10 Dumbest Villains In Movie History
5. The Sheriff Of Nottingham - Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves (1991)
In this story, the absence of Richard The Lionheart (overseas fighting in the Crusades) has left a power vacuum in England, because of course the King left no one important in charge while he was gone. The Sheriff of the Nottinghamshire has built upon his considerable political influence to have himself apparently running half the country in Richard's absence.
Let's skip over the fact that the Sheriff's response to his taxes being stolen and redistributed to the oppressed poor is to oppress the oppressed poor even further. After all, a peasant revolt caused by overtaxation and institutional brutality is certainly likely to be quelled by more of the same. No, that's bog standard idiocy, practiced by half the governments the world has ever seen. Chip shop stuff. What the Sheriff has planned is far more moronic; he intends to have himself married to Richard's cousin Marion, thus inserting himself into the royal succession and making him one of the people in line to the throne should the King fail to return from his depredations abroad.
It's sinister, but not exactly evil genius level sinister. After all, his attempts to charm his way into Marion's pants don't exactly go according to plan, the Sheriff having the personal magnetism of a lizard dressed in an oily rag. With his castle under siege by the peasant rebellion and himself inches from death by Robin Hood, the Sheriff still attempts to have his plan succeed. He aims to have the corrupt Bishop marry him to Marion against her will, while he's in the process of forcibly attempting to father a child on her that will consolidate the marriage and his claim to the throne.
A plan involving the forced marriage and subsequent rape of the King's cousin while his forces are put to the sword immediately outside his door? It sounds like a plan a demented witch would come up with. And of course, that's exactly what it is, our dear Sheriff consorting with an insane, blind hag who seems to have come up with the whole thing while off her wrinkly face on wormwood. Lets not even begin to think about how he would have explained all of this to the political and ecclesiastical authorities even if the Lionheart was killed in the war; he certainly had no plan for dealing with the King should he return unscathed from the Holy Land. We love Alan Rickman as much as anyone, but the Sheriff is a buffoon.