< Affably Evil

Affably Evil/Film

  • In the X-Men movie, Ian McKellen's version of Magneto -- at least, early on.
  • Ditto for Iron Monger/Obadiah Stane in Iron Man, especially in the scene where he's talking to Pepper Potts. He's as affable as always, but she doesn't know whether he's just making small talk or interrogating her.
  • Frank Lucas from American Gangster is a very polite, well-dressed man who cares deeply for his family and takes his mother to church every Sunday. Despite this, he is frequently shown to have no qualms about gunning down people who get in his way in cold blood, or blighting communities with heroin for pure profit.
  • Arthur Burns of The Proposition is erudite and exceptionally loyal to his friends and family. He appreciates poetry, and is very supportive and patient with his underlings. Arthur also bashes policemen's skulls in with rocks, advocates gangrape, and burns entire families to death. It helps that he's borderline insane.
  • Bill from the Kill Bill movies is very friendly and likable, as well as a loving father, despite being a self-proclaimed "murdering bastard," and helps the Bride reach an epiphany about herself at the end of the duology.
  • The Brain, from Gremlins 2. An erudite, genetically-altered gremlin who merely wants what everyone wants, and what you tropers have: Civilization! The Geneva Convention, chamber music, Susan Sontag...

The Brain: We want to be civilized. I mean, you take a look at this fellow here...
(Shoots a nearby, annoying Gremlin in the face)

The Brain: Now, was that civilized? No, clearly not. Fun, but in no sense civilized!

  • David Allen Griffin in The Watcher is a perfectly sociable and charming guy to have around. Except for the whole garroting young women thing. Oh, and stalking and flirting with a male FBI agent who hates him kinda hinders him in the social department as well.
  • Harry Waters of In Bruges seems to be an alright guy, apart from his crime boss status and constant swearing. He has a strict moral code and genuinely tries to give Ray a nice vacation before he has him offed. Observe the following exchange:

Harry: Is Ray enjoying it?

Ken: Well, no. It's not really his thing.

Harry: What?

Ken: It's not really his thing.

Harry: How the fuck is it not his thing? The whole fuckin' place is a fuckin' fairy tale, so how can it not be someone's fuckin' thing!

  • The Nome King from Return to Oz displays a disturbing mix of affability and subtle condescension towards Dorothy and her friends (his counterpart in the books, though, was more of a cackling Card-Carrying Villain). The film Return to Oz plays the same "all a dream" card that the film of The Wizard of Oz played, and the Nome King, in this case, is supposed to be a direct analogue to the psychiatrist running the asylum where Dorothy is being treated at the beginning of the film. He himself is quite Affably Evil in his own right, warmheartedly declaring that electroshock therapy is "just the thing to cheer Dorothy up", words that the Nome King repeats later in the film.
  • Robert De Niro as Al Capone in The Untouchables: a Magnificent Bastard who goes from pontificating on the joys of baseball one second to savagely murdering an associate with a bat the next. Every word that passes his lips is met by sycophantic laughter.
  • Subverted in Shutter Island, where we are led to believe that Dr. Cawley is like this. As it turns out, this is his genuine personality, and, in fact, he has been running a very elaborate simulation in order to snap Teddy Daniels (real name: Andrew Laeddis) out of his self-induced fantasy that he is a Federal Marshall, in order to make him come to terms with his wife's death.
  • The Operative of Serenity is a man who is convinced of the righteousness of his actions, and holds no particular ill will for his enemies. Indeed, he goes so far as to compliment his foes' tenacity, bravery, or the good work they've done, even when he's impaled them on his sword and watching them die. Even more so is how he kills certain people with the sword. He paralyzes them, then lets them fall on it because he believes it's an honorable way to die. He's even self-aware that, despite his own politeness, he is a monster with no place in the paradise he is trying to create.

The Operative: There is no shame in this. This is a good death, for a man who has done fine works.

