Magnificent Bastard/Film: Difference between revisions

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* Hayley Stark in ''[[Hard Candy]]'' is an extremely gifted teenage girl, who uses her intellect to lure out pedophiles, rapist and murderers. Hayley gets them into a false sense of security making them believe she is a naive young girl, before tearing into to them both physically and emotionally, then driving them to suicide. Upon luring out Jeff, Hayley tears into him so bad that she pushes him into the Five Stages of Grief, until finally calling his alleged former hookup, Janelle, and threatening to play the victim card in front of her unless Jeff kills himself.

* Though possibly more of a [[Guile Hero]], Danny Ocean from ''[[Ocean's Eleven]]'' exemplifies the protagonist angle of this trope. A persuasive, imaginative, charismatic and highly organized professional criminal with an impeccable sense of style, Danny Ocean pulls off an impressive [[Plan]]; robs the central vault of three casinos ''and'' gets his ex-wife to break off her relationship with the antagonist.

* John Dillinger from ''[[Public Enemies]]''. There's a reason he's so hard to catch. The guy pulls off heist after heist on guarded banks while leading his gang, never losing his gentlemanly exterior and refusal to rob civilians that makes him a folk hero to many. Upon being arrested thanks to a fire at his hotel, Dillinger carves a wooden pistol and uses it to take the guards hostage, bluffing his way to freedom where he resumes his usual activities and remains one step ahead of the law the whole way through. Dillinger at one point even strolls into a police station wearing a disguise just to ask the cops the score to a baseball game out of sheer audacity, repeatedly showing that as one man against the federal government, he usually has the advantage.

* John Dillinger from ''[[Public Enemies]]''. There's a reason he's so hard to catch.

** If you were to read the history of his real-life counterpart, he was arguably more awesome than the film depiction.

** Also from another Michael Mann crime film, Neil McCaulay from ''[[Heat]]''. Pulling off a daring heist against an armored car to steal bearer bonds and then sell them back to their original owner, things go wrong when the psychotic Waingro executes a guard and escapes Neil's attempt to kill him in retribution. Neil then plans a masterful bank heist, executing it almost flawlessly if not for Waingro and his arch-nemesis Steve van Zant tipping off the cops. After losing his friends and comrades, Neil even forsakes a chance to get to safety in order to avenge them by killing van Zant and Waingro before facing off with his nemesis, LAPD cop Vincent Hanna with whom he shares an incredible respect despite being on the opposite ends of the law.

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* Senator / Chancellor / Emperor Palpatine from ''[[Star Wars]]''. Sith-ness notwithstanding, he managed to shape the entire galaxy in his image, had manipulated every major event for the past two decades or so, and had kept everyone assured of his respectability and trustworthiness while doing so. As he declared himself ruler-for-life (and was ''applauded'' by the Senate for doing so) he could justifiably claim to have earned it. And his start to political prominence was over a seemingly minor trade dispute. Which he started. Manages to be both this and a [[Complete Monster]], since it helps [[Ambition Is Evil|he's motivated by pure ambition.]]

** While he does get defeated [[Evil Cannot Comprehend Good|due to not realising Vader cares for his son more than his duty]], he still manages to have absolute authority for ''twenty-five years.'' Not just that, but he's the first Sith Lord in their ''five thousand-year history''

* In the ''[[Saw]]'' films, John Kramer aka the Jigsaw Killer was a law-abiding civil engineer before losing his unborn son, becoming estranged from his wife, and being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in quick succession. Jigsaw uses his skills and intellect to become a prolific Serial Killer, designing elaborate death traps and picking his victims on the basis of their perceived lack of gratitude for the blessing of life. Fostering multiple protegés, only some of whom are even aware of each other, Jigsaw blackmails a hospital orderly to impersonate him to allay suspicion, manages to escape from police custody by manipulating the lead detective responsible for capturing him, uses his more devoted followers as back-up insurance against those who do not follow his teachings properly, and is responsible for schemes planned so far in advance that he continues to effect events even a decade after his death.

