Five movie characters who make you want to punch a hole in the screen
One of the best things about watching movies is seeing a great one that actually makes you feel something. Whether that feeling is elation at a character overcoming the odds and triumphing or the crushing sadness that comes when something terrible happens to a character we love, cinema at its best can be an empathy machine that truly reminds us what it is to be human.
Of course, elation and sadness aren’t the only emotions movies can draw out of viewers. They can also make us feel excited, charmed, scared, tense, outraged, and even furious with anger. In fact, certain films feature characters that are like red flags to a bull, whether that be because they are meant to provoke that reaction or because we feel like the filmmakers have done a poor job bringing the character to the screen.
This list will spotlight five characters who made us react in such a strong way that it felt like the only rational response was to punch a hole in the screen. This isn’t to say it is the right thing to do; our cinema screens and TV sets should remain resolutely unpunched. But people are only human, and sometimes they watch a character so egregious it causes that red mist descend.
From a terrible screen interpretation of a classic comic book character all the way to a quintessential ’80s bureaucrat and a truly hateful member of the societal elite, here are five characters who make you want to punch a hole in the screen.
Five characters who make you want to break your TV:
The Joker (Jared Leto, ‘Suicide Squad’)’
Before I get started on this entry, I have a confession to make. It’s embarrassing, and it may make me a pariah at Far Out HQ, but it’s the truth: I don’t think Jared Leto is a bad actor. There, I said it. Matter of fact, I actually thought he was great in Blade Runner 2049 and he had me rolling in the aisles in House of Gucci. Also, when you think about it, surely no one who has worked with the likes of David Fincher, Oliver Stone, Darren Aronofsky, and Terrence Malick can be all the way ‘bad’…right?
Having said that, Leto’s truly abysmal take on The Joker in David Ayer’s regrettable Suicide Squad is so aggravating, so misguided, and so downright cringeworthy that it must have a place on this list. Much of Leto’s current reputation as a method acting weirdo who does oddball stuff for the sake of it can be traced to this disastrous incarnation of the Clown Prince of Crime, which pales in comparison to Nicholson, Ledger, and even Phoenix.
At the time of Suicide Squad’s release, a lot of ire was reserved for Leto’s interpretation of Joker as a heavily tattooed, metal grill-wearing gangster. However, on paper, this wasn’t the worst idea, as it undeniably brought the character kicking and screaming into the modern era – he was like Post Malone, if he happened to be a supervillain. The problem was that every single thing Leto did and said in the movie was lame, mannered, and cliched, which meant the only appropriate response was an eye roll. Or a swift TV punch.
Caledon Hockley (Billy Zane, ‘Titanic’)
This entry is a prime example of an actor being so darn brilliant at playing a scumbag that it makes it hard to imagine him playing anything else. In James Cameron’s epic weepie Titanic, Billy Zane plays Caledon Hockley, the villainous upper-crust heir to a Pittsburgh steel empire who has trapped Kate Winslet’s Rose DeWitt Bukater in a loveless engagement. He’s a despicable guy who mentally abuses her, lords his wealth over others, and looks down upon Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jack Dawson for not having the luck of being born into money.
From the second he appears on-screen, Hockley is scientifically engineered to make an audience think, “Oh, I hate that guy.” Even his name is wonderfully hateful: Caledon Hockley. Say it slowly: Cal-eh-don Hock-ley. Let it roll around in your mouth. It’s a preposterous moniker, one no one could possibly take seriously while saying it, yet it also screams privilege. If a name could be punchable, the world would want to punch ‘Caledon Hockley’.
At several points during Titanic, Hockley makes the audience shake its fist in rage, but undoubtedly his finest shitheel moment is when the ship begins to flood with water and sink into the depths of the ocean. By this point, Hockley knows he’s lost his young bride to a floppy-haired, penniless artist, but you’d think he’d be more preoccupied with, you know, drowning to death. Instead, this almighty jerk actually tries to shoot Dawson as the ship is going down. When Rose reveals in voiceover that, even though Hockley survived the sinking, he later committed suicide when he lost all his money in the 1929 Wall Street crash, audiences everywhere pumped their fists in victory.
