Is there a gene for Evil? Or maybe do we turn wicked due to life’s circumstances? No; I’m not going to be serious. Not today. This was only a way to introduce today´s review on bad guys in films. Because, does anyone ever ask himself/herself why bad guys are like that? Perhaps we can give you some keys within the following lines.
Bad boys running wild
This is an unquestionable fact: Villains (especially the ones from the classic films) have the most defective weapons, the slowest horses, the most faulty vehicles and the most ineffable nicknames. It’s understandable that they are usually on the wrong track. I suppose that, if I were them, those incidences would make me really angry.
Truly, they are misunderstood people, with a great lack of affection. Even the clumsiest of the therapists who treated Woody Allen knows it. And that lack of affection confines them in several circles of distrust (they don’t trust their partners, their hired killers, their family, their guns, …).If this statement weren´t true, why then do they have that habit of locking the safety catch of their guns? Let’s explain it with an example based on a real situation (in fiction movies, of course).
The bad guy had shot twenty or thirty times against the hero, and finally succeeded to catch him. But when the villain is in this face-to-face situation, he (or she) surprises us with a strange act: He/she releases the safety catch, so as to increase the menacing effect (for a dramatic reason, I guess).
Ok. This means that in the lapse of time that went from the last of those thirty shots to the moment when he (or she) faced the hero, the villain had locked the safety catch! Only for precaution, I suppose! Am I not right when I say this bad guy is a pathological distrustful person?
That could also be the reason why villains frequently spend hours and hours yapping with the good guys, their Nemesis: they think the hero will understand them better (as you saw in M. Night Shyamalan’s “Unbreakable”). This strange need to yap must not justify that they innocently lower their guard. They tell the good guys their entire criminal curriculum, all of their plans and tricks, etc. Just remember our mythical Sideshow Bob (you’ll notice that, as in “The Simpsons”, he strikes back in “NAN” too). Oh! And of course, remember “Murder, she wrote”, the series captained by Miss Jessica Fletcher, in which we find the greatest cast of dummies with a need to confess everything.
Don’t you think villains have to take some kind of course about how to face up to a decisive confrontation with the hero? It would be a way to avoid embarrassing situations like (for example) the one seen in the cinematographic version of “S.W.A.T.”. In this film the bad guy, after having nailed Colin Farrel’s hand to a train wagon, just leaves the S.W.A.T. agent there. Naive guy! You fool! Did you think that Colin was going to stay and wait for someone to take him to ER? Prize idiot! Colin will chase you!
Well. The villains are often social dropouts that present serious affective shortages. He/she only wants to attract atention. In fact, some suits –like those which classical film noir gangsters often wear- won´t pass unnoticed in an identity parade. But how can they improve this situation, which only drives them to sociophaty? It’s simple: by watching more movies!