10 Movie Character Reveals Which Stopped You Dead

You can never underestimate the effect a character can have on a film. A good one can elevate a mediocre or even a bad movie to a new level, while a bad one can have quite the reverse effect. There is no point in telling a story about someone an audience isn't going to care about, because by extension they won't care about the story itself.

However, once that connection is there, once a viewer is hooked on a character, a movie can exploit that emotion with a shock coming completely out of left field. An unexpected twist that could mean everything you thought you knew about someone was a complete and utter lie.

These revelations can come in many different forms, from supposed heroes in truth being villains, Character A actually being Character B's [Insert Family Connection Here], or even someone having been dead throughout the entire movie. 

Now, the twist in The Sixth Sense is one of the most famous in cinematic history, and just isn't ground that needs retreading here. Similarly, spoiler alert, you're not going to read about Darth Vader being Luke Skywalker's father. However, these 10 twists are just as ridiculous, and left plenty of jaws on the floor.

Needless to say, spoilers to follow.

As far as pitching a movie goes, you wouldn't have to go much further than having Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley as rival crime bosses to grab the interest of most people. Add in Bruce Willis as something of a third-party interest of both, plus Lucy Liu, Stanley Tucci, Josh Hartnett, and a huge twist, and you've got yourself a picture.

The story starts with something of a history lesson, in which a character by the name of Max bet on a fixed horse race that ultimately went wrong. The new mafia outfit in town, to make an impression, ordered Max, his wife, and his son Henry to be killed. 

When Hartnett's Slevin Kelevra gets dragged into the middle of his roommate's gambling problems, it seems at first that he's an innocent bystander in the wrong place at the wrong time, until the game-changing reveal that he was really Henry, Max's son, who hitman Bruce Willis decided to keep alive after a bout of compassion.

The mobsters that killed Max were The Boss (Freeman) and The Rabbi (Kingsley), which consequently saw Henry engineer all of the events in the story to be able to kill them both. It's a genius example of the Kansas City Shuffle that Bruce Willis explains in the opening scenes, it's all about misdirection and there's not an audience member watching that wouldn't have fallen for it.