10 Dumbest Villain Plans In Movies
7. Jerry Ransoms His Own Wife - Fargo
The Coen brothers' legendary Fargo wrings much of its dark comedy from how spectacularly Jerry Lundegaard's (William H. Macy) plan to ransom his own wife, Jean (Kristin Rudrüd), backfires.
Jerry, a car salesman who is desperate for money, decides to hire two criminals, Carl and Gaear (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare), to kidnap Jean in order to extort a ransom from her wealthy father.
But it all blows up quite hilariously in Jerry's face. For starters, Carl and Gaear are violently unpredictable criminals who soon enough find themselves in hot water when they kill a state trooper and two witnesses.
This also later leads to the deaths of both Jean and Jean's father, while Jerry is left with nothing and eventually arrested, in turn depriving his son of all his closest family members.
While Jerry's so pathetically inept as to be somewhat sympathetic, it's still a mesmerisingly stupid plan on his part, as though he watched a few too many true crime documentaries and figured it couldn't possibly be that hard to stage a kidnapping.