A salute to heroes...

[Cohaagen]

See this guy?



Do you know him?

Of course you know him. He's been in fucking everything. His name is Jonathan Banks. He gets shot at the beginning of 48Hrs, and Eddie Murphy throws him onto a table full of prawn cocktails in Beverly Hills Cop.

How about this wild-looking rooster?



Cheat a sneak at the URL? That's Branscombe Richmond. This titan of celluloid's filmography reads like a list of the Macedon's victories, and that's even without including such lesser hits as The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh, Iron Eagles III, and Showdown In Little Tokyo, where he played the key role of "Man In Door (uncredited)".

Guys like Jonathan and Branscombe - and Tommy Rosales Jr, Al Leong, Randall "Tex" Cobb for that matter - can frequently make a movie for me. More than that, they can often prove the one redeeming feature of otherwise unmitigated shite.

But this thread isn't just for the heroic, plodding journeymen actors who brighten up cinematic crap, whether A- or Z-grade. It's for those memorable fictional characters in all films who provide a fist-pumping "yeah, it's him, it's that guy!" moment.

It's the Peter Pan fella from Escape From New York who hisses at Kurt Russell for no reason whatsoever. That little old guy who lives on a raft down in the oil tanks of The Deez in Waterworld. The crop-top mugger from Death Wish 3. The big mongo who runs out of the woods in Mad Max, or even the guy with the pink hair and car in Mad Max 2. Or this pair of absolute icons:



Yeah, it's the guy whose only lot is to pop out from behind a barrel or crate, level a blank-firing pistol at the hero, and yell "don't move, asshole!". It's the little squidgy actor, unnamed - nameless forever in fact - who has the misfortune to be blown up by Frankenhooker and shot in the stones with a .44 Magnum by Robert Ginty in The Exterminator.

If there was any justice in this world, real justice, fuckin' one-in-a-million champs like Jonathan, Branscombe, Tommy, and the rest would one day be buried in Westminster Abbey with a 21-gun salute and a flypast by a couple of Spitfires and a Lancaster as the massed crowds watched a 100-stuntman blankfiring exhibition shootout complete with air-rams, double bloodpacks, and banana republic goons falling off roofs onto piles of old cardboard boxes to stock-effect screams and a synthesizer n' steel drum soundtrack piped through a 200,000 watt PA, all retransmitted on outdoor screens to the overflow in Hyde Park...

Guys, I pin a medal on your chest, and salute you tenderly.

BEHEMOTHS

[Jake Thingray]

Norman Rossington.

[Serge]

I always thought he looked a little like Elvis Costello would without his glasses when I saw him in 'Beverly Hills Cop'. Probably just me. Or that I would secretly like to see Elvis Costello get thrown at a table.

Before he became famous as Dr Cox in 'Scrubs', John C McGinley would have been ideal for this thread. He used to pop up in stuff like 'Se7en', 'Point Break' and 'The Rock' playing minor characters who looked like they would break your neck as soon as look at you.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

See this guy?



Do you know him?

Of course you know him. He's been in fucking everything. His name is Jonathan Banks. He gets shot at the beginning of 48Hrs, and Eddie Murphy throws him onto a table full of prawn cocktails in Beverly Hills Cop.

He plays Mike in Breaking Bad, all else is a footnote.

[Cohaagen]

My awareness of Breaking Bad is limited to the fact that it's an American TV show and it's very well regarded, but unless he plays a smirking henchman or random heavy who gets a wicked one-liner I'm not watching the thing.

This guy



Robert LaSardo, had a fairly substantial role in Nip/Tuck, but that doesn't change the fact that he will always be the dude who gets burst by Steven Seagal in an off-license at the beginning of Hard To Kill.

Conversely, I will always think of John C McGinley as the wobbly sergeant from Platoon who didn't even have the guts to sit on a throne of sandbags and smoke pot through a gun, never mind waste a one-legged gook (unlike Kevin Dillon, himself a minor Hero before spoiling it with TV fame).

[Serge]

Ah, I've never seen 'Platoon'. In 'Se7en' he looks like he could pull John Doe's head off and put it in a box.

[Famous Mortimer]

I think he might be too famous for this thread, but the awesomely named Zeljko Ivanek is one of those chaps for me:



Basically, if there's a US legal drama, this man will be in it.

[Cohaagen]

I think he might be too famous for this thread

I'll be honest with you, mate, if he's ever pressed the muzzle of a stainless steel-finish, 3-digit model Smith & Wesson behind the ear of an action movie protagonist, or taken a hit for the team from an on-the-edge cop who doesn't play by the rules, or pointed into the distance and shouted "looooook!" before disappearing for the rest of the movie, or hovered around a crime scene in a manky pale blue suit with a little spiral notepad - at any time in his career - he's an in. He gets the trophy. He gets the bronze trophy of a goon collapsing as he empties an AK mag into the air and falls out a guard tower.