  • Pasquale Acosta in Smokin Aces epitomizes this trope. He doesn't just kill you, he comforts you and waxes philosophy as you die.
  • James Bond:
  • Dr. Raymond Cocteau from Demolition Man. Lampshaded by Psycho for Hire Simon Phoenix, who compares the man to an "evil Mr. Rogers".
  • In Rustlers' Rhapsody, the villains realize that the hero, Tom Berenger, always beats "bad guys," so they hire a "good guy" to fight him. The "good guy" appears to be an even nicer person than Berenger and gains the upper hand, but Berenger soon learns that he's actually a lawyer, and is then able to defeat him.
  • Quite a few characters played by Vincent Price (not counting the ones who are Faux Affably Evil).
  • Harry Lime from The Third Man is an early example, with Orson Welles receiving a lot of attention at the time for portraying the Manipulative Bastard as just a regular guy who wanted his old friend to like him even after discovering his actions.
  • Max from |Mission Impossible is quite a friendly sort. She's not very evil, just greedy.
  • Max (Edward Herrman), from The Lost Boys.
  • While his underlings are quite rude, Xerxes in 300 is quite friendly -- perhaps overly so. Even at the moment of his triumph, he takes the time to congratulate Leonidas and offer the entirety of Greece to him, as long as he acknowledges the pecking order. Unfortunately, we don't get to see how affable he is after Leonidas breaks his Dissonant Serenity.
  • Ben Wade in 3:10 to Yuma is the very definition of affability and charisma.
  • When not playing the Magical Negro (literally, in some cases), Morgan Freeman has mastered this trope in such films as Hard Rain, Nurse Betty, Dreamcatcher, Lucky Number S7evin, and The Contract.
  • Leslie Vernon, Villain Protagonist of Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, is jovial, friendly, intelligent, and takes a camera crew with him as he prepares for his night of murder and mayhem.
  • Elijah Price from Unbreakable: well spoken, expensively dressed...and is actually a Super Villain, or at least a mass murderer.
  • The eponymous Serial Killer from The Stepfather series of films is fond of stuff like dogs, model building, and gardening; he's actually a pretty nice guy, at least, until things stop going his way. There's a scene in the second movie where he sits down to breakfast and only starts eating after his Rice Krispies pop; he looks as giddy as a kid when they make their trademark noise.
  • Angela Baker of the Sleepaway Camp series practically becomes some kind of murderous Genki Girl in the second and third films. She also really likes the "Happy Camper" song.
  • Bill The Butcher from Gangs of New York. He's polite, has a moral code, a deep sense of honor...but he just hates those bloody Irishmen invading American soil, and God help you if you get into a knife fight with him. To the point where Amsterdam is conflicted because he finds himself liking the man he intends to take revenge on for killing his father. He does have a few Kick the Dog moments where you realize the guy is not merely a Memetic Badass but pretty reprehensible, so the audience is conflicted too.
  • At least initially, Wikus in District 9 in several ways; he's an amiable, well-liked low-level functionary...who is casually racist and brutal towards the oppressed aliens, and laughs and makes jokes when 'aborting' alien eggs.
  • Idi Amin is this in The Last King of Scotland, after the protagonist impresses him by taking his gun and shooting the wounded cow. All while being surrounded by trigger-happy soldiers.
    • Idi Amin is also this way in Raid on Entebbe. He mainly gives the impression of being a ridiculous popinjay though.
  • Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds personifies this trope.
  • Dr. Terwilliker from The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T even says out loud that he's a villain before he offers refreshments and has a Villain Song with the protagonist's mother and friend.
  • VIKI and the NS-5's from I Robot. They are polite and calm while trying to take over the world.

(The normally loyal robot blocks Susan's way)
Robot: Please remain calm.
Robot: Please refrain from going to your windows or doors.
Susan: Deactivate!
Susan: Commence emergency shutdown!
Robot: We are attempting to avoid human losses during this transition.

And later, before attempting to kill people:

Robot: You have been deemed hazardous. Will you comply?

