20 Film/TV Villains Who Were Just Misunderstood

14) Dalton Russell – Inside Man

Not many cop dramas begin with the main criminal telling you he’s talking to you from within the walls of a cell, but as Inside Man’s Dalton Russell points out, “there’s a vast difference between being stuck in a tiny cell and being imprisoned.” Indeed, right from the start of Inside Man Russell warns you to not take things at face value, “Pay strict attention to what I say because I choose my words carefully and I never repeat myself,” he says. He tells you who he is, he tells you where he is, and then he tells you that he recently set out to execute the perfect bank robbery. No such thing, you scoff dismissively. Don’t be so quick to judge though because what we realize as the movie unfurls is that Russell is, indeed, a man of his word, and sometimes the reason to hold up a bank has nothing to do with taking the money.

It’s probably a spoiler to say that Russell does succeed in achieving his perfect robbery. He and his crew of fake-painters named Steve manage to execute their plan despite reasonable and insightful interference by NYPD Detective Keith Frazier, but the question is, what did they steal? Instead of taking an entire safe full of cash, the crooks rip off one safety deposit box belonging to bank owner Arthur Case. Case, as it turns out, got rich selling out Jewish friends and colleagues in World War II France, and has never been brought to justice for it.

Russell, using Frazier’s curiosity and tenaciousness, leads the detective to the real villain, Case, by leaving clues in the bank. We won’t, perhaps, go so far as to say that Russell is a Robin Hood figure (he was paid very well by a war crimes lawyer to expose Case), but it is safe to say that Russell did his good deed for the day, and never let himself get tempted to skim a couple of bucks at the bank vault?

He’s a robber with standards, a thief with a conscience.

13) Syndrome/Buddy Pine/Incredi-Boy – The Incredibles

Syndrome is the villainous alter-ego of Buddy Pine, and is the main antagonist in the 2004 film, The Incredibles. As a young boy, Buddy Pine is the biggest fan of the superhero Mr. Incredible, and essentially stalks him as he performs his heroic deeds. Convinced he is destined to be his trusted sidekick, Pine appears at Mr. Incredible’s side one day as Incredi-Boy – ready to assist with his home-made rocket boots.

Desperate to prove himself, Buddy/Incredi-Boy inserts himself into a showdown between Mr. Incredible and Bomb Voyage, which directly results in the escape of the bad guy. Mr. Incredible reports Buddy to the police, and he is arrested.

When Buddy resurfaces as an adult, he is Syndrome – an evil genius with designs on being a super-villain. As superior intellect is the only tool in his bag, he uses his best inventions to simulate superpowers and to achieve his lifelong goal – revenge against Mr. Incredible, the hero that rejected him.

It was that rejection by his hero – experienced as an impressionable young boy – that set Buddy Pine on the path to supervillain-y. Being constantly told by his idol that he was unwanted, not needed, and resolutely a hindrance rather than a help, created a deep well of resentment and hatred that began to boil over as his beloved Mr. Incredible handed him over to the police. In an almost text-book example of a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy,’ it was Mr Incredible’s off-hand designation of Buddy Pine as essentially a ‘bad guy’ that eventually created Syndrome – bent on Mr. Incredible’s destruction.