TOP 5 VILLAINS OF ALL TIME: PART 1

Imagine Batman without The Joker, or Superman without Lex Luthor – makes the existence of heroes kind of pointless right? Villains probably have the toughest role to play in the movie, and that is why unlike heroes, only a few manage to remain in our psyche years after watching the movie.

Kindness, Loyalty, Courage and Honesty are qualities that the world preaches, and hence we tend to have a very clear idea of what ‘good guys’ are supposed to behave like. It also doesn’t hurt that the ‘hero’, as a rule, is a good-looking guy with a ripped body that we can admire and look up to. 

But what scares us? What disgusts us? What terrifies us? These are topics we usually don’t have a straight answer to, because the only way to know the answer is to experience it, and that’s pretty damn scary a prospect. There are many ways to go about when it comes to playing a villain : you can be a ruthless, merciless mobster with a meek and submissive alter ego; you can be a psycho with a very demented view of morality; you can be a man in power, misusing it. These are all ‘bad guys’, and the following is my list of the characters that have defined ‘evil’ in the modern world:

(A note on a technicality – I have considered pure bred,all-out evil guys, not anti-heroes. One might argue that Al Pacino in Godfather 2 or in Scarface is not really a ‘hero’ in the traditional sense, but neither is he a villain. With that difference in classification, a lot of otherwise groundbreaking performances (for example,Robert di Nero in Taxi Driver) have been left out.)

5. Roger ‘Verbal’ Kint/ Keysor Soze: The Usual Suspects

                           

(Doesn’t look the villain part at all. This particular scene in the movie is hilarious because all of them are asked to repeat- “Hand Me your keys you fucking cocksucker…”)

Never before has a character played the Superman trick on the wrong side of the law with such devastating effect. Kevin Spacey plays the Clark Kent to his actual villainous alter-ego, Keyser Soze. One might argue that there is nothing frightening or scary about Roger ‘Verbal’ Kint at all, which is precisely my point. Throughout the movie, he lets the police believe that he is a weakling, a pushover. Only at the end does he reveal the completeness of his disguise, and leaves the audience with a latent feeling of –‘OMG, it was him….’

For a villain, he pulls off the perfect con. The movie leaves us with a sense of awe and fear for Keyser Soze, the mysterious and all powerful villain. And at the end, one is forced to combine the ruthlessness of Keyser with the unbelievable intelligence and cunning of Verbal, making him a one of a kind villain.

4. Darth Sidious/Palpatine: The Star Wars

                                 

Sidious gets on the list simply because of the strength and vile depth of his character, plus the epic scope on which the events take place. By the same token, maybe Sauron should have been included, but there is so little of him in the book and the movie that you can’t really have him on the list. Sidious’s ill-deeds however, are legendary and well documented.

There are many characters from the Star Wars franchise eligible for the Best Villain role, most notably Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker. But Anakin is a misguided kid who never really belongs to the Dark Side…

As far as villains go, Darth Sidious is simply the best – absurdly powerful (he defeats Grand Master Yoda) and at the same time deceptively cunning and shrewd in his cover as Palpatine. Single handedly destroys the Jedi and gains control of the Galaxy.

With the Rule of Two allowing only 2 Sith Lords at a time, the fact that Sidious ends up as the ruler of the Galaxy and yet is never actually seen using his powers to control people but rather his political clout, makes him a villain to remember. It also helps that the transformation from the likable Palpatine to the wrinkled and shadowy Sidious is pretty drastic.

Even non-die hard fans know Anakin Skywalker. Well, Windu was stronger than Anakin –> Yoda was stronger than Windu –> Sidious defeated Yoda…get the picture??

The scene where he begs Anakin to save him from Windu, and subsequently kills Master Windu is where one can see the two aspects of his villainous nature. Watch out for his face as he begs, and the change when he uses his Electricity Attack.

3. Heath Ledger & Jack Nicholson: The Joker(s)

                  

(Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger as Joker)

This is in equal measure a tribute to Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger and The Joker. 

First up – The Joker

This character is probably the most devious and mentally disturbed personas ever created. The difference between Joker and your run off the mill psycho maniac, what manages to send chills down the watcher’s spine, is the method in madness in everything Joker does. We tend to believe that any disorder is an abnormality, which comes to the fore when normal psychos do that 1 good/kind/merciful act. This act lends support to our belief that the mad guy’s idea of society has contradictions and is hence wrong. Joker, on the other hand, is ALWAYS consistent. What’s scary is that he is more consistent at being bad than we are at being good. The Joker BELIEVES in his concept of society, and is intelligent enough to make his point understood through practical demonstrations.

Jack Nicholson’s Joker:

Though this movie wasn’t exactly released in our day, Nicholson managed to bring all the above characteristics, which make Joker the villain he is, to the role. His performance really got Joker from the nerdy boys’ comic books to the list of mainstream badasses. He is maniacal to a fault, and bizarrely convincing. At the end of the movie, I wouldn’t have complained if Joker had come out trumps, which I think is the best compliment to Nicholson.

Heath Ledger’s Joker:

Thoroughly entertaining, completely demented – Ledger’s Joker is a very gritty and real portrayal of the famous comic character. The Joker is no less of a maniac but is also more of a philosopher (who in all honesty is trying to prove his philosophy). He is no longer the guy who makes stupid jokes and keeps laughing, but instead is a man with a soul tortured beyond repair. A man who is immune to pain, because there is nothing more that can be taken from him. We reveled in his destruction of Gotham, because after a long time we had found a villain who really didn’t give a fuck…

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