Works featuring "antihero" (38)

Bold Bank Robbery

Assault, carjacking, armed robbery - then the action starts... Not usually cited as a significant or influential film, yet it contains a number of elements that were not commonly found in films at that time, but later were widely used.

The Moonshiner

Remember the last time you saw a movie in tribute to a heroic family man (and his gun-totin' wife) who made a clean living producing and selling illegal recreational drugs, until killed in a police raid? Well, if you missed that one, just turn your clock back to pre-Hollywood, and dig this sympathetic look at one of America's outlaw folk heroes (featuring an MMA-style fight scene!)

Revenge!

This revenge is not so sweet - quite nasty, in fact - showing that producers learned early that exploiting human fascination with viewing violence can be profitable.

1904 seems to have been the year that the fledgling film industry made an important but unheralded discovery: audiences also like to root for outlaws - even when they know those outlaws are doomed to fail.

Just look at Revenge, and compare it with another crime film by the same director, released just ten months earlier: The Pickpocket. Although the titles might lead one to believe The Pickpocket is a character study while Revenge is not, actually neither reveals anything about the protagonist.

But although both begin with commission of the crime that sets off the action, nothing in the portayal of the pickpocket garners audience sympathy for the outlaw or his crime. On the other hand, the protagonist of Revenge is shown committing his crime as a victim of betrayal, his life ripped apart by those in power and authority. Finally, the film industry had tapped into an archetype that cinema audiences never seem to tire of identifying with: the protagonist who feels wronged by the powers that be, so sets out for to make things right by slaughtering everything in sight.

Knight Of The Trail

Hart again plays an outlaw gone soft-headed for a dame - this time, a mere flirty waitress at the OK-but-nothing-special Restaurant, who's somehow rolling in cash of dubiously unexplained source. Other than that hilarious drunken one-two sucker punch, not much here to interest anyone who's not already Hart-core.

Keno Bates, Liar

Keno Bates, Sleazeball, runs a saloon. As every Hart movie has shown, saloon owners are despicable scumbags who run crooked gambling halls. When one of Keno's victims refuses to accept that he'd walked into Keno's trap, he lashes out in armed revenge to retrieve his money - just as the “hero” of Hart's The Silent Man (1917) does. Although both Keno and his henchman were armed, they offered no resistance (which would be considered legitimate self-defense), made no attempt to dissuade the man, and afterwards never notified the law.

Instead Keno Bates, Lyncher and his henchman set out after the money they'd swindled, and the hombre who had the gall to grab it back - despite knowing he was armed and desperate.

When Keno Bates, Murderer eyeballs a snapshot of his victim's sister, he warns his henchman to get ready to take their lying to a whole new level, as Keno Bates, Slimebucket starts scheming how to use the murder he just committed to bust a move on the dead man's sister.

Later, when the sister learns that she has been deceived, she reacts like her brother. First, she lashes out murderously against the innocent messenger - the only honest person in the whole flick, and the one who legitimately pulled a weapon in self-defense.

Then she lashes out in armed revenge against Keno Bates, Sucker, who has fallen for a wild vixen in sheep's clothing, who will bring into his life the hell that he rightly deserves, and the DNA that would eventually result in Norman Bates, Psycho.