Totally dislikable 'heroes'

[Bored Of Education]

I am currently reading Simon Sebag Montefiore's excellent biography "Young Stalin". I was thinking that it would make a brilliant film almost in the gangster style. Montefiore has brilliantly kept the reader interested in Stalin but also not shying away from the fact he was a monster. I wouldn't say that you are exactly rooting for him but, there is no two ways about it, his story is enthralling while not being glamourised. However, I can't think that any film would be financed even if a director managed to keep the same even-handedness.

"Downfall" is the closest film I had in mind to one that has such a irredeemably dislikable protagonist. However, as it was based around his defeat and his last days, it was easy to paint Hitler as a pathetic character throughout. In Montefiore's book, he was fairly obviously a charismatic and engaging if brutal and manipulative character. Were a film to be made, the closest in feel would have to something like, say, Goodfellas or Scarface where we know the 'heroes' are inherently bad but there would have to be enough interest in their personality to keep one interested.

I was wondering if there were more films where the protagonist - real or fictional - was really thoroughly dislikable but nonetheless attractive.

[Various Artist]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

Nothing immediately to add by way of other examples Bored, but on the subject of your post I was immediately reminded, reading it, of the picture someone posted in a thread on here a year or two back that showed Stalin to be quite startlingly attractive as a young man. It's not hard to look at this and see how people could have found him engaging, nay even glamorous:

[Beatle Simon]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

He's totally Zayn!

https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2015/03/20/16/Zayn-Malik-Rex.jpg

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

He's Sergio Ramos. I thought we'd already settled that.

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

I've just started re-watching 'The Sopranos' - I picked up a cheap DVD set. Tony Soprano - racist, tight-fisted, conniving, sexist, misogynistic, philandering, murdering bully. Yet his imperfections - all of them - make him who he is and have us rooting for him.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

Vicarious Thrillseeker wrote: I've just started re-watching 'The Sopranos' - I picked up a cheap DVD set. Tony Soprano - racist, tight-fisted, conniving, sexist, misogynistic, philandering, murdering bully. Yet his imperfections - all of them - make him who he is and have us rooting for him.

So now we know what Melania sees in Don.

[Bored Of Education]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

I was thinking that of Tony Soprano but, there are no two ways about it, you are totally rooting for him.

[Various Artist]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

Vulgarian Visigoth wrote:

I've just started re-watching 'The Sopranos' - I picked up a cheap DVD set. Tony Soprano - racist, tight-fisted, conniving, sexist, misogynistic, philandering, murdering bully. Yet his imperfections - all of them - make him who he is and have us rooting for him.

So now we know what Melania sees in Don.

He's not tight-fisted, it just looks that way because he's so small-handed.

[Geoffrey de Ste. Croix]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

Various Artist wrote: Nothing immediately to add by way of other examples Bored, but on the subject of your post I was immediately reminded, reading it, of the picture someone posted in a thread on here a year or two back that showed Stalin to be quite startlingly attractive as a young man. It's not hard to look at this and see how people could have found him engaging, nay even glamorous:

Koba would be a great name for a boy band.

[Bored Of Education]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

That photo, perhaps inevitably, is the front cover of the book. However, there are more and later photos where he is also a tremendously attractive man with an open, happy face. You genuinely never see a picture of Adolf Hitler where you don't think he was punching above his weight with Eva Braun.

[Ginger Yellow]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

I was wondering if there were more films where the protagonist - real or fictional - was really thoroughly dislikable but nonetheless attractive.

Most Clint Eastwood movies.
Bad Santa
Scott Pilgrim (more so in the comics, but still)
Bonnie & Clyde

I don't know if I'd use "attractive" for these, but they're certainly compelling protagonists while being thoroughly unlikeable, sometimes skincrawlingly so:

The King Of Comedy
Taxi Driver
There Will Be Blood
Nightcrawler

[Sits]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

True enough.

[Sits]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

Does it qualify for this thread if the actor playing the hero annoys the fuck out of you? Like anything with Tom Cruise in it? Not that I would actually watch it.

[evilC]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

Wolverine's perma-grump schtick gets boring after about one movie. It wouldn't hurt him to be polite just once in a while, would it?

And I thought Canadians were meant to be so civil too!

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

I suppose Gregory House would fit in the charismatic arsehole category.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

Bordeaux Education wrote: That photo, perhaps inevitably, is the front cover of the book. However, there are more and later photos where he is also a tremendously attractive man with an open, happy face. You genuinely never see a picture of Adolf Hitler where you don't think he was punching above his weight with Eva Braun.

You could say it's the difference between a man who embraced a noble ideal like the fight against inequality and explotation only to become Tony Soprano on steroids, and a man moved by hatred and bitterness from an early age.

[Jah Womble]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

Jesus, Hitler even looked a git at that age.

[Various Artist]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

He even had the sodding hairdo in place.

It's still a shock to see him as a child, mind. It's hard to look at a picture of a little boy and reconcile it with the idea that that person will, quite soon, and forever afterwords, be a byword for human evil.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

To lighten the thread (and return to film and tv) I never liked Quincy, ME. He just charges about bellowing imperatives at people, really. And all his so-called mates at this harbourside pub look like they think he's a right bell-end.

[Guy Profumo]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

Rogin the Armchair fan wrote: To lighten the thread (and return to film and tv) I never liked Quincy, ME. He just charges about bellowing imperatives at people, really. And all his so-called mates at this harbourside pub look like they think he's a right bell-end.

He's also a git.

He supports the concept of "Guilty, but insane", rather than "Not Guilty due to reasons of insanity".

Bawbag.

[Patrick Thistle]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

Judge Dredd

[3 Colours Red]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

Bruce Wayne really should be this, shouldn't he?

I mean, a billionaire playboy who puts on a silly voice when he plays dress-up and uses violence as a way of channeling grief (I admit it's slightly more complicated than that for the last one but it's more or less the crux). He'd fit right in with the Bullingdon Club set.

[Jah Womble]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

Various Artist wrote: Nothing immediately to add by way of other examples Bored, but on the subject of your post I was immediately reminded, reading it, of the picture someone posted in a thread on here a year or two back that showed Stalin to be quite startlingly attractive as a young man. It's not hard to look at this and see how people could have found him engaging, nay even glamorous:

Hate to say this, but the more I look at that, the more I'm getting 'Robbie Savage'...

[Lang Spoon]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

Guy Profumo wrote:

To lighten the thread (and return to film and tv) I never liked Quincy, ME. He just charges about bellowing imperatives at people, really. And all his so-called mates at this harbourside pub look like they think he's a right bell-end.

He's also a git.

He supports the concept of "Guilty, but insane", rather than "Not Guilty due to reasons of insanity".

Bawbag.

Leave Quincy the fuck out this ya absolute roasters. He was no colombo, but was a good way to full forty minutes when you should be doing something more important when he was the afternoon BBC1 goto after Neighbours.

Fuckin Arts students.

[Guy Profumo]

Totally dislikable 'heroes'

Dick Tracy (TV cartoon version)

Hears about crime

Contacts vigilante using private, non=police issue radio.

Said vigilante proceeds to violently assault felon(s).

Tracy arrives to nab miscreant and claim full credit for "cracking" case.