1. Patrick Bateman (American Psycho)
Like Hannibal Lecter, Patrick Bateman was someone we had a whole lot of fun watching. In hindsight we might want to consider our moral compass. And like Hopkins' Lecter, it's all down to a mesmerising performance by Christian Bale. What's interesting about Bateman however is that; unlike some of the charming rogues above, you wanted to see his life unravel. Having not read the novel before I saw the film, that's where I assumed this movie would end. The rise and fall of a popular and dashing yuppie, ending with his arrest and the horror of his friends and colleagues as they found out who the real Patrick Bateman was. Instead, despite a brutal killing spree in the climax of the film - he shoots a cat, a hapless bystander, two pursuing police officers, destroys two police cars, and guns down a security guard and a janitor...he manages to get away with everything. Even his desperate confession over answer phone to his lawyer is laughed off as a joke. Mind you, if you heard the speech below...revulsion or laughter are probably the only two options you could take... "
You're my lawyer so I think you should know, I've killed a lot of people. Some girls in the apartment uptown uh, some homeless people maybe 5 or 10, um an NYU girl I met in Central Park. I left her in a parking lot behind some donut shop. I killed Bethany, my old girlfriend, with a nail gun, and some man, some old faggot with a dog last week. I killed another girl with a chainsaw, I had to, she almost got away and uh someone else there I can't remember maybe a model, but she's dead too. And Paul Allen. I killed Paul Allen with an axe in the face, his body is dissolving in a bathtub in Hell's Kitchen. I don't want to leave anything out here. I guess I've killed maybe 20 people, maybe 40. I have tapes of a lot of it, uh some of the girls have seen the tapes. I even, um...I ate some of their brains. I tried to cook a little. Tonight I, uh, hahahaha... I just had to kill a LOT of people! And I'm not sure I'm gonna get away with it this time. I guess I'll uh, I mean, ah, I guess I'm a pretty uh, I mean I guess I'm a pretty sick guy." Murderer, rapist, cannibal, and somehow despite everything that happens, Patrick Bateman lives to kill another day. His lawyer doesn't believe him. His friends and colleagues know nothing about his dark side. His secretary Jean finds his sick diary but is probably too terrified to do anything about it. As the film ends, he's exactly where he was when he started. A rich, yuppie investment banker. The ultimate example of a charming rogue who gets away with terrible things. And there you have it. Six great characters whom you secretly wanted to win, to get away and to break the rules. There's no denying it. We love rule breakers and these are six of the best. The most charming, engaging rogues who got away with terrible things...because we as audience conveniently forget their pasts or because, secretly, we're all rebels too? And considering their actions murder and cannibalism - are we a little sick too? Sure there are others; Han Solo and Mal Reynolds being two of the greatest movie rogues but whom honestly, even at their worst, don't sit right on a list of characters with the six I have discussed above. Even great baddies like Loki - well a Hulk-Flipping-beating and imprisonment in Asgard mean he was suitably punished for his actions in
The Avengers...though we'll have to catch
Thor: The Dark World next month to see how long that imprisonment actually lasted and what his ultimate fate might be. So let me know your thoughts. Do you agree with the list? Are there others I should have considered? I haven't got any female rogues on here. Both film versions of Catwoman (I don't count the Halle Berry monstrosity) committed actions that were questionable but certainly not as terrible anything committed by the six characters above. But should there be others? Let me know in your comments below!