The action movie genre typically focuses more on action than an in-depth story, with morals often being pretty black and white, but these eight action movies feature a hero who is actually a villain. While there are loads of morally questionable protagonists that have filled the silver screen throughout cinematic history, it is rare for a movie to have a morally reprehensible person as its protagonist. However, some prominent action movies do delve into the pattern of blurring the line between protagonist and antagonist, featuring heroes who are much closer to villains than many viewers want to admit.
Protagonists in action movies are often portrayed as infallible heroes, with the mold for action movie heroes often being pulled from movies like Die Hard, Mission: Impossible, and the James Bond series. While these are good movies, it is always a little more interesting when films decide to play around with moral dynamics, allowing the main characters to feel like real people. Sometimes, however, action movies go even further, having protagonists that are downright villains. While these films are few and far between, these eight action movies are the most prominent examples of movie heroes who are actually villains.
Dirty Harry
Dirty Harry is one of Clint Eastwood’s most iconic films, with the movie following a rogue cop who attempts to take down a dangerous murderer that is famously a pastiche for the Zodiac killer. As a police officer, Dirty Harry is supposed to follow a strict code of conduct, but he breaks nearly every one of these rules. Harry violates civil rights, abuses prisoners, kills when it isn’t needed, and more. The police department disciplines Harry throughout the film, but Dirty Harry actually treats Harry’s vigilante justice as a good thing, causing him to be a pretty detestable character despite his actions being portrayed as good.
Kill Bill
Kill Bill‘s The Bride is purportedly the hero of the film, but that’s really only because she’s the least evil out of the group of evil killers known as the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. The Bride’s quest for revenge is warranted, as she was horribly abused by Bill, but that doesn’t clean the slate of all the terrible actions she has done. The Bride has killed countless people before and during the events of Kill Bill, with many of these murders being in needlessly gruesome ways. While The Bride seemingly wants to be a better person for her daughter, this doesn’t excuse the swath of horrendous things she does.
Raging Bull
Jake LaMotta is meant to be the protagonist of Raging Bull, with the film chronicling his journey as he takes down several tough boxers. However, Jake is far from a good person. Raging Bull is a tragedy, with it portraying Jake LaMotta as a man who had everything only for it to all crumble around him due to his bad decisions. Jake LaMotta’s involvement with the mob, jealousy, violence, anger issues, and disregard for his family paint the character as a pretty reprehensible person, although many viewers manage to miss these themes, only seeing Raging Bull as a simple boxing movie.
Robocop
Like many of Paul Verhoeven’s other movies, Robocop is both an action movie and a satire, with the film presenting the titular cyborg as a hero in a very tongue-in-cheek way. Robocop satirizes both the American police state as well as capitalism, with Robocop being the film’s prime example of why the privatization of police is dangerous. Robocop is brutal and unremorseful, allowing OCP and the Detroit Police Department to police the city in a disgusting way. While Alex Murphy is right in wanting to take down Clarence Boddicker, once Murphy becomes the Robocop, there’s really no redeeming the character.
Blade Runner
Continuing a theme on this list, Blade Runner follows an LAPD police officer named Rick Deckard who is tasked with taking down several replicants, which are humanoid androids that are used as slaves in the distant future. While Deckard is committed to his mission, Blade Runner is all about the blurry line between human and machine, with Deckard learning the error of his ways throughout the film. Despite this, Deckard still deactivates all of the replicants that he was assigned with taking down, making him an agent of Blade Runner‘s totalitarian LAPD. While Blade Runner 2049 attempts to redeem Deckard, he is definitely a villain in the original film.
Collateral
Collateral is an incredibly tense film, with Tom Cruise’s villainous performance as Vincent often being considered among his best roles. While Vincent is definitely the antagonist of Collateral, the film’s protagonist Max (Jamie Foxx) isn’t all that much of a hero either. Although Max starts out being forced to drive Vincent to his various killings, Max soon finds himself kind of getting into it, with him seemingly enjoying the moment he has to pretend to be Vincent at the nightclub. Max had several opportunities to stop Vincent’s murder spree, but he chooses not to take them every time, leading to tons of innocent lives being lost.
The Suicide Squad
Due to The Suicide Squad being about a black ops team of supervillains, the film obviously has heroes that are actually villains. Bloodsport, Harley Quinn, Ratcatcher II, Peacemaker, Polka-Dot Man, and the rest of the team have all done terrible things that landed them on Task Force X. Although the characters are sympathetic, throughout the film they repeatedly show that they have no regard for human life, acting as though they have fun killing people. Most of the characters in The Suicide Squad long to get out of prison so they can continue their villainous tendencies, with each of them being literally referred to as villains throughout the DCU.
Watchmen
Watchmen is famously a film with a misunderstood hero, as Rorschach is clearly meant to be a bad guy despite filling the hero role. Rorschach is a parody of Batman, with him displaying all of the far-right fascist tendencies that comic writer Alan Moore wanted to satirize. However, many readers held Rorschach up as a genuine hero, missing all the thematic criticisms of the comic and the film. Watchmen is one of the best examples of an action movie whose hero is actually the villain, with Rorschach’s villany going over the heads of many audience members.
