree there. Richard Gere could very easily have been the villain. He was greedy, morally bankrupt, vacuous. He saw the innocence of Edward Norton as an opportunity not a benevolent vocation. And it blew up in his face. Yes Norton had psychopathic tendencies, but they were created by his abuse.
Falling Down is by far one of the best movies I've ever seen. You slowly watch the man's descent and you, as the viewer, hit the point where you go... "OH NO"... because it hits you. And the ending is just... because you look around today and go, "Yeah, I can see it being something that could happen in r/l".
Completely agree with you - and I use it to point out to people (yes, I know it's fiction) that everybody has a breaking point. Particularly a lot of the (non-fake) social media posts with people losing it... stop laughing, those people need help.
@@ickisandoblina That is the point of the entire movie; the breaking point. And it is handled masterfully. We get shown time and again where he gets put into a situation, pushed, and it escalates, each time. Which is why the ending hits so hard. He realizes only at the end that he reached that point and never realized it, nor, does he even feel like he IS the villain. And we, the audience, seeing that escalation the entire movie, is left wondering ourselves; IS he the villain?
@@mgass1354 Yes he is I don't care how annoying your day was waving a machine gun around a fast food place makes you the villain so does pulling out a gun and demanding to see your wife who left you specifically because you are a short tempered possibly abusive asshole.
Nightcrawler is one of my favorite movies of all time, but I NEVER felt like I was supposed to cheer Lou on. Dude gave me the creeps the whole damn time 😅😅😅
In the real world nobody thinks that they are evil. Nobody thinks that they are the bad guy. Everyone believes that their actions are justified and that they are the hero of their story. Regret is the moment that you realize that you were wrong.
And with the addition of extensive group membership through social media we have lost the checks and balances of ever having to deal with Who We Are. Now we can just find a location for our delusions and self-aggrandizement to exist without evolution or consideration.
I think about it all the time. Like, how President Charles is a War Criminal, but Preaident Sarkozy isn't? Despite both doing the same thing during Civil Wars in Africa, I.e. supplying weapons used for Genocide. Both did what they thought was right, but only one had to pay for his crimes. Now we see the ICC saying Putin is a War Criminal, but Bush & Blair aren't? Despite all three invading a Sovereign Nation to remove unpopular Dictators. Bush even had a Freudian Slip and said "the illegal invasion of Iraq" while talking about Putin in Ukraine. Everybody present laughed at the mistake and moved along with condemning Putin's War, because... their War was justified. The US needed access to Iraqi Oil and Iraq needed "Democracy".
Karate Kid - Daniel is the bad guy. He starts almost every fight that ends up with him getting hurt, he’s a dick to his mom and pretty much everyone until the end of the movie - there a great video on RU-vid somewhere that details all his villainous behaviour.
Ender isn't a villain, he is a kid who is being used by the military, and the whole war is to a significant degree based on a misunderstanding between very different species. Read the next two books in the series.
@@user-sl2ng2hr1k While true. I'm more talking about the humans in general. You think you're following the humans trying to save the world. When in fact you're following them trying to decimate an entire species.
The real thing that people don't seem to often notice about the Usual Suspects is that Kaiser Soze doesn't win. He specifically says that Soze came out of hiding to kill the one guy who knew what he looked like. Instead, the police get a sketch confirming who he is, in addition to the booking photos. He lost, big time.
Hello. Unreliable narrator? A bunch of men get killed on a boat and the boat gets set on fire. Thats all we know. The police cant prove anything except the one surviving victim describes him as the killer. Circumstantial evidence and a witness who is barely alive and will probably die versus criminal mastermind; no contest.
"Kobayashi' was Keyser Soze, Kint was just his associate that likely ended up buried in the desert as he was too compromised by the movies end. Everyone that saw 'Kobayashi' in the movie was killed. So Keyser suckered all of them.
Yeah the only film I can think off not on this list where Audiences didn't realize that they were following the Villian is the Sly Stallone starring Samaritan. A local boy named Sam Cleary thinks he has discovered the Long lost hero of Granite city Samaritan, who 25 years ago died in a Warehouse fire 🔥 with his brother and evil rival Nemesis, now hiding out as dustbin man named Mr Smith. The twist late into the final act when Smith goes to save Sam, from some New Hood looking to take up Nemesis mantle, is that he is actually the bad guy Nemesis and not Samaritan. But the film along with Sam's sense of Certainty fools you into thinking that he is actually the long forgotten hero of the title.