* Tony Wendice in ''[[Dial M for Murder]]''. After discovering his wife Margot is cheating on him, he creates a complex plan to kill her while arranging a perfect alibi for himself and mentally punishing the man who cuckolded him at the same time. When Margot proves more resilient than he expected and kills the man he blackmailed into doing the deed, he only needs a few minutes to come up with a new plan to make it appear that she committed the act in cold blood. Even when his scheme is in danger of being exposed, he is quickly able to come up with a new way to turn the situation to his advantage. And finally when against all odds his whole plot is exposed, he turns out to be one of the all time great [[Graceful Loser|Graceful Losers]], pouring wine for everyone who had a hand in finding him out (except a cop who he notes is still on duty).

* Leslie Vernon, from ''Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon''. He's an aspiring spree killer (in the vein of Jason Vorhees and Freddy Krueger, as the movie is a big [[Deconstructor Fleet]] of slasher films) who is chosen to be the subject of a documentary that the main character, Taylor Gentry, is making. She eventually becomes great friends with Leslie, who turns out to be [[Manipulative Bastard|quite charismatic]]. Then, {{spoiler|she is surprised when he does go through with the killings, his chosen victims trapped in a mansion that he pretreated to be lethal. She decides to help, but when she goes into the mansion, she realizes Leslie's real plan: she and her crew were also intended to be his victims, and [[Unwitting Pawn|they're playing right into his hands.]] Finally, she is the [[Final Girl|last victim left]], and manages to kill him in exactly the way he said the final girl would. Unfortunately, [[The Chessmaster|he planned this the whole time, taking the preparations required to fake his own death...]]}}

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* Kuwabatake Sanjuro from ''[[Yojimbo]]''. Not only does he play two rival gangs like fiddles, causing them both to collapse with little suspicion drawn to himself, he's able to turn {{spoiler|his capture, which he didn't plan}} to his advantage.

* The enigmatic, philosophical [[Villain Protagonist]] of ''[[Collateral]]'', "Vincent", is a ruthless yet suave [[Professional Killer]], tasked with eliminating witnesses to the crimes of drug lord Felix Reyes-Torrena. Bribing taxi driver Max Durocher to unwittingly assist him, Vincent has Max transport him while he murders his targets. [[Affably Evil|Genuinely affable]], Vincent respectfully listens to the story of a jazz club owner before offing him and visits Max's sick mother in the hospital, even bringing her flowers. Adapting when Max destroys the files on his targets, Vincent has Max retrieve a new copy from Felix, both keeping his anonymity and leading the police to mistakenly believe Max is him. Fatally wounded by Max while hunting his last target, Vincent chooses to [[Face Death with Dignity|calmly accept his fate]], giving Max some parting words before passing.

* In ''[[Sympathy for Lady Vengeance]]'', Lee Geum-ja once took the fall for murder for her older lover Mr. Baek, who threatened to murder her daughter if she refused. Geum-ja spends over a decade in prison, cultivating a reputation as a kind-hearted saint who does favors for everyone, even giving a kidney for a woman who needs an operation. Geum-ja also poisons the rapist prison bully, and upon being released sets about getting revenge on Baek. Calling on all her favors and finding her daughter, she manipulates Baek to his capture and discovers he is a serial child killer. To deal with him, she allows the parents of his victims to torture him to death, and insure equal complicity so that none of them will talk without implication themselves.

* ''Target'' (2018 film): Raditya Dika's friend, Hifdzi Khoir, is the mastermind behind the suffering of Dika and his other friends. Kidnapping the wife of a master hypnotist, he forces the hypnotist into playing as the patsy of his schemes. Seemingly a Butt-Monkey for much of the film, he pretends to suffer injuries to force his friends into being contestants in the decoy mastermind's game. Saving the survivors from the decoy mastermind, he reveals himself to be the one pulling the strings, making off safely after playing his friends. Though Hifdzi showed he was a callous manipulator, his whole scheme was done to honor his late father and show his disgust for what he sees as deceit in modern movies studios fabricating their stories.

* Harry Lime from ''[[The Third Man]]''. "Victims? Don't be melodramatic. Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax--the only way you can save money nowadays." And he's played by Orson Welles.

