Big Fat Silver Screen: When Bad Guys Scream "Latency!"

Apparently when you are a bad guy in an action movie...well...nobody wants you to win except a few basement kids, and that's not a following you want no matter who you are. You are the character that the world takes its rage and frustration out on wholesale, and you have some tough rules to live by. You have to be thwarted by the good guy time and time again. You can't do things the simple way because you have to fill an hour and a half of movie up. You just can't win. Kevin Costner is always the anti-hero. You just can't win. You will always just miss the good guy until the last 15 minutes. You just can't win.

And you'll never really get rid of Steve Buscemi either.

The Bad Guy has a pretty raw deal on all of that. What makes the good guy so special anyway? An insane amount of luck, that's what. Take Predator (1987) for instance. The Predator takes out the entire special forces team with barely a hiccup. We get to see from his cloaking device and his disappointing-looking shoulder gun that he and the SF's are the equivalent of man and deer. The damage his puny shoulder gun wields doesn't quite seem right to its size, but hey, we all know size doesn't count.

Isn't that right Blaine?

So take a good look at this picture. That's what happens when Predator hits you dead on. He completely amputates limbs when he grazes you. The team of seven is taken apart until The Schwarzenegger Speed Bump pops up. To explain, whats left of the team is running away in fear and the Predator is in hot pursuit. Schwarzenegger is dead in the sights and Predator fires and Arnold gets hit and flies into the bushes and...it's a fucking scratch. He shakes himself off and he has a baby gash on his shoulder. Yeah I know he's Ahnold but that picture up there was Jesse Ventura. The guy who said "I ain't got time to bleed." You know that Predator was just shitting himself. That's one of the facts of life you have to deal with when you're the bad guy. You can't end the movie even if you wanted to.

You can't end a Schwarzenegger movie until a Schwarzenegger ends you.

As the viewer, you don't even blink when the Bad Guy and his cronies shoot thousands of bullets at the Good Guy (who may or may not be out in the open in broad daylight) and they all miss. When the good guy gets shot it's generally a 15 minute warning for the audience. By the way, I want to show y'all something. This is a video of a M14 rifle. The clip that you see on this rifle holds 20 rounds. Notice how this clip looks like almost every clip you see in the movies.

Did you see that? It took literally two seconds for 20 rounds to be expended. Now watch this.

There was a lot of latency there. Did you see how Ahnold moves through cronies like a flaming axe through silk? With the unlimited ammo cheat unlocked too. Yeah sorry bad guys, you don't get that one either. In fact you are more likely to not have a bullet when you need one.

I could go for days on that one. Briefly, before we move on, notice how in the Commando video Ahnold uses flowers for cover (1:54). Good guys can do that. They get flowers, bushes, car doors, random mom's and even food in some cases. All you get is henchmen who try to utilize the same cover and fail. They randomly stand up in the middle of a gun fight and get shot, so they aren't very bright either. Man it's tough to be you! But I think the most frustrating part about being a bad guy is that you never get to do the logical, easy clandestine thing. Nooooo you have to do things so damn complicated that all the Good Guy has to do is disable on tiny piece of your gigantic plan and you're done for. Whoever wrote you seems like an asshole right now don't they? And hey, you aren't allowed to shoot the Good Guy in the head and go home. Even though it's wildly cost effective.

This costs: $3.00

This costs...aw fuck it. Never mind.

Lastly, I want to talk about Henchmen. One thing the Bad Guy is allowed plenty of is Henchmen. This seems like it would be a good thing, except your cronies have a serious case of being alive and Bruce Willis is out to cure that.

Cured!

The more henchmen you get, the stupider they become. If you have an army at your disposal, you might as well give up and go home because Dolph Lundgren is coming. He's coming for you. On the other hand, if you have a single crony at your disposal, you have a very good chance of eliciting some torture on the Good Guy. But this is where your writing comes into play and you have to torture the Good Guy. You can't put one in his head and call it a day. The ensuing escape and imminent death or lifelong incarceration is going to be embarrassing, but that's why you're the bad guy.

Thanks for reading.