The epitome of the gangster antihero, Tony "Say hello to my little friend" Montana is the quintessential Bad Ass Bad Guy. He has little regard for human life, which he demonstrates by spilling blood left and right with chainsaws, machine guns and grenade launchers. What I enjoy most about Scarface's Montana, played by Al Pacino, is that he is loud, angry and flamboyantly badass, which contrasts sharply with the relentless, mechanical violence of the Terminator, Anton Chigurh and Agent Smith. Tony Montana is more badass than anyone on your list Peanut, and I've dug up a few additional worthy contenders that give your baddies a run for their money.
Vincent (Collateral, Tom Cruise): Calm and collected balanced with beserk outbursts of violence. All this from Tom "Pretty Boy" Cruise? I was impressed. See the dance club and jazz club scenes for all the evidence of badass-ness you should need.
Castor Troy (Face/Off, Nicholas Cage & John Travolta): A villain so badass, he needs two badass actors to play him. Jumping out of a 747 with gold plated pistols firing - Badass! Murdering an entire hospital staff while his face is cut off - Badass! Sleeping with the FBI agent's wife, flirting with his daughter, and beating the crap out of his daughter's boyfriend - Badass!
Johnny Ringo (Tombstone, Michael Biehn): The ultimate western villain, he scoffs as Wyatt Earp's brother's funeral procession passes by, "Smell that, Bill? Smells like someone died."
Alonzo Harris (Training Day, Denzel Washington): Denzel needed to be on this list and his American Gangster Frank Lucas portrayal just had too many decent values. Alonzo Harris, Washington's oscar-winning role, has none.
Because no list is ever long enough, here are some Honorable Mentions:
Vincenzo Coccotti (True Romance, Chistopher Walken): Not enough screen time to fully qualify, but damn is Walken badass in the scene with Dennis Hopper.
General Hummel (The Rock, Ed Harris): Completely badass right up until the moment where his bluff is called and he fails to launch nerve gas on the city of San Francisco.
Jack Nicholson (The Joker in Batman; Col. Jessep in A Few Good Men; Frank Costello in The Departed): Jack gets an honorary "body of work" badass award for continuously entertaining us with evil characters, and for being Jack Nicholson.
Agree? Disagree? Vote for your favorite Bad Ass Bad Guy!
4 comments:
Good additions to the list...for the most part. If you read my intro closely, you will notice that I specifically excluded badass protagonists. For that reason, Tony Montana does not qualify.
Vincent is a great choice that slipped my mind. I considered Castor Troy, and you may have persuaded me, but you have to admit that he's way less badass in John Travolta's body than in Nic Cage's. In the same vein, I agree with you that Hummel is a badass until the moment that he chickens out at the end...which disqualifies him from my Top 10 list.
Speaking of "The Rock", any time you put Michael Biehn on a list of great performances, I'm going to have to go ahead and agree with you wholeheartedly.
I considered Jack Nicholson as Col. Jessep - another good choice. As the Joker...meh. As I said, I tried to avoid comic book movies because the performances are so over the top. The Joker is a little too "fagala" to be a badass in my book. And you know my feelings about The Departed, so I won't even go there wrt Frank Costello.
Haven't seen Training Day, so I can't comment on that character. Haven't seen True Romance in many years but it's on my movies to re-watch list.
Philosophically, I think we can agree to disagree on whether an emotionless bad guy like Chigurh is more or less badass than an over-the-top bad guy like Castor Troy, but it's definitely a good debate topic.
Montana may be the "protagonist" of Scarface, but he is still a bad ass and a bad guy. Hence, Montana is a Bad Ass Bad Guy.
Although the character of Castor Troy is pretty badass, I can never take Nic Cage seriously as a badass villain. Too goofy maybe... Tony Montana and Vincent def. though.
B, how badass is Tony Montana in the X-BOX SCARFACE compared to the movie? More badass or less?
Alec, i'd say Tony Montana is even more badass in the video game just because you control the character and you aren't restrained by a script or even the laws of physics. You can taunt, shoot, grenade and chainsaw people to your heart's content. Now, to be fair, the voice of Tony in the video game is not provided by Al Pacino. The guy sounds just like Pacino, but you still lose some badass points.
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