5. Sgt. Donny Donowitz
The Movie... Inglourious Basterds (2009) I'm not sure what happened, aside from that fact Adam Sandler dropped out, that prompted Quentin Tarantino to cast his friend Eli Roth as Sgt. Donny Donowitz, but this character irked a lot of people - mainly for that moment where he kills a Nazi was a baseball ball, and goes on a wild, screaming rant. It just didn't seem right. Roth's not a bad actor exactly, but this role might've been better suited to somebody else. As part of Aldo Raine's crack squad of Apache-inspired Nazi hunters, Donowitz is somewhat undeveloped and surface level irritating.
And Yet... He kills freakin' Adolf Hitler. Is that enough of a reason to justify this man's place? Despite Aldo Raine's position as the leader and main protagonist of the Basterds, Donny Donowitz is the guy who eventually risks his own life and well-being (alongside Ulmer, a character who isn't at all irritating, and hence is off this list) to take out the most reviled man in history (not to mention the fact he gets Goebbels and Modino, too). Donowitz is killed when the theatre explodes, of course, but I haven't heard this guy get much credit in the years following the release of
Basterds - that all seems to fall on Shosanna Dreyfuss. She is certainly one of the heroes in the movie, but it's this loud-mouthed Boston native who takes on a dangerous mission with a 100% suicide rating and succeeds. Had this story been factual, can you imagine how famous "Donny Donowitz" would be? His name would likely be known by every man, woman and child on Earth. Let's take a bit of time to consider that.