  • Major Koenig from Enemy at the Gates qualifies as this for much of the movie. Sure, he's out to kill his sniper counterpart, but he's polite about it, and when one character, a young boy acting as an informant, hears of his rival's supposed death and is trying not to cry:

Koenig: There's no shame in it. You're a Russian, like he is.

    • When he figures out that the kid's been informing on him to the Russians, instead of confronting him, he hands him a chocolate and gives the kid a Mercy Lead, telling him not to come back. The kid comes back, so Koenig hangs him from a telephone pole to use as bait to lure out the Russian sniper.
  • In Agora, there's hardly any completely maleficent villain; the Christians are, after all, still human, and while they were very fanatical and Knight Templar-ish, they still helped the poor and each other. In fact, the only person who was truly villainous was the Bishop, Cyril of Alexandria, who himself is very Affably Evil, caring for his people and all.
  • Swamp Thing from Con Air. He's such a jolly, good-humored sort that you almost forget that he's an integral part in a scheme to bust out a planeload of mass murderers, terrorists, and gangsters. You also tend to wonder what he did to get himself put on that plane in the first place.
    • Drug smuggling, but even his actor defends him, pointing out that he didn't kill anyone or get in their faces...
  • "Good Evening. Welcome to my humble abode. My, how beautiful you are. I hope you will stay the night. Oh, where are my manners? Allow me to introduce myself. I am Count Dracula."
  • A clearer example of Affably Evil in Star Wars is Count Dooku, at least in Attack of the Clones; he's clearly more respectful towards the Jedi than they are towards him.

Dooku: It's a great pity that our paths have never crossed before, Obi-Wan. Qui-Gon always spoke very highly of you. I wish he were still alive; I could use his help right now.
Obi-Wan: (With quiet fury) Qui-Gon Jinn would never join you.

    • Dooku might actually be Faux Affably Evil, slyly delivering the right amount of hints to Obi-Wan in order to plant the seed of division among the Jedi while painting himself as the good guy. Notice how his behavior in the scene he shares with Obi-Wan is very different to the way he behaves in any other moment of the movie or Revenge of the Sith. (Indeed, in the Sith novelization an extended section taken from his point of view has him musing, though not in such terms, that he's a sociopath.)
  • Hannibal Lecter of The Silence of the Lambs is an interesting example in that nobody can be really sure if his affability is just an act, particularly as he's prone to sniping insults at visitors who displease him. To credit the "affable" perspective, he never hunts down Clarice (considering such a thing "rude"), and, in the book, mails a substantial tip to an orderly he befriended - specifically, the orderly who ensured that Hannibal never escaped from the asylum until he was moved, and once broke Lecter's arm stopping him from attacking a nurse.
  • Dredger from the Sherlock Holmes movie is an extremely large thug who will wreck the place and crush you (with his bare hands, if necessary) if that's what he's been paid to do...but he's surprisingly personable about it.
  • The HBO movie Conspiracy is an extremely chilling example of this trope. A group of intelligent, cultivated, soft-spoken men having a secret conference in Germany in 1942 about what to do with the "storage problem" of the Jews in Europe. And it is based on the minutes of the actual meeting.
  • Hot Fuzz: The NWA members, such as Skinner
  • The dapper, charming Rene Belloq from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
  • The brother and sister duo, Vincent and Ida, in Motel Hell. They are a hospitable couple who run a nice little motel and provide some great meat pastries which are made out of people.
  • Dr. Schaefer, The President's Analyst, ends up abducted by The Phone Company. Arlington Hewes, its president, is unfailingly pleasant and polite while he explains to Dr. Schaefer why he needs his professional knowledge for his world-domination plan -- and while he inflicts high-tech torture on Schaefer when he refuses to help.
  • In The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, the plot of the movie is set in motion when Mr. Nick (Tom Waits), having already won the soul of the Parnassus's daughter in a wager made decades before she was born, agrees to allow Parnassus to try to win it back on the eve of its forfeiture (even though Parnassus has absolutely nothing to offer to sweeten the pot). Throughout the course of the story, it becomes clear that Nick is deliberately trying to lose this wager to avoid ruining his Friendly Enemy status with Parnassus, to the point that he tries to physically restrain the daughter from deliberately damning herself to Hell just to spite her father and, when that fails and he wins the bet, he immediately offers Parnassus a new wager so he can try to win her back again.
  • Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction is actually a pretty nice guy, for a mob hitman. Just don't say "What?" to his questions. In fact, all of the gangsters in the film are affable and friendly, even when they're casually waving a gun in your general direction.
  • Big Jake manages to combine Affably Evil with Complete Monster in the villain, played by Richard Boone. He would be happy to have a nice, pleasant, friendly conversation with you...just before pulling out a gun and murdering your children in cold blood without so much as flinching.
  • Lynch from The a Team movie. He's just so adorable about being evil.

