When the criminals drive the story and the heroes react it is way easier to root for the bad guys instead. Even better is a movie in which the protagonist is straight-up villainous. Villains don’t always get a happy ending, whereas heroes usually do, increasing the uncertainty in the plot. Villains can get away with gutsy, downright disgusting actions that heroes can’t without losing audience respect.
In these five movies, the bad guys aren’t always the protagonists, but they are definitely the most interesting parts of their movies.
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) finds two million dollars in the aftermath of a drug deal gone bad, but is pursued by Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), a psychopathic hitman who would like the money back. Also features Tommy Lee Jones as a sheriff.
I guess, technically speaking, No Country for Old Men is an accomplished film. Each scene is tense and arresting, and each line is delivered with perfect nuance. Of note is Javier Bardem’s performance of the dead-eyed, merciless killer with an alien moral code. He asks a gas station attendant to flip a coin. They never say outright what’s at stake, but we know it’s not for a free tank of gas.
We know this because this is a bleak, bleak film about looking into the face of evil, and the characters go about their business largely without any hope at all. Like 1980s Texas, it is flat, hard, and desolate. That makes No Country for Old Men very difficult to watch. I found it riveting, and would not want to watch this again.
Bad Words (2013)
Jason Bateman is a 40-year old man who exploits a loophole to enter the national children’s spelling bee.
If you don’t mind that Jason Bateman plays an individual with unresolved issues expressing themselves as a vicious lack of sportsmanship, callousness towards his associates, and casual racism, Bad Words is bratty fun in the vein of Bad Santa. However, the protagonist is much more laconic, so much of the humour generation is relegated to his designated sidekick, the big-mouthed ingenue Chaitanya Chopra (Rohan Chand), whose parents leave him bereft of supervision under the pretense of building character and self-sufficiency. Oh, he builds character and self-sufficiency, all right. You can see the ending of Bad Words from a mile away.
There Will Be Blood (2007)
Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) is an oil tycoon who pits himself against preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano) while building an empire.
No Country for Old Men might have taken the Best Picture Oscar, but I feel that There Will Be Blood is infinitely more watchable. Where watching No Country for Old Men is like sitting in a flooded basement and watching a bare bulb on the ceiling flicker, There Will Be Blood is like watching a train veer off the rails towards a trailer park. And just as the media could not take their cameras off Britney Spears in 2007, I could not stop watching Plainview and Sunday as they escalated their conflict over the decades.
By the way – if you watch There Will Be Blood, Eli Sunday is the twin brother of Paul Sunday, and they are both played by Paul Dano.
Arbitrage (2012)
Robert Miller (Richard Gere) is trying to sell his hedge fund while concealing a $400 million hole in the books, but he accidentally kills his mistress in a car crash, complicating business proceedings somewhat.
There Will Be Blood was riveting because I wanted to watch Daniel Plainview and Eli Sunday utterly destroy each other, but Arbitrage commands attention through Robert Miller’s willingness to throw anyone and everyone under the bus while he escapes the law and closes the deal – and because he might pull it off. It helps that Robert is played by Richard Gere, he of Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride and the eternally trustworthy face that ages incredibly well. *swoon*
Life of Crime (2013)
A socialite (Jennifer Aniston) is kidnapped by a pair of bumbling conmen (Mos Def and John Hawkes) for ransom. Unfortunately, her husband (Tim Robbins) doesn’t give a damn, since he’s on the verge of divorcing her in favour of his mistress (Isla Fisher). The conmen struggle to recoup their losses. Also features Mark Boone Junior as a paranoid, gun-loving Nazi fanboy
Life of Crime features Jennifer Aniston in her best role since, oh, I don’t know. Her performance is careful, low-key, but inspires empathy for the aged socialite without being syrupy. The rest of the cast is reliably excellent.
Unfortunately, Life of Crime moves slowly. It can be frustrating to watch criminals bumble to and fro when their street smarts look more like Sesame Street. They can sling snide remarks and knowing glances all they want, but when your target’s husband’s mistress can hold you up on the phone, it’s time to consider a change of career.
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