* ''[[Unbreakable]]'': Elijah Price, aka "Mr. Glass", was born with a genetic disease that causes his bones to be exceptionally brittle. After seeking solace in comic books handed him by his mother, he sets out to fulfill his life's purpose by becoming a supervillain and finding his heroic counterpart. He orchestrates several large-scale disasters such as train wrecks, hotel fires, and blowing up passenger planes, until he finally finds a miraculous Sole Survivor in David Dunn. Elijah proceeds to stalk David and his family, subtly manipulating him into fulfilling his destiny as a superhero until David answers his calling and saves several lives. Only then does Elijah knowingly expose his machinations to David, revealing David's new friend to in fact be his ultimate arch-nemesis, an [[Evil Genius]] who managed to kill hundreds while remaining undetected and was able to hide his true nature even from the hero.

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* Ms. White from ''[[Inside Man]]''. She's apparently made a career (or at least a lucrative hobby) of pulling strings and doing favors for the rich and powerful, so she can demand return favors in her own time. Early in the film, after she extracts a demand from the Mayor, all he can say to her is, "You are a magnificent cunt."

** Dalton Russell would also classify. He takes a bank hostage and creates a foolproof plan to achieve his objective (hint: it's not robbing the bank) while escaping by literally walking out of the front door. Keith Frazier's entry into the plot doesn't even faze him. Russell merely [[Xanatos Speed Chess|modifies his existing plan]] and turns Frazier into [[Batman Gambit|an unknowing accomplice]].

* In ''[[The Name of the Rose]]'', Jorge De Burgos is a blind, elder monk wholly convinced that mankind's salvation lies in complete obedience to God. Abhorring the ancient literature contained in the labyrinth beneath the abbey for what he perceives as its blasphemous humor, Jorge uses a book with a poisoned page to kill several monks who had knowledge of the secret library, which prompts the Abbey to call for the Jesuit William of Baskerville to investigate the mysterious deaths. When William eventually discovers the library, Jorge tries to trick William into touching the poisoned book, and when this fails, eats the poisoned pages himself and sets fire to the library, ensuring Christendom's supremacy for centuries to come.

* Little Bill Daggett of ''[[Unforgiven]]''. Play by his rules while in town, particularly by handing over your means of defending yourself, and he's smiling, affable, and friendly; charming, really. Cross him, however, and he'll first put you in a position where you can't fight back and then beat you within an inch of your life or kill you outright for sheer fun. He even has a speech mid-way through detailing that what makes him formidable isn't speed or skill so much as his willingness to stand his ground and count on his manipulation of the odds where other people would piss themselves with fear. He also has a speech detailing that what makes him formidable is that he takes the time to aim '''THE''' trait that makes all formidable gunfighters formidable to this day.

* The Merovingian from ''[[The Matrix]]'' seems to fit the trope closer than Agent Smith. The Frenchman is cultured and honourable in keeping his promises, but he is still a bastard. His magnificence is mostly hinted at but he has colourful henchmen, a hot wife that he cheats on, digital love potions, an underground railroad, legions of minions, a chateau in the mountains etc.

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** The scene at the end, where his coworkers discover that {{spoiler|he was never married, and he's been lying to all of them for years just for the hell of it}}, cements it.

** The best intelligence agencies in the world don't even know his ''birthday''

* ady Kaede is the true villain of the film ''[[Ran]]''. Desiring revenge against Hidetora and the Ichimonji clan for slaughtering her family years ago, Kaede convinces her husband, Hidetora's eldest son Taro, to usurp his father and war against his brother Jiro. Upon Taro's death, she effortlessly seduces Jiro, convinces him to kill his wife and then manipulates him into disastrous strategies that bring the Ichimonji to ruin. When Jiro's general Kurogane confronts her when the battle is lost, Kaede calmly admits to everything, showing absolutely no fear of dying with her ultimate goals achieved.