Lynch: We do have laws, they're just cooler than yours.

  • Charlie Barrett in Suicide Kings. The nicest guy who ever fed anyone to their own dogs.
  • Cheyenne in Once Upon a Time in the West is a cheerful, friendly fellow who seems perpetually amused by the events in which he is caught up. He's also a confessed murderer and bandit leader. It helps that A) he's not the villain of the film, just the local badman whose territory the villain trespasses on, and B) all of his crimes take place off-screen (just outside the door in the case of his slaughter of his prison escort).
  • Die Hard. Hans Gruber: Cold-blooded killer, relentlessly mocks the hero, doesn't even really care if all of his Mooks get killed during the Nakatomi takeover...But he's incredibly sophisticated, debonair, and intelligent, and agrees to have a couch sent out to the lobby for a pregnant woman to sit on, and praises Holly for her courage in confronting him. And he has a fabulous taste in fashion.
  • Tuco of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. He doesn't seem like such a bad guy, he's even pretty funny, but then you remember he's a criminal who isn't above the rape and murder of civilians, if you believe the list of crimes read by his executioners early in the film. One scene that helps is a brief conversation between Tuco and his brother, where we to get a few hints as to why he is who he is. It's implied that it was simply because he grew up in a poor family and the only way he could survive was to steal.
  • Juan from Duck You Sucker is initially set up as a mean, ruthless, and amoral bandit, then we get to know him and find out that he's just an ordinary guy trying to look out for his family in a world where stealing is the only way to survive.
  • Reuben (Sid Haig) in Black Mama White Mama, the randy drug kingpin. He's clearly bad, but is just having a blast throughout the movie.
  • Xander Drax from The Phantom. Except if you lie to him. Don't ever lie to him.
  • Big Chris of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a hitman, but is overall a nice guy, and a good dad to his son, Little Chris. But so much as lay a finger on Little Chris, and the affable part goes out the window.
  • To some extent, Lyle From Dallas from Red Rock West. Protagonist Michael Williams first meets Lyle after nearly being run over by him - Lyle is very apologetic about it, makes sure he's okay, gives him a ride back to town, bonds with him over their shared past with the Marine Corps, and buys him a drink. Since this is the first we see him, his turning out to be the bad guy would almost be a twist, were it not for him getting very angry about Michael initially refusing his offer to buy him a drink, as well as the fact that he's played by Dennis Hopper.
  • The villain in Babysitter Wanted chats merrily with the final girl as he's carving up the body of another girl. His accomplice later gets mad at him for being so friendly.
  • The Three Ministers of Pollution from Gaiark in Go-onger.
  • Colonel Hepburn from the Hammer Horror film, Cash On Demand, is a friendly and amiable man. When he visits a bank, he is more friendly to the employees, and knows more about them personally, than the bank manager does. The reason he's visiting the bank is to rob it...
  • Lex Luthor is played like this in the Superman films, especially by Gene Hackman, with a warm smile and a nice disposition. Yet he's willing to sink California to the bottom of the sea for profit.
  • All the villains in Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur. In between planning and executing acts of sabotage against military installations, we see a kindly grand-father playing with his grand-child, a rich socialite who hosts a charity-dinner, a father who ponders whether he should let his son have long hair, a man who gives their hostage a milkshake, and a man who frets that the confrontation with the hero will make him unable to go to the philharmonica with his niece later that evening.
