Take Your Beta Blockers, It's The Angriest Men On Film

Take Your Beta Blockers, It's The Angriest Men On Film
As Nic Cage prepares to Drive Angry, we reflect on our favorite rage-fueled performances

Liam Neeson in Taken

Maybe Bryan Mills didn't buy his daughter a pony, but he has a very particular set of skills. Skills that includes killing everything that gets between him and his daughter. Even a boat. He will kill a boat.

So unless your Dad can do this, go to Florida during Spring Break unless you want to end up an enslaved prostitute.

John Goodman in The Big Lebowski

Walter Sobchak's peculiar brand of anger comes, oftentimes, from being right. I strongly doubt he would have flown off the handle had Smokey not been over the line. It's like The Dude says, "you're not wrong, Walter, you're just an as*hole."

The Hulk in Hulk and The Incredible Hulk

Banner's all mixed-up on this. We do like him when he's angry. That's pretty much the only part of either flick with any re-watch value.

Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven

It was a toss up between Clint's turn in Unforgiven versus High Plains Drifter, and while that latter film may have a higher cool factor, there is, of course, the problem that that dude may just be a mass hallucination or manifestation of group guilt. Surely that's gotta act as a disqualifier.

But turning to Unforgiven's Will Munney's closing remarks, there's still plenty of evidence the dude could use some anger management classes. To wit, "Any man I see out there, I'm gonna shoot him. Any sumbitch takes a shot at me, I'm not only gonna kill him, but I'm gonna kill his wife, all his friends, and burn his damn house down."

Followed by, "You better bury Ned right!... Better not cut up, nor otherwise harm no whores... or I'll come back and kill every one of you sons of bitches."

Ed Harris in Glengarry Glen Ross

It takes a few viewings before you realize that Ed Harris is the angriest of all the miserable mopes in David Mamet's portrait of hell.

Pacino's Ricky Roma takes a moment or two to gloat and Lemmon's Shelly "The Machine" Levine is even able to slip in modicum of pathos. Harris' Dave Moss, however, is pissed-off pure and simple. In between gripes and screeds the only thing he's able to accomplish is rub Alan Arkin's face in his misery in a successful attempt to get his ulcers all worked up, too.

He can run in retreat to Wisconsin all he wants, but until he looks within, he'll never find happiness.

Jackie Earle Haley in Watchmen

Considering how much of Alan Moore's Watchmen is first person from Rorschach's point of view, you'd be well advised to avoid asking him to sign a movie poster should you see him at one of his rare public appearances.


Jon Polito in Miller's Crossing

It's one thing that a business can't expect a return on a fixed price. It's one thing to cross and double-cross til a man don't have no ethics no more. It's one thing to get all dizzy over a twist. But don't ever, ever, give Johnny Caspar the HIGH HAT!

Yeah, Miller's Crossing appears, at first, to be written in English, but it has a language all its own.


Harrison Ford in Air Force One

Dude has his own plane and some Russian dickbag is on it. C'mon. Get off his plane.

Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator

Adenoid Hynckle, the Phooey of Tomania, is so filled with frightening anger that even his microphone wilts when he rages into it.

Adam Sandler in Punch-Drunk Love

Novelty toilet plunger salesman (and pudding contest loophole exploiter) Barry Egan is a bit of an every man. . .if every man is condemned to have a flock of overbearing sisters hanging around their neck.

The implication of Punch-Drunk Love is that, somehow, happiness will win. Just a few bathrooms and sliding glass doors have to lose their life along the way.

Winnebago Man in Winnebago Man

It may shock you to learn, but there were viral videos before the Internet. It was a big pain in the ass to dub VHS tapes onto one another with consumer equipment, so this effort made it a true meritocracry.

In addition to Heavy Metal Parking Lot and episodes of MST3K were the leaked videos of a cussin'-to-the-point-of-nearly-injuring-himself salesman trying to record a simple commercial.

Last year a documentary was made about the man behind the myth and the phenomenon his rage begat.

Philip Seymour Hoffman in Charlie's Wilson War

Aaron Sorkin pours decades of meth-fueled genius into the greatest middle finger yet put to film, when Gust Avrakotos smashes his bosses' office window and calls him an effing child. Since he's an American spy putting his butt on the line for our security, this red white and blue "screw you" proves that telling off your superiors is the American way.

Michael Douglas in Falling Down

I get grumpy when I don't have my breakfast, either.

Robert De Niro in Raging Bull

How angry is Jake La Motta? He throws a perfectly good steak on the floor when he's mad at his wife.

Listen, I may not be a psychologist, but I do know this: if you have a problem with your temper, getting yourself all worked up in the bedroom then pouring ice water down your shorts probably isn't the healthiest move. But, hey - that's entertainment!

