10 Beloved Movie Heroes Who Are Actually Trash

7. Paul Kersey - Death Wish

Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) is the undeniable figure-head of the revenge movie, having starred in five Death Wish films over the course of 20 years, with each new movie taking an increasingly absurd and less moralistic approach to notions of violence and vengeance.

Though the first Death Wish was a more pared-down movie about a man avenging his slain wife and raped daughter, the sequels increasingly saw Kersey basically begging urban "undesirables" to antagonise him so he could gun them down in hilariously brutal fashion.

There's inherent sympathy for Kersey in the original film, but with each passing sequel the motivating death/rape/whatever becomes less a vehicle to examine the effect violence has on a man and more an excuse for him to slaughter dozens of (often non-white) criminals.

It's all right-wing bait, of course, and to that demographic Kersey is an undeniable paragon for gun rights and the notion that "the only solution to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."

The clear relish Kersey takes at unleashing vigilante justice makes him rather tough to sympathise with, especially in a time where gun control is a more contentious political issue than ever.