10 Terrible Characters In Otherwise Awesome Movies

4. Sheriff Pepper (Clifton James) - Live & Let Die

Roger Moore's term in office as James Bond 007 remains one of the most celebrated, yet also most divisive periods in the history of the time-honoured spy franchise. Moore successfully made the role his own, forging a persona which clearly stood apart from that of his esteemed predecessor Sean Connery; and yet in so doing, the tone of the movies also shifted dramatically from the somewhat grittier tone of the early films to a more cartoonish, unabashedly absurdist approach.

Hand in hand with this, the films also sported a far broader sense of humour: and there's no clearer indication of this than the introduction of Clifton James as Sheriff Pepper in Moore's debut adventure. During the film's epic speedboat chase across Louisiana (justly held up to this day as one of the most spectacular action sequences in the series), we meet Pepper, a stereotypically loud-mouthed, incompetent, backwoods lawman attempting to catch up with Bond and clean up the mess the secret agent leaves behind.

While Live and Let Die is loaded with now-dated cultural references (not least the blaxploitation elements), it's the interminable scenes with Pepper that age the film the worst - and yet the character proved popular enough to return in Moore's next Bond, The Man With The Golden Gun, stinking up another otherwise impeccable chase sequence.