* One of the most dynamic villains of 80s action cinema, Damon Killian of ''[[The Running Man]]'' is a smiling, charming game show host who runs and created the "Running Man" where criminals are hunted down by the state sanctioned "Stalkers". With enough power to blackmail even the dystopian government itself, Killian forces them to give him The Hero Ben Richards for the game and tricks him into participating willingly, also throwing Richards' friends into the game as Killian plays the crowd against Richards and the rest even while upping the ante to finish them off. Having any supposed winners of the show secretly murdered, Killian in effect controls the population through his shows, and when Richards threatens he will be back before being launched in the game, Killian's only response? "Only in a rerun".

* Crop-duster turned bank robber, the titular ''Charley Varrick'' disguises himself as an injured old man to discreetly complete his theft. Discovering the money he stole belonged to The Mafia, Varrick suggests to his friend, Harman, that they lay low, avoiding spending it for four years, to avoid suspicion. When Harman's avarice leads to him spending, Varrick double-crosses him by swapping their dental records and forging a passport to confuse the hitman sent after them. Acting friendly to the corrupt bank president, Varrick leads the hitman to believe they are associates, resulting in the president being killed. Tricking the hitman into trying to retrieve the money from a car he rigged to explode, Varrick kills him, getting away clean.

* ''Following'': Cobb is ordered by a gangster (The Bald Guy) to kill one of his former lovers after she started blackmailing him, then notices that a stranger (the Writer) has been following him. He plays the Writer for a complete fool, implicating himself in the murder Cobb is planning under the guise of teaching him the art of burglary. He pretends to be working with the Blonde to implicate the Writer for another murder. He reveals he's working for the Bald Guy, kills the Blonde with the same weapon the Writer used earlier in another burglary, then disappears into thin air to let the Writer take the fall.

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* Tyler Durden from ''[[Fight Club]]''. Much like Keyzer Soze, his status will not become clear until the first viewing of the film is done.

* Bricktop from ''[[Snatch]]'', is really a near miss. He doesn't do much for convoluted planning, but he's a [[Complete Monster]] who nonetheless is [[Laughably Evil|quite funny]], carries himself ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3qy4Zv4snI and gives speeches]) with style, is ruthless and willing to kill anyone in a second, and generally always seems to have control of the situation and be one step ahead of other characters. (For example take the following scene: Turkish has failed to come through on a favor to Bricktop and cost Bricktop a lot of money. Turkish runs back to his office, hoping he can get to his safe where he has enough money to flee Bricktop. Bricktop and his goons are already waiting there, they catch Turkish by surprise and [[No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine|have a surprisingly civilized conversation]] where Bricktop tells Turkish what Turkish will have to do in order to make things right, all while Turkish expects Bricktop to kill him at any moment. Then, just before leaving, Bricktop stops on his way out the door and says "Now, I know you came back here to open your safe" * Bricktop pushes aside a picture hiding the safe* "Well, now you can open it." The next scene begins with Bricktop counting all of Turkish's savings as he walks out to the car, knowing that he's left Turkish no escape and now virtually owns Turkish). Unfortunately, Bricktop's lack of planning comes back to bite him in the end, as he is badly, badly, [[Out-Gambitted]] by the movie's resident [[Wild Card|Wild Cards]].

* In ''Wild Things'', Suzie Toller is a teenage girl from the wrong side of the tracks, masking her genius-level intellect by appearing as white trash. After one of her best friends was murdered by corrupt cop Ray Duquette, who then busted her on a bogus charge, Suzie vowed revenge. She hatches a plot wherein Suzie, her guidance counselor Sam Lombardo and Kelly Van Ryan, the rich girl Sam was sleeping with, are able to con Kelly's mother Sandra Van Ryan out of millions of dollars by having both girls falsely accuse Sam of rape, then cracking on the stand and opening the Van Ryans to a countersuit. Suzie also ordered Sam to draw Ray Duquette into the scheme by convincing him that he and Sam would get rid of both girls and split the money between the two of them instead of three-ways. After multiple betrayals and counter-betrayals and even faking her own death, at the end Suzie is the only conspirator left standing: a high-school drop-out responsible for several murders with a fortune safely stored away in an overseas account.

