Multiple villains with underlying common thread?

[Blast Doors]

Greets all. This is my first time posting here @ Done Deal after lurking for a long time, and as such, i'd like to extend my thanks to all who post here for their insightful comments and advice, especially since it helps out beginning screenwriters like myself quite a bit.

Now then, on to my question - I'm currently writing my first feature-length script after having written a few shorts. It's an historical drama(tization) of an historical figure. Hoping to be a filmmaker one day, this is the film I would like to make above all else (ie. if I could only make one film, this would be it), and so this is not intended for sale in the foreseeable future.

Luckily, this man's life has provided me with plenty of good ol' conflict, however it is not centralized against one continual villain throughout.

Thanks to some planning, I've managed to interweave these antagonists with underlying themes (which help bolster the main theme of the film) such as corruption, betrayal, greed, lust for power, etc.

I am worried, however, that audiences may have trouble coping with multiple villains which are only loosely related to one another rather than in the typical arch-villain-right hand man-goons of so many films.

Can anyone bolster my confidence? :) Anyone know of a film where this occured?

Thanks!

[Zeeman13]

Cutthroat Island or Last Action Hero.

[Steve]

The more important thing is to focus on your hero's goal/journey/quest. If that is clear, then all the villains do serve the same purpose, namely stopping your hero from getting what he wants.

I don't remember the plot that well, but didn't L.A. Confidential have multiple villains? I don't know that I'd call them all "villains" but it was a complex interweaving of stories with multiple antagonists. So was the Godfather for that matter. Michael was struggling to not be pulled into the family business, which pitted him against his own family, then there were all the various crime bosses, some of whom were duplicitious, etc., etc.

Think of your story as the journey of you hero. Make his destination clear. That's what the audience will need to keep track of. The villains are just obstacles in his path and that's what makes the story interesting.

[larry lozetto]

just about any mob movie ever written. . . look at sci fi movies if it's not the monster whose bad it's a couple a guys trying to sabotage a mission. Clint eastwood movies. .

War of the Roses, there are plenty more and you are the writer if your story is true to itself then the villains will all have their own motivations. . . but remember make one villain - the good villain. . .

[steeves]

especially good if the villains are all tailors or seamstresses!!


sorry - couldn't resist that

[wcmartell]

Give us an idea of what films your script is like. In an action film, the villain drives the story, so multiple villains means multiple stories means an unfocused mess. Most films have only one villain, because more would be redundant.

- Bill (also redundant)

PS: Beat Steeves for latest post!

[ksk2]

Considered to be one of the best writers/directors ever. He did a flick (considered one of his best) where almost EVERYBODY but the protag (an unemployed Ronin) and a few other characters where utterly sccummy, for many different reasons. It was good enough to be re-made recently with Bruce Willis in the lead: Last Man Standing. The original version was Yojimbo, I think, but I could be wrong. I sugest looking at the Japanese version (it's cleaner).

[wcmartell]

Is based on Dash Hammett's RED HARVEST... a swell novel. In the novel (and in YOJIMBO and in FIST FULL OF DOLLARS and in MILLER'S CROSSING and in LAST MAN STANDING and in the dreadful Jean Claude Van Damme film INFERNO) there is the villain our "hero" first teams up with (Noonan in HARVEST)... and the more evil villain (Whisper). When he sets one against the other, he is more catalyst than hero... but the threat mostly comes from the "second villain". In RED HARVEST it's Whisper who is the Op's antagonist, even in the scenes where he's aligned with him.

In the Kurosawa film, the samurai (Mifune) hides from one group of bandits in the home of a villager (was it a grocer?) and learns about the two warring gangs. Both gang leaders have swords... but only one has a gun. The evil one. Sooner or later, it's going to be Mifune's sword against that guy's gun. It's the last fight in the film... and I'd say that guy with the gun is the villain. The other badguy is also a villain, but a lesser villain. You spend the whole film wondering how Mifune is going to deal with that six shooter...

There is a "primary villain" in all of these films, even in the hero thinks they should all be knocked down.

- Bill

PS: There's a cool version of this story by Ross Thomas called THE FOOLS IN TOWN ARE ON OUR SIDE about a political consulting firm which will clean up your town... by making the crime rate rise so high the public gets motivated. Of course, they stir up one town where things get WAY out of hand.

[Couchguy]

Personally, I like the villians of Richard, Susan, Rudy and Kelly on Survivor. One can only hope that smarmy host Jeff Probst kills them all with some kind of sword.

Your pal,
Couchguy

[spidey12]

You ain't kidding, Couch. If you saw last night's episode, you laughed when they denied having an alliance, the rat-bastiches. :evil

[Nemesis Unbound]

Kosk you do "Yojimbo" a disservice ;) ...by mentioning only that it was remade as "Last Man Standing", long before that it was remade, almost shot for shot, as "A Fistful of Dollars" (which Bill Martell mentioned but not in that context). The latter is a much better film than "Last Man Standing", probably because it stayed so true to the film it was based on.

[ksk2]

I don't think I can do Yojimbo a disservice; it that good IMO. I've never seen a better version of the story elsewhere; some stories are better suited to certain periods/locales/cultures, and I think the Japanese version outranked them all. Now if I can just forget that dream-anthology that Kurosawa did... ;)

[Blast Doors]

Thanks for the responses all. In retrospect, it seems I've actually ended up creating a triumverate of villains which continually cause trouble for my hero, and the best part is that the leader used to be his best friend.

Now to actually write it! :)

[ksk2]

Awwww, Jiminy Cricket, Blast...! That's a whole 'nother thread entirely...!

Just joshin'. Bet of luck.

kosk