Steve Buscemi in Ghost World

Steve Buscemi's "Seymour" doesn't have the dangerous anger of a lot of the others on this list, but it is nonetheless explosive.

His rage against hypocrisy can work as a slow burn (collecting racist advertising) or in unexpected bursts (yelling at parents at a crosswalk to "have some more kids, why don't you!" or fuming at fans of Blues Hammer.)

The fundamental truth is this: we were all just a few rare records and a basement apartment away from becoming Seymour, so Ghost World is an important reality check to keep us focused.

Christian Bale in The Dark Knight

He hates crime, he hates due process. He apparantly hates his vocal cords, too.

To wit, his line to Maroni: "Grrrrrwhererrrrr rrrrisrrrr he?!??"

Al Pacino in The Devil's Advocate

There are a lot of Pacino roles that could have made this list (heck, Shylock from Merchant of Venice has some anger issues) but none could provide us with a mugshot like John Milton's up there.

If only rest of the movie were as awesome as this still.

Peter Finch in Network

Howard Beale may've let corporate baloney blow a fuse in his brain, but the anger he unleashes across America with his faux-populist rants would absolutely pale to what screenwriter and political thinker Paddy Chayefsky would experience were alive today and could see Glenn Beck doing it without irony.

Giancarlo Esposito in Do The Right Thing

It may've been Radio Raheem and Sal that finally broke into violence, but Buggin' Out was the spark that led to the conflagration. Or was he just an observant man saying what needed to be said? Decades later, Do The Right Thing is still open to interpretation, but Buggin' Out's rants cries for justice remain undeniable.

Bruno Ganz in Der Untergang

Sure, Chaplin's faux-Hitler was angry, but what about Bruno Ganz's end-of-his rope, pasta-eating, underling-berating, Luger-to-the-brain bunker-dweller?

That's some angry stuff that, just maybe, you've seen in a YouTube mashup.

Eli Roth in Inglourious Basterds

Keeping with the theme, say hello to the Boston-based "Bear Jew" from Quentin Tarantino's alternate-history Inglourious Basterds. Sgt. Donny Donowitz also proves that not all Hebraic men are terrible at sports.

Steve Martin in Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Car Rental Agent: How may I help you?

Neal: You can start by wiping that fu*king dumb-ass smile off your rosey, fu*king, cheeks! And you can give me a fu*king automobile: a fu*king Datsun, a fu*king Toyota, a fu*king Mustang, a fu*king Buick! Four fu*king wheels and a seat!

Car Rental Agent: I really don't care for the way you're speaking to me.

Neal: And I really don't care for the way your company left me in the middle of fu*king nowhere with fu*king keys to a fu*king car that isn't fu*king there. And I really didn't care to fu*king walk, down a fu*king highway, and across a fu*king runway to get back here to have you smile in my fu*king face. I want a fu*king car RIGHT FU*KING NOW!

Car Rental Agent: May I see your rental agreement?

Neal: I threw it away.

Car Rental Agent: Oh boy.

Neal: Oh boy, what?

Car Rental Agent: You're fu*ked!

Timothy Olyphant in Deadwood

Deadwood is TV, not a movie, but I'm including it for two reasons.

One, only a hoople-head would ever want a list that didn't include Deadwood when it could.

Two, Ian McShane's Al Swearengen is not the angriest man in Deadwood. Oh, sure, he's the most murderous. And the loudest. But all he craves, really, is stability to he can fleece you six ways from sunday before you head back to your claim with your (probably infected) tail between your legs.

Seth Bullock, on the other hand, stomps around town with self-righteous indignation straight out of the Old Testament looking for any excuse to refuse a handshake or back away from the position of martyrdom. (Dude, just sell your pick-axes and shut up, will ya?) His is an anger that doesn't shout, but sure as hell fumes.

Brad Pitt in Seven

For most of the picture Detective David Mills is just another cop on a hard case, until Kevin Spacey puts his pregnant wife's head in a box. He doesn't just get angry he, in the words of Andre Kevin Walker's absurd script, "becomes Wrath."

Ricardo Montalban in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Brad Pitt maybe becomes wrath, but, hell, they named the entire movie after Khan's wrath!

Trapped by celestial cirumstance and, perhaps, an overreaching bureaucracy (hell, even in the future we can't all be as good as Mr. Atoz), years amidst harsh winds of Ceti Alpha V fanned the fury and coarsened the skin of the already somewhat testy Khan Noonien Singh. By the time Chekov showed up and he'd already memorized Moby Dick there was no way he wasn't putting a slugs in peoples' ears and demanding planet-altering hardware.

UGO