3. Carl Showalter - Fargo
Gramercy PicturesCarl Showalter is easily the most abrasive person on this list. 90% of his screen time in this Coen Brothers masterpiece involves him complaining about some aspect of the (admittedly quite hilarious) job he has been tasked with completing, alongside his terse psychopathic partner, Gaear Grimsrud. Driving to Fargo and back, the events that befall this fast-talking criminal make him equal parts annoying and sympathetic. At the outset of Fargo, Carl is hired by Jerry Lundegaard to kidnap Jerry's wife as part of an outrageously elaborate plan to steal money from her rich father. Carl and Gaear give up on asking why, and just go along with the kidnapping, expecting to get paid and not have to kill anyone. This all goes horribly wrong when first a police officer, then a pair of locals, are killed for spotting them on the road. Carl tries more and more desperately to get the ransom from Jerry's in-laws, with quite grisly results. Throughout the runtime of this film, Carl goes back and forth between irritating and pitiable, but finally falls on the side of sympathetic when he too falls victim to Grimsrud. After being shot in the face, him and Gaear argue over how they will split the money, an argument that concludes with Carl receiving an axe to the head, before getting disposed of in an... unconventional way. As annoying as he may have been, no man deserves to be fed to a woodchipper. That is just wrong.