10 Movies That Wanted You To HATE The Hero
6. Nick Rice - Law Abiding Citizen
In fairness, Law Abiding Citizen is a film that absolutely blurs the line between hero and villain.
Even so, the "hero" of the piece is prosecutor Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), who ends up invoking the wrath of Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) after Shelton's wife and daughter are murdered and Rice makes a soft deal with one of the killers in order to maintain his high conviction rate.
Ultimately the film ends with Nick prevailing over bloodthirsty vigilante Clyde by blowing him up with his own bomb, yet ever since the movie's 2009 release, viewers have noted an unwavering disdain for Rice.
Though by moving the bomb from City Hall to Shelton's own prison cell Rice objectively saves a number of lives and brings Shelton's killing spree to an end, he's still an unsympathetic instrument of a legal system in dire need of reform.
As a result, many found themselves spending most of the movie rooting for Shelton instead, who while undeniably going too far in his quest for vengeance, was at least raging against a profoundly rigged pillar of American life.
Even though Rice is clearly supposed to be an unlikeable, self-serving tool for the bulk of the film, a lot of people wish the film had ended with Shelton, the supposed "villain", prevailing.
Instead, Rice kills Shelton and pieces his fraught family life back together, despite nobody watching really giving much of a damn about him.