I watched about 30 minutes of that film and was thinking about going back to finish watching it. On one hand, you completely spoiled it for me. On the other hand, I'd pretty much already figured it out.
The thing that EVERYONE misses about Falling Down was that the reason he was in his car, stuck in the traffic jam, was that he was on his way to his wife's house, even though he had a restraining order against him for domestic abuse. His mother was scared of him. His former employer was scared of him. He didn't "snap" or descend into madness during the film. He was already there before the movie started. And the likely outcome of his "visit" would have been the death of his wife and daughter regardless of the rest of the events of the film. If the traffic jam hadn't happened, he wouldn't have been on the police's radar until too late.
There was a video that argued that the character of Val in “The Birdcage” was the true villain of the film. While the ultra conservative senator is presented as a villain, he is ultimately not that threatening. The argument goes that Val, the son of gay couple Armand and Albert, is villainous because, rather than coming forward with his parent’s’ identity/relationship from the start with the prospective conservative in-laws, he sets out to conceal every trace of their lifestyle, from the art to the crockery, even roping in his biological mother to make the setup look more convincing to their right wing guests. He put his parents through chaos and self-denial to avoid what he saw as an awkward conversation that should have happened much earlier.
That's what I've always thought, too. Val is a terrible son who denies his parents, prefers to turn to his estranged mother rather than the people he is supposed to trust, and wants to impress his in-laws and fit into their worldview. Armand is also terrible, doing it for the sake of his son, but he is really ashamed of his partner and treats him pooly.
While those are all valid points, there was a legitimate issue for him in that his background likely would have been used against his fiancé's father. It's not really fair and they should have just talked with each other to try and figure out a better solution, especially since there's no way to really avoid it. Odds are they'd have just decided to let the news come out shortly after an election.
What really made this movie so compelling was Joan Crawford and Bette Davis despised each other in real life. They didn't have to stretch their acting skills too much.
Every primary character in "Memento" was a villain. Jimmy and Dodd were criminals, Teddy manipulated Leonard to kill whomever Teddy wanted dead, Natalie manipulated Leonard to kill Teddy and Leonard tricked himself to get revenge on Teddy for using him.
It is still good example, because movie flips the script right at very end. In the end Leonard is just a very good example of our selective memories and how we deal with painful memories or things we can't forget and forgive ourselves. Good movie, it is still one of Nolan's best imho.
I watched a video detailing the movie in chronological order and it really changed my mind on some of the people. Natalie for example is painted as a manipulative user but when you watch it in chronological time you realize she is scared AF, some random dude shows up wearing her boyfriends clothes after obviously killing him. She uses him to keep herself safe but in the grand scheme of the movie I definitely view her in a more sympathetic light.
Blood In Blood Out Miklo Was My Favorite Character and not because he was played by Damien Chapa (Ken Masters from Street Fighter '94) the series of events caused by Paco Benjamin Bratt made me gravitate towards the half Chicano character
Oh my gosh!!! I love that movie so much!!! You are right about Miklo, though a case could be made for all 3 of the main characters being villainous at least in parts of the movie. But Miklo definitely proves that he has become a villain once he decides to have Montana killed. That part is so dang sad!!! And it made me so mad that he died when he was getting ready to finally see his daughter!!!
@ 8:17 Starship Troopers as far as the movie adaptation goes you're correct. But to those that still like books, the original book it would be a draw between Humans and Bugs as the villains. writer Robert A. Heinlein. Written in a few weeks in reaction to the US suspending a nuclear bomb test, the story was first published as a two-part serial in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction as Starship Soldier mainly following Juan "Johnny" Rico in a 1st person narrative; his philosophical and moral issues, including aspects of suffrage, civic virtue, juvenile delinquency, and war; these discussions have been described as expounding Heinlein's own political views. Views still a hot topic today.
Mobile infantry in book and movie are literally direct opposites. It's quite interesting howe filmmakers misunderstood this book (which wasn't perfect, but wasn't fascist either)
@UCog6lmCtn87w-Le4hLv6heg actually felons can vote, they are blocked that right in prison and non-convicted in jail. But once on the street they can't stop you from going to vote. And as a veteran I agree with the starship trooper book and movies American should be required to serve the military to earn your right to vote.
