10 Movies Where Every Character Thinks They're The Hero

Joe Carnahan's Smokin' Aces is a gloriously messy festival of mayhem, and one where truly virtuous characters are in hilariously short supply - despite what they might think.

The plot revolves around Buddy "Aces" Israel (Jeremy Piven), a magician and mafia informant who has a million-dollar bounty placed on his head, bringing basically every assassin in the country into his orbit.

Yet Israel isn't remotely sympathetic at all - he's a flagrantly caustic, narcissistic a**hole who gets routinely, and satisfyingly humiliated throughout the movie, yet clearly believes he's the main character of his life story.

Elsewhere the bevy of characters hired to either kill or capture Israel see themselves as the one to get the job done, and then there's the most obvious hero candidate of the movie - FBI agent Richard Messner (Ryan Reynolds), who tries to fend off the never-ending fleet of assassins and protect Israel.

But he's ultimately just a pawn in the plan of FBI Deputy Director Stanley Locke (Andy Garcia), who is only trying to protect Israel so his heart can be transplanted into his father, a dying mob boss whose co-operation could help bring the mafia down.

Naturally Locke can't see any problem with sacrificing the lives of countless FBI agents to keep Israel alive for this reason, seeing the operation as part of the greater good, much to Messner's infuriation.