the action movie The genre usually focuses more on action than an in-depth story, with morals often pretty black and white, but these eight action films feature a hero who is actually a villain. While there are plenty of morally questionable heroes that have graced the silver screen throughout the history of cinema, it’s rare for a movie to have a morally reprehensible character as a hero. However, some notable action films delve into the pattern of blurring the line between hero and antagonist, showing heroes much closer to villains than many viewers would like to admit.
Heroes in action movies are often portrayed as infallible heroes, with the mold of action movie heroes often pulled from films such as Die hardAnd Mission: Impossibleand the James Bond series. While these are good movies, it’s always more interesting when movies decide to play with moral dynamics, allowing the main characters to feel like real people. Sometimes, however, action movies go further, having heroes who are outright villains. While these films are few and far between, these eight action films are the most striking examples of movie heroes who are actually villains.
Dirty Harry
Dirty Harry One of Clint Eastwood’s most iconic films, the film follows a rogue cop trying to take down a dangerous killer infamous as the Zodiac Killer. As a police officer, Dirty Harry is supposed to follow a strict code of conduct, but he breaks almost every one of those rules. Harry violates civil rights, abuses prisoners, kills when not needed, and more. The police department disciplines Harry throughout the film, however Dirty Harry In fact, he treats Harry’s vigilante justice as a good thing, making him an extremely unsavory character despite his actions being portrayed as good.
Kill Bill
Kill BillThe Bride is purportedly the heroine of the film, but that’s really only because she’s the least evil of the vicious group of killers known as the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. The bride’s quest for revenge is justified, as she was horribly abused by Belle, but that doesn’t clean up the list of all the terrible deeds she’s done. The Bride has killed countless people before and during the events of Kill Bill, with many of these murders in unnecessarily gruesome ways. While the bride apparently wants to be a better person for her daughter, that doesn’t excuse her from the horrible things she does.
Raging Bull
Jake LaMotta is supposed to be the protagonist Raging Bull, with the film chronicling his journey as he takes down several strong boxers. However, Jake is far from a good person. Raging Bull is a tragedy, portraying Jake LaMotta as a man who had everything only to have those around him fall apart because of his poor decisions. Jake LaMotta’s involvement with the mob, jealousy, violence, anger issues, and disregard for his family paint the character as a pretty unsavory person, although many viewers manage to miss these themes, they do see Raging Bull Like a simple boxing movie.
Robocop
Like many other Paul Verhoeven films, Robocop An action movie and satire at the same time, the film presents the titular cyborg as the hero in tongue-in-cheek fashion. Robocop It satirizes both the American police state and capitalism, with RoboCop being the film’s prime example of why it is dangerous to privatize the police. Robocop is brutal and painless, allowing OCP and the Detroit Police Department to police the city in a disgusting way. While Alex Murphy is right to want to bring down Clarence Bodecker, once Murphy becomes RoboCop, there’s really no redeeming character.
Blade Runner
Continuing a theme in this list, Blade Runner It follows an LAPD police officer named Rick Deckard who is tasked with removing several replicants, humanoid androids used as slaves in the distant future. While Deckard sticks to his mission, Blade Runner is all about the blurry line between man and machine, with Deckard learning the error of his ways throughout the film. Despite this, Deckard still deactivates all replicants he was tasked with removing, making him an agent of Blade RunnerLAPD Holism. while Blade Runner 2049 He tries to retrieve Deckard, as he is definitely a villain in the original movie.
sideways
sideways is an incredibly tense film, with Tom Cruise’s villainous performance as Vincent often considered to be among his best roles. Whereas Vincent is definitely an antagonist sidewaysMax (Jamie Foxx), the movie’s protagonist, isn’t that much of a hero either. Although Max begins to have to push Vincent to his various killing spree, Max soon finds himself drawn in, seeming to enjoy the moment when he has to pretend to be Vincent at the nightclub. Max had many opportunities to stop Vincent’s killing spree, but chose not to take it every time, resulting in the loss of many innocent lives.
Suicide Squad
because of Suicide Squad Being about a black ops team of supervillains, the movie obviously has heroes who are actually villains. Bloodsport, Harley Quinn, Ratcatcher II, Peacemaker, Polka-Dot Man, and the rest of the team have all done horrible things that have led them to Task Force X. Although the characters are sympathetic, they show repeatedly throughout the movie that they have no respect for human life, As if they enjoy killing people. Most of the characters in Suicide Squad Long to get out of jail so they can continue their villainous tendencies, with literally all of them being referred to as villains throughout the Crime Controller.
guards
guards is a blockbuster movie of a misunderstood hero, in which Rorschach is clearly supposed to be a bad guy despite playing the hero. Rorschach is a parody of Batman, showcasing all the far-right fascist tendencies that comic writer Alan Moore wanted to poke fun at. However, many readers viewed Rorschach as a true hero, and he missed all objective criticism of the comic and the movie. guards It is one of the best examples of action movie His hero is actually the villain, with Rorschach villainy going over the heads of many audience members.
