1. Jerry Lundegaard (Fargo)
Gramercy PicturesJerry Lundegaard is a regular fellow trying to masquerade as a criminal in a bid to not only escape his hopelessly dull life as a car salesman but also to generate some cash which we are told he is in desperate need of (though we never find out why he finds himself in this predicament). To enter the world of criminality which is so alien to him, Jerry persuades a dubious friend to introduce him to actual criminals Carl Showalter and Gaear Grimsrud. Though this pair are plenty incompetent in their own right, they are also extremely dangerous which prevents them being considered for this list. In the Coens trademark ultra-gory style we see Gaear feeding the corpse of his ex-partner Carl whom he murdered after the pair had an altercation into a wood chipper. Jerrys master plan is that the two men he has employed will kidnap his wife, Jean, and ransom her to his wealthy father-in-law and boss for a hefty sum. Of course he has promised the two actual criminals half the kitty but he has told them the ransom is $80,000 when in fact he sets it at $1,000,000. As the narrative of the Coens darkly hilarious film progresses it becomes clear that Jerry who also proves to be a very poor car salesman has no business playing at being a criminal. The plan clearly doesnt work and Jerry is too inept to cover his tracks.