15 Great Movie Villains Who Totally Stole The Show
10. Harry Waters - In Bruges
Assassins have feelings too, at least that's what In Bruges would have us believe. Following Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) as they are sent to the titular Belgian city after a botched job leaves a child dead, the movie examines guilt, boredom and a racist midgets drug induced race-war fantasy. As the previous sentence probably implies, this is a film with a penchant for veering into heightened, bizarre situations and with this in mind the antagonist needed to be a certain kind of lunatic to make an impression.
What better way to fill this void than the renowned thespian Ralph Fiennes' portrayal of a gibbering madman who is always only a second away from screaming impressive tirades of obscenities or attacking a phone. Having sent Ken to Bruges with the aim of bumping off Ray, he imagines a beautiful last weekend for the doomed hitman, a fairytale of snow and pretty swans.
These romantic notions may serve to heighten the absurd entertainment value of the situation, but it's when he is forced to take matters into his own hands that things get really interesting. When he arrives to hunt down our morally dubious protagonists, he wastes no time in dropping an impressive string of C-bombs outside a quaint café before forcing Gleeson's character to take a long drop of his own from the roof of a very tall church tower.
However, despite being a formidable ball of cockney rage, it's established that Harry has a strict moral code and whats impressive about it is how seriously he takes this stance. Upon shooting and subsequently mistaking the racist midget for a child, he wastes no time in swallowing the barrel of a gun himself. While the world is probably safer without people like Harry Waters running about, it would undoubtedly be less interesting.