@@sirtaelellevalerie1056 The movie, also, doesn't quite fit fascist at the same time and comes off more of trying to unsuccessfully ape it there. It's jingoesque and militaristic, feeling a lot like the WW2 era cinema and news stuff than normal shows, which is kind of creepy in its own right...and it's military is extremely brutal and somewhat stupid. Even the war in it was one where the first mentions tied to it were the arachnids slaughtering an independent colony that was, apparently to close to Klendathu, and that was followed up by a direct attack on Earth that wrecked a city. If you really want fascist and psycho versions, look at all of the factions of the Mongoose published games and comics...
@@AzraelThanatos for some reasons many people interpret this two attacks as false flag (so to speak) operations, to justify invasion into arachnid territory. IDK how they come to such conclusion...
It's funny that Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Fight Club are both on this list. Ferris is Tyler...Cameron is Jack...Sloane is Marla. Also, no Ed Rooney doesn't get the "he's just doing his job" excusd because he broke into student's house after inflicting harm in their dog. Leaving the school to stalk a student is not in his job description
Others... Glenda the Good Witch and Oz set up Dorothy and crew to be a hit squad to remove the "Wicked" Witch who only wanted her sister's shoes (her rightful property) back; Yoda, whose non-acceptance of Luke put in motion the events leading to the creation of Vader. That's two of my favorites.
I'd add "Law Abiding Citizen" to the mix. Jamie Foxx character (Nick Rice) was the villain who pushed Gerard Butler's Clyde Shelton overboard. Clyde knew what he was doing was wrong, but the law (and Nick) abandoned him. Nick on the other hand deserved a bullet, and I wish there was an alternate ending where he too perished for his sins. "Falling Down" is a masterpiece; D Fens is just a guy having a bad day, and everyone around him is contributing to making it worse. He did what many of us want to do, just a bit more dramatically than expected. He is the anti-hero we need in real life
I never warmed to Deborah Kerr in any of her movies, but I didn't quite get that she was somehow a villain in THE INNOCENTS. When the story was redone on DARK SHADOWS in 1969 as "The Ghost Of Quentin Collins", Maggie Evans (Kathryn Leigh Scott) was absolutely NOT a villain in any way! The crazy thing was how, during the "1897" time travel storyline, over the following 9 months' worth of episodes, Quentin became as much of a likeable victim as Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) had been, as Barnabas' accidental incursion into the past eventually-- through the most convoluted events-- wound up saving Quentin's life, so he never did become a ghost haunting the children in 1969.
I always liked the movie "Payback" with Mel Gibson. There is no real "good" guy in the movie. It is just Gidson's bad character getting revenge on worse characters. It is my go-to "route for the bad guy" film.
@jeffreypierson2064 I would argue that his character doesn't rise to the level of an anti-hero. He is the protagonist of the movie. But he is still a bad guy in the story. He is a thief getting vengeance on a double-cross. There is no hero in this movie. I do see your point, though. He isn't the villain either.
• Denzel Washington in The Little Things (2021) • Jennifer Carpenter in The Factory (2012) • Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct (1992) • Kathleen Turner in Body Heat (1981) • James Cromwell in LA Confidential (1997) • Pamela Voorhees in Friday the 13th (1980) • Samuel L. Jackson in Unbreakable (2000)
Nightcrawler is an excellent film with an incredible performance by Jake Gyllenhaal but right from the opening scene, you instantly see him as a classic psychopath and certainly not the hero or even someone to root for in any way.
I watched Fight Club when it first came out on DVD but never got to finish it and had no clue that Tyler and the narrator were the same person until I watched it again 10 years later. 🤯
Edward Nortons character isnt called Jack, its just a reoccurring pharse he uses though-out his narrations. He’s intentionally not named and is referred to as ‘the narrator’
Watching this video makes me wish more than ever that the rumored Ferris Buehler's Day Off 2 would have become a real film. Some years back there were rumors circulating online about a sequel. The sequel supposedly would take place about a decade after the original movie. The plot would have pretty much been the same but instead of skipping school Ferris would be faking sick to get out of work. I could just imagine the lengths the full grown adult sociopath would go to just to get out of work.
