Top 10 Movie and TV Anti-Heroes Part 2: 7 and 6 (SPOILERS AHEAD)

(This is a continuation of this post.)

7. Tony Montana 

Appearances: Scarface

Created By: Oliver Stone

Portrayed By: Al Pacino

Real Name: Antonio Montana

Occupation: Former assassin, former sandwich maker, drug kingpin

No-Kill Policy?: Nope. Just don’t ask him to kill kids.

A cautionary tale for anybody planning to start a drug empire, Cuban ex-pat Tony Montana was one of 125 000 Cuban refugees who arrived in Miami during the infamous Mariel Boatlift (During which not only refugees who wanted to leave Cuba, but also hardened criminals were allowed to leave Cuba for Miami). He is sent to a refugee camp, but is released into Miami, Green Card in hand, after assassinating a former Cuban government official  for Miami drug lord Frank Lopez. The ambitious and ruthless Montana then begins a crime spree that will take him to the top of the Miami food chain (Of cocaine!)

At the bottom of the food chain? The cock-a-roaches, of course.

Al Pacino’s wonderful performance just elevated the audience’s enjoyment of the coke-addicted kingpin.With Pacino’s almost cartoonish Cuban accent, everything is just so damn QUOTABLE. Seriously, watch any fifteen minutes of Scarface and you’ll come away with whole paragraphs of the most wonderful dialogue. The movie may be almost three hours long, but just watching Tony Montana go about his antics is totally worth it, so much that even though he is a terrible human being, you end up rooting for him right until he ends up floating face-down in front of his “The World of Yours” statue.

6. Tyler Durden

Appearance: Fight Club 

Created By: Chuck Palahniuk

Portrayed By: Brad Pitt

Real Name: N/A

Occupation: Waiter, Soap maker, camera-man, revolutionary

 Fight Club has been possibly the biggest mindfuck of a movie that I have ever seen. Off the top of my head,  the only other movies that even come close to equaling the shock I felt while watching were The Sixth Sense and maybe Shutter Island, although the latter twist ending felt like more of a cop out, but I digress.

In Fight Club, a depressed, unmotivated and unnamed narrator (Played by Edward Norton) becomes incredibly bored with his  yuppie, white-collar lifestyle. However, that all  changes when he meets Tyler Durden, an incredibly charismatic, yet eccentric gutter punk who works several jobs, harming customers and sabotaging the various industries he works in. The two move in together and start a “Fight Club”, where ordinary, dissatisfied men got together to beat the shit out of each other, and occasionally commit sabotage against corporations and consumer society in general.

And sell… let’s call it “All-Organic” soap.

Tyler Durden may be insane, but he speaks a lot of truth. The extremely drastic lengths that he goes to to ensure that society are really not so much to hurt people, but to make people see how weak they have become thanks to the rampant commercialism that we see every day, and the consumer society that we have willfully lulled ourselves into becoming. He’s still crazy, obviously, but the best antagonists are the ones that we sort of agree with, and Tyler is no exception.

 

 I should have more posts up soon, since I’m on Christmas Break right now and want to get back into blogging regularly. It’s amazing how much time a part-time job takes up.

Since my last post…

• The Philippines continue to deal with the aftermath of typhoon Haiyan, which has affected 11 million people.
• The situation in Syria is still a total clusterfuck, with the Iranian Embassy in Lebanon being bombed by the fundamentalist Abdullah Azzam Shaheed Brigade. The good news, however, is that the UN is moving forward with the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons, meaning that both Bashar al-Assad and the Free Syrian Army can both haphazardly murder civilians without resorting to chemical weapons. Let freedom ring!
• The Saskatchewan Roughriders defeated the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 45-23 to win the 101st Grey Cup. Fuck you, this is news in Canada.
• A supermarket in Riga, Latvia collapsed, killing six and injuring 35.
• Everybody’s spying on everybody, with the NSA just generally being total assholes and spying on anybody with a pulse, and Australia and Canada spying on two known rogue nations, Indonesia and Brazil.

Although the pervert in me realizes the logic of setting up surveillance cameras in Brazil.

• The 50th anniversary of JFK’s murder came and went.
• Angola may or may not have illegalized the Islamic religion. Considering that Angola is not currently a smoking crater in the ground, I’m moderately sure the latter is the truth.
• Protests in the Ukraine rage on against the suspension of the European Union Association Agreement, and the rampant unemployment and corruption characteristic of post-Soviet republics. The Ukrainian police and government, being corrupt and trigger-happy, injure 165-244 Ukrainians.
• The Hunger Games: Catching Fire becomes the biggest North American November film release, grossing $161 million in the U.S. and Canada over its first weekend. The movie’s amazing. Go see it.
• Ian Watkins, the frontman of Welsh rock band LostProphets, pleads guilty at Cardiff Crown Court  to attempted rape and sexual assault of a child under 13, but not guilty to rape. This was accepted by the prosecution. He further pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual assault involving children and six involving taking, making or possessing indecent images of children and one of possessing an extreme pornographic image involving a sex act on an animal. Watkins’ victims included a baby. The world is a dark, unfeeling, evil place, kids!
• The Canadian  Prime Minister’s Office is all but proven guilty of bribing senators. What is this, Ukraine or something?
• The Fast and the Furious actor Paul Walker is killed in a car crash. Pointing out the irony of the previous statement, while humorous, does not make you any less of an asshole.
• The Thai Prime Minister is forced into hiding by anti-government protests.
• Gay marriage is outlawed in Croatia, with 65 per cent voting for illegalizing it. 65 per cent of Croatians suck.
• Holy crap, a nuclear deal between Iran and everybody else was signed! (Nobody tell them about Argo)
• Xavier Bettel becomes the first openly gay prime minister of Luxembourg.
• Unidentified militants murder 52 people in Sana’a, Yemen.
• Oh. Right. Lest we forget, Canada’s biggest city has a morbidly obese alcoholic crackhead for a mayor.