Walter Peck (William Atherton, ‘Ghostbusters’)
Ah, Walter Peck, the worst of us all. Like an entire generation of kids, if I try to picture bureaucracy in human form, I picture Walter Peck. In 1984’s classic Ghostbusters, Peck is the Environmental Protection Agency inspector who hassles the team, who are trying to save the world from spooks and spectres, lest we forget, and threatens to shut them down if they don’t let him examine their Proton packs and containment unit. He is a stuffed suit, a pencil-pusher, and a vindictive bully who seems to take great delight in being a thorn in their sides.
Admittedly, as an adult, sometimes I find thoughts creeping into my head that make me sympathise with Peck. After all, the Ghostbusters do carry unlicensed nuclear accelerators on their backs. They do cause an awful lot of carnage wherever they go. They do let all their captured ghosts pile up in a containment gizmo, yet never adequately explain how it works. But those thoughts are bad, and I tell them to clear off, because ’80s movies taught me that all small businesses are set upon by grinning, shark-eyed bureaucrats like Peck who don’t actually know what they’re doing.
Amusingly, actor William Atherton was so effective at playing the “dickless” – Peter Venkman’s word, not mine – Peck that he played remarkably a remarkably similar character in the first two Die Hard movies. Richard Thornburg was just as snooty, arrogant, selfish, and obsequious to authority as Peck, and it was a cathartic relief when John McClane’s wife Holly Gennero punched him in the nose in Die Hard 2. In truth, after playing those two characters, it’s a wonder random passers-by didn’t just attack Atherton in the streets.
Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge, ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’)
Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Helena Shaw was meant to be a morally fluid, unpredictable character who would keep audiences on their toes as they were swept along in the adventure of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. We were supposed to laugh at her devil-may-care attitude and shake our heads in disbelief at her willingness to put her rivals in danger, so long as she escaped with a priceless artefact. The problem, though, was that the first person we saw Shaw put in mortal peril was her godfather Indiana freakin’ Jones.
The fact that Shaw’s introduction features her nearly getting the hero we all know and love killed is bad enough, but it’s even worse that the film doesn’t treat her as a villain. It doesn’t even particularly try to redeem her by the end; she’s still virtually the same selfish, craven thief she was at the start of the movie. In addition, Waller-Bridge, who seems to be struggling in recent years with what path to take in her post-Fleabag career, plays Shaw in such a smug way that she’s almost impossible to get on board with.
In truth, this list could have also included ‘Mutt’ Williams, Jones’ illegitimate son, played by Shia LaBeouf in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Both he and Shaw are dreadful characters who do nothing but drag their respective movies down, while constantly telling audiences how old and out of touch their hero are. It reminds me of the immortal words of Pepper Brooks: “It’s a bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see how it plays out for ’em.” We’d argue it did not, in fact, pay off.
Nicky (Adam Sandler, ‘Little Nicky’)
No list of characters who make you so mad that you want to punch the screen could be complete without the ‘Sandman’. Adam Sandler has made a career out of playing silly-voiced misfits that audiences absolutely love, as well as silly-voiced misfits audiences absolutely hate. In between these roles, he sometimes gets the notion to do some acting, and audiences are reminded just what a talented performer he truly is.
For my money, though, by far and away his most aggravating character was Nicky, the offspring of an unholy union between Satan and an angel of Heaven. Nicky appeared in Little Nicky, one of Sandler’s more notable flops, and every time he appeared on-screen, it was like nails on a devilish chalkboard. He had a speech impediment (uh-oh) and a facial disfigurement (double uh-oh), which meant he had to speak out of the side of his mouth. This let Sandler contort his face in a way that wasn’t funny at the time, and now feels downright offensive.
To give credit where it’s due, the core concept of Little Nicky isn’t bad. The idea of making a comedy about the third son of Satan, who is actually a nice guy, is rife with comic potential. Thanks to Sandler’s status, the movie even assembled an incredible cast, including vastly overqualified thespians like Harvey Keitel, Reese Witherspoon, and Patricia Arquette. Sadly, it just couldn’t overcome the fact that it struggled to raise a single laugh in its 90 minutes, not to mention that it made audiences feel bad about themselves for watching it.