  • As in the novel on which the film is based, Don Vito Corleone from The Godfather. Warmhearted, reasonable, prefers to think of his partners as "friends", and happy to perform the odd favour for his less-than-fortunate neighbours. True, he does inform them that they might have to do a little something for him in return, but contrary to Amerigo Bonasera's worries, all he usually asks for is a free service from their business. He even adopted Tom Hagen and eventually allowed him to become his personal advisor - even though he knew that none of the other Mafia bosses would approve. Vito's still in charge of one of the most powerful Mafia families in America, and he's not above the occasional murder or extortion to back up the usual income from gambling and union racketeering. However, Even Evil Has Standards, which Vito demonstrates in his refusal to deal in drugs and prostitution (the most contemptuous line in the film is when he says, "Tattaglia's a pimp"). And, to his credit, he does his best to keep his children and his civilian friends as far away from crime as possible.
    • Having learned from his father, it's unsurprising that Don Michael also fits this trope; however, though well-mannered and gracious, he lacks Vito's degree of warmth - which, combined with his ruthlessness, eventually begins to distance him from his friends and family.
  • CLU from Tron: Legacy. He is completely affable and polite with Sam from the beginning, and his personal moments of violence always appear to be casual afterthoughts, as in when he is blowing up the End of Line Club, or yelling and slamming his hands into the table at Kevin Flynn's home, making something of a mess, or de-rezzing Jarvis after a last-straw moment of incompetence after a long string of mild-to-major failures. The rest of the time, he is cool, calm and collected, and polite. After all, his most oddly polite line to Sam is "So, you like bikes." complete with a pleasant smile.
  • Julian Karswell from Night of the Demon is charming, charismatic, pleasant, loves his mother, hosts parties for local children...and is a Satan-worshiping cult leader who uses black magic to kill casual acquaintances.
  • Elizabeth Hurley as Satan in the 2000 remake of Bedazzled. She's out for Elliot's soul, but she generally acts friendly and sympathetic to him most of the time. Even after he nullifies their contract and saves himself, she stays polite and cordial before seeing him off. Actually a subversion, since the end of the film reveals that she's not evil at all.
  • Robert in Mystery Team. Averted with Leroy
  • John, one of the main antagonists in Drunken Master 2, is some form of this. He's very cheerful for almost the entire film, except when being brow-beaten by the British Ambassador he's working for, and when Fei-Hong is beating the crap out of him at the end of the film. He even gives a cheery thumbs-up and a big grin after kicking Fei-Hong onto burning coals.
  • Mr. Bentley (played by Patrick Stewart), the villain of Masterminds, is charming, polite, levelheaded, and witty. He also equips his men with Instant Sedation dart guns during the initial takeover of the school and orders them not to injure anyone while repelling the cops' attempts to retake it (although it's really only through the magic of Hollywood ballistics that no one is killed).
  • Professor Henry Jarrod, as played by Vincent Price in the 1953 remake of "House of Wax", is a genuinely kind person. The Professor is constantly polite, he never mistreats his deaf/mute assistant (actually named Igor), compliments the ladies for their beauty, and goes to great lengths to save them from pain and horror while he transforms them into detailed wax figures.
    • Debatable example, as he isn't evil so much as completely out of his mind.
  • Noah Cross of Chinatown.
  • How can you not fall in love with Slim Pickens' character Taggart in Blazing Saddles? He's an evil racist who goes along with every evil scheme devised by the film's Big Bad, but there's something about Slim Pickens' accent that causes him to steal the show every scene he's in. He even gets a Crowning Moment of Awesome towards the end with this classic line:

Taggart: PISS ON YOU! I'M WORKING FOR MEL BROOKS!

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