* In ''[[Wild Things]]'', Suzie Toller is a teenage girl from the wrong side of the tracks, masking her genius-level intellect by appearing as white trash. After one of her best friends was murdered by corrupt cop Ray Duquette, who then busted her on a bogus charge, Suzie vowed revenge. She hatches a plot wherein Suzie, her guidance counselor Sam Lombardo and Kelly Van Ryan, the rich girl Sam was sleeping with, are able to con Kelly's mother Sandra Van Ryan out of millions of dollars by having both girls falsely accuse Sam of rape, then cracking on the stand and opening the Van Ryans to a countersuit. Suzie also ordered Sam to draw Ray Duquette into the scheme by convincing him that he and Sam would get rid of both girls and split the money between the two of them instead of three-ways. After multiple betrayals and counter-betrayals and even faking her own death, at the end Suzie is the only conspirator left standing: a high-school drop-out responsible for several murders with a fortune safely stored away in an overseas account.

* The original working title for ''[[The Good, the Bad and the Ugly|The Good the Bad And The Ugly]]'' was ''The Three Magnificent Rogues''. If we assume 'rogues' is, here, an [[Unusual Euphemism]] for 'Bastards', it's a much more accurate description of the film's contents than ''The Good, The Bad and The Ugly'' ever was.

* Lee Woo-jin from ''[[Oldboy]]'' is this, through and through. Imprisoning Oh Dae-su for 15 years was only the ''start'' of his plan to ruin his life.

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*** Loki's status as a Magnificent Bastard is solidified in ''[[The Avengers (film)|The Avengers]]'' when he kicks off the film by opening a portal, stealing the Tesseract, killing about a dozen people, and [[Brainwashed and Crazy|taking control of the minds]] of {{spoiler|Hawkeye and Selvig}}. He later reveals his plot to seize control of Earth--all fueled by a [[Disproportionate Retribution|personal vendetta]] against Thor.

*** And in ''Thor: The Dark World'', Loki goes from {{spoiler|being confined to a jail cell, hated by all, never to see his mother in person again, for the rest of his very long life to the King of Asgard, having faked his own death and taken on Odin's countenance. As a result, he now possesses the Tesseract again!}} Bravo, Loki - you little shit!

** ''Captain America: Civil War'': Helmut Zemo proves his stripes as one of the greatest manipulators of the franchise. Overcome with grief over losing his family during the Avengers battle with Ultron, Zemo decides to enact vengeance against them. Knowing he is no match for them in strength, Zemo instead devises an intricate plan to break them up. Launching an attack on a UN conference, Zemo frames Bucky Barnes for the attack which starts a manhunt against him. After Bucky is captured, Zemo impersonates a UN interrogator to activate Bucky's Trigger Phrase which will put him under his control to give him information on the death of Tony Stark's parents. Finally, Zemo leaks this ruse to the media, counting on Tony Stark following Cap and Bucky to the Hydra compound in Siberia so he can accomplish his real plan: show Tony evidence that Bucky killed his parents, causing him to fly into a murderous rage and attack Bucky and Captain America, permanently fracturing the Avengers in a way they may never fully recover from. By the end, in spite of being captured by T'Challa, Zemo still accomplishes what he wanted and gracefully accepts his capture and even offers to let T'Challa kill him to avenge the death of his father. Zemo stands out in a world full of super-powered beings, aliens, sorcerers and cosmic entities with only his intelligence and able to cement himself as one of the work's most successful villain, being the man who broke the Avengers.

** ''Spider-Man Homecoming'': Adrian Toomes was once a hard working man who made a living salvaging Chitauri technology from [[The Incident]]. After having his occupation taken by Damage Control, he became a career criminal, taking the moniker The Vulture, and turning what was left of his salvaging company into an underground arms dealership, that would steal said technology and sell it to criminals. Toomes made sure not to leave any evidence for government officials to track his operations, while also making sure they aren't too big so that the Avengers won't view them as a threat; This process worked great for Toomes and his criminal business lasted for eight years without any problems. However, when he does face a problem in Spider-Man he isn't afraid to fight Spider-Man himself on several occasions; Spider-Man barely manages to survive those encounters with him. He is also able to uncover Spider-Man's civilian identity, Peter Parker, simply by analyzing Peter's behavior, and finds an opportunity to intimidate Peter from interfering with his operations. When this fails he sends The Shocker to distract Peter and later fights him for the final time so he wouldn't foil Toomes' latest heist job. Although threatening to kill Peter and his loved ones, its shown that Toomes greatly respects him, showing gratitude for saving his daughter's life, as well as his own, by not selling out his [[Secret Identity]] in prison, cementing Adrian Toomes as one of the most honorable, yet cunning foes in the films.

