Kiefer Sutherland: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

3. Ace Merrill - Stand By Me

Stand By Me's Ace Merrill is one of those curious characters who has inspired a bizarre amount of attention for what is essentially a low level villain; alas, is there something about Kiefer Sutherland's performance that makes his turn here so memorable, or is it purely a case of, "Look! It's Jack Bauer!" Whatever the reason that Merrill has inspired countless fanfics (you read that right - there are tons of them) or T-shirts, there's no avoiding the fact that Merrill is brilliantly rendered by Kiefer Sutherland; we're supposed to hate this guy, after all, and we do. Perhaps best-described as a "knife-wielding douchebag," the terrifying thing about Merrill is that he transcends the barriers usually found in "bully" characters in kids' movies - Sutherland ensures that Merrill is a genuinely frightening guy and is therefore capable of anything... and that includes stabbing a child with a switchblade for no good reason. With a cigarette dangling between his lips and that bleach blonde hair, he's a great antagonist and one that Sutherland manages to make surprisingly memorable, given his relatively thin amount of screen time.