Hi, guys! Hope you are doing fine! In my humble opinion, you forgot to list the most interesting example: Blade Runner! As established in the Final Version, Deckard is a Nexus 6, a Combat Model, reprogrammed with Gaff's memories... (Gaff limps because he was hurt hunting down Roy Batty) But after The Unicorn dream, Deckard becomes Self-Aware of his condition, and therefore he hunts and kills the other Nexus 6 with ease. He does not do this by accident or mistake: It is cost-benefit reasoning! He is, after all, an Artificial intelligence, able to learn at Geometric rates... He submits to the status quo to get his prize, Rachel. Yep, it is a little bit sad and twisted, as he does this in the name of love, hunting its kind and killing the true hero, the awesome humanist Roy Batty...
I loved Nightcrawler but I needed a good ten viewings to spot that it was Lou Bloom that sabotaged the van of his rival (Bill Paxton), which made it so much worse when he was able to record the footage of the aftermath.
Carrie Ender's Game Secret Window Horns Us Frailty The Others And I can't remember the title but that foreign film where we follow the lady visiting her best friend's family, running from psychopath in truck & we find out she is the guy in the truck but doesn't know it 🤔
One movie that had the perfect twist where the main character was the serial killer the whole time was in My Bloody Valentine. Jensen Ackles did a great job of making everyone believe that he was running from the killer and that he was a potential victim
I wonder wether Hitchcock’s Psycho shouldn‘t be on the list. Similiar to Fight Club, you are left to believe until the end that Norman Bates was more a complicit to his murderous mother.
D-fens kills gang bangers, a literal Nazi and rolls back prices in a convenience store. Who's gonna blame him? Seriously he wasn't the villian, just mentally ill.
Vince Vaughn was the Villain in Jurassic park 2. He sabatoged the camp putting everyone's death from Dinos squarely on his shoulders. Even bring the wounded T-Rex baby back to his camp where the parents killed their helper, Then swiched out the hunter's ammo leaving him unable to save his friend from getting eaten. His actions caused so many death's.
I remember seeing a fan made trailer of Passengers making it look like a horror movie. If the movie had Jennifer Lawrence’s character as the pov character it would have been a horror movie.
love Michael Douglas in downfall! hes a broken man trying to get to his daughters birthday, such a great and powerful movie, his line i;m the bad guy? is so good, such a tragic villain, hes sick but doesnt know it, he loves his daughter but his wife is keeping her away from him, i doubt he would have killed them if he wasnt pushed like he was, at best just give her a gift then go
@@justinratcliffe947 i knew what i meant, and i wrote it fast without checking, falling down, i dont know why i was thinking downfall lol but thank you kind internet stranger , God bless you
Falling Down has been one of my favorite movies because Michael Douglas's character is kinda funny when he gets angry with some of the stuff he says in the heat of the moment. Laughed pretty hard when the woman in the restaurant lost her lunch "I guess she didn't like the special sauce, Rick!" I felt a bit bad at the ending, but Robert Duvall's character was pretty great as well. Snaps at his wife who won't calm down and knocks the crap out of his coworker for badmouthing her. The only other movie I've seen on this list is Starship Troopers. I honestly never caught on, because I was young at the time, how the main characters were the villains, however I did enjoy the movie. My 2 most memorable parts where when Rico's Math Score of 35 got put on the display board and everyone laughed and clapped... (very relatable to me...) and my favorite part was with Rico's smart friend having a ferret and telling it to "Go bug Mom".
I thought Faris Bueller was entirely imaginary. The entire movie was a fantasy of Cameron who was terminally ill in a hospital. Cameron had been sick long enough that all of his friends had moved on, Faris was invented by Cameron so he could have one last adventure. Why Cameron would create such an asshole for an imaginary friend, well, he needed to have all sorts of people against him so they could all fail.
I absolutely love that interpretation of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. As someone who wasn't part of the "cool crowd" growing up, and seeing how much the "cool crowd" worshipped him, I've always hated his character, and generally disliked this movie. I don't think it actually was the writers' deliberate idea to show him as a raging narcissist, but that's what he is.
What has always bothered me about Memento is Leonard's wife allowing someone else to administer her insulin and the fact that she didn't do anything to prevent or deal with a hypoglycemic episode. Death doesn't happen instantaneously.