* Gene Hackman's Herod from ''[[The Quick and the Dead]]''. This magnificent bastard not only holds an entire town hostage as his own little kingdom, once killed a group of priests who nursed him back to health and burned down their mission, {{spoiler|shoots and kills a boy who loves and looks up to him as a father}}, {{spoiler|and was the man who forced a small girl (the protagonist) to accidentally shoot and kill her own father as she attempted to shoot through his hangman's noose (Y'know, for kids!)}}, but he also hosts an annual picnic-and-quick-draw competition where anybody who wants to take a shot at him (literally) can do so (and most likely end up dead for the effort), all with an eat-your-heart-out smirk on his mug the whole time!

* While we're talking about Hackman, the man whose best roles are MB roles, let's not forget Mr. Royal Tenenbaum, Esq. of Wes Anderson's film of same name. A rotten husband who refuses to give his wife the divorce she requests, who worms his way back into the affections of his children and estranged wife by {{spoiler|faking cancer}}, who is likely 90% responsible for the failures of his prodigious offspring, who introduces his adopted daughter as "my adopted daughter," who shot his own son (while on the same team, a fact he cavalierly dismisses) with a BB gun, and who starts a fight with the estranged wife's new beau by using antiquated racial epithets is still, somehow, {{spoiler|mourned when he dies at the end of the film}}! A breathtaking and awe-inspiring bastardy magnificence.

* Lamar Burgess of ''[[Minority Report]]'' is the director and founder of the Precrime program, which uses premonitions extracted from three telepathic humans to predict and prevent all murder within the Washington D.C. area. However, at the same time Burgess is cunning enough to have literally made a career out of faking out Precrime; first by disguising Anne Lively's murder as an "echo", then by disguising all three visions of Crow's death as brown balls by putting the plan in action while Anderton was at the office, ensuring that he would either be arrested immediately or run, so when Crow would be found with the [[Orgy of Evidence]] that could lead Anderton to murder him, it looked planned by Anderton. When Federal Agent Danny Witwer catches on to him, Burgess promptly murders him, knowing that the system being deactivated will allow him to get away with it. The only thing Burgess couldn't see coming was Anderton figuring out everything in time to tell it all to his wife, even if he wasn't free to act on the information himself. However, even when his plot is exposed and faced with the impossible choice of either killing Anderton and going to prison or letting him live and discredit Precrime, Burgess manages to go out on his own terms by killing himself instead.

* Tom Reagan from ''[[Miller's Crossing]]'' is a rare protagonist example as he plays both sides in a mob war to make sure his boss comes out on top. {{spoiler|It works.}}

* Gordon Gekko is a notorious [[Magnificent Bastard]] in both ''[[Wall Street]]'' and it's sequel. So much so that he made several real life audience members believe "greed is good."

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*** Dominic Greene. He fools the entire world by posing as friendly environmentalist, tricks Americans into helping Quantum couping Bolivian government for supposedly "oil" rights, and, ''[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|finally and the most terrifyingly]]'', totally rips Medrano off when the General disagrees with water contract. Should ''[[Paranoia Fuel|the General backs off, he'd wake up with his balls on his mouth]]'', and ''[[We Are Everywhere|his willing replacement stands over him]]''. Medrano is just dumbfounded.

* ''[[Wonder Woman]]'' (2017): The God of War, Ares, once wiped out his fellow gods when they quarreled over Ares' wish to eliminate humanity. Surviving while injured and crippled, Ares instead plays on humanity's own preexisting prejudices and fears to sway them to destroy themselves, giving humans ideas for weapons and helping to manufacture peace that he knows they can't keep, setting the stage and giving them the matches to burn it down. When he reveals himself to Diana, Ares elaborates on his methods, also wishing Diana to join him to wipe out humanity and make the world a paradise.