Actually, IMDb says he was in a movie called The Soldier as "Bombmaker/Cleaning Lady" which is a motherfucker of a credit. Also, he was the Canadian who gets "eet" in In Bruges. He's okay by me, pal.

Ah, I've never seen 'Platoon'.

Maybe it's just because I'm obsessed with the Vietnam War, but if you regard yourself as a film fan you need to see it quick stick. It can be appreciated both as clumsy protest art and war porn, especially if you feel like watching a young Johnny Drama commit a major breach of Protocol 1 of the Geneva Convention concerning non-combatants.

[Cohaagen]

[Depressed Beyond Tables]

See if you can identify these heroes by the pretty rough descriptions.

* Possibly hispanic pockmark-faced bad guy.

* Rat faced bloke.

They've been in loads of films, IIRC.

[Cohaagen]

* Possibly hispanic pockmark-faced bad guy.

Being perhaps quick-draw McGraw here, I'm almost certain this is Robert Davi.



An actor so good he sang while smoking a cigarette and without moving his lips in The Goonies.

ALSO: remember William Atherton? On-screen shithouse, real-life nice guy, apparently. Did he ever play a sympathetic character?

[Phil_A]

See if you can identify these heroes by the pretty rough descriptions.

* Possibly hispanic pockmark-faced bad guy.

* Rat faced bloke.

They've been in loads of films, IIRC.

Were you thinking of this particular weasel-faced bastard from The Untouchables(who goes by the name of Billy Drago)?



"He died like a peeg!"

Funnily enough, I immediately thought of Robert Davi when I saw this thread.

[Cohaagen]

Were you thinking of this particular weasel-faced bastard from The Untouchables(who goes by the name of Billy Drago)?

Who is the baddie in Delta Force 2 and also gets wasted in the opening act of insane, ultra right-wing 80s Chuck Norris vehicle Invasion USA by gunshot to the groin from mental Soviet agent...



...Richard Lynch, a craterfaced Star Trek and shitty movie regular himself.

Wow. Crock Family Trees.

[Depressed Beyond Tables]

Were you thinking of this particular weasel-faced bastard from The Untouchables(who goes by the name of Billy Drago)?

Re: Rat face.

I found him and he's not actually as bit-part as I had thought.

He was in a Kurt Russell 80s romp.

Being perhaps quick-draw McGraw here, I'm almost certain this is Robert Davi.

Not him. This guy never had many lines. Most of the time none. Think rapey-looking, greased hair and moustache, usually attacking with a big blade too...

[Cohaagen]

Was it Joe Spinell from Taxi Driver and leather daddy masterpiece Cruising, among others?

[Depressed Beyond Tables]

Later career than him I would have said. Usually popped up in mid to late 1980s action films playing yer typical Columbian/Mexican goon.


Just to reiterate:

Possibly hispanic, pockmark-faced, rapey-looking, greased hair and moustache, carrying a big blade optional.

[Cohaagen]

You'll have to count me out, man. The only other greaseball fitting that Hero APB I can think of is Tommy Rosales Jr. If it's from Tango & Cash, maybe a Bisto'd-up Clint Howard?

How about another clue for folks still in the game? Is this the kind of creep who would do an extended camera-assisted trick with a butterfly knife before having a crack at the good guy?

[Depressed Beyond Tables]

As the tension is clearly killing you I'll reveal that 'Rat Face' was in fact Brion James of 1985's Crime Wave fame, where I think I'm right in saying he played a rat-faced exterminator/hitman.



The other guy, the hispanic looking one, was someone very like this guy, Danny Trejo (Maniac Cop 2, Death Wish 4: The Crackdown etc.), maybe a bit younger.

[Cohaagen]

Shit, I thought I was being smart by going for the obscure ones.

I can only apologise for not figuring out Danny Trejo. Maybe I'd have had better luck if you'd posted a picture of his matchless body double from Death Wish 4...



You can now rip off my B-actor epaulettes and snap my retracting plastic stunt-sword in half, DPT.

Brion James is an interesting case. In the space of two years he went from a major role as the studio head in Altman's The Player to crashing through a polystyrene wall, pulling out a flick-knife, and saying his Bladerunner "time to die" line in Albert Pyun's Spitfire.

EDIT: but it's not actually Danny Trejo? Fuck. I'm stumped. Really.

[Depressed Beyond Tables]

Is that Chris Kamara and Ron "Peperami" Atkinson?

[Cohaagen]

I don't know, mate. I thought you were going to say fat John Ashton from Beverly Hills Cop and Midnight Run. Basically, I'm so pissed right now that anything you people post is inevitably goigngn to be vandalised with an uncircumcised penis and three energetic lines coming out of it. I warn you. I'm sorry. God bless these men. They deserve the Victorious Cross (Idi Amin version). You're all good guys. HEY - IT GETS BETTER.

[Depressed Beyond Tables]

So what's your favourite scene from a 'hero'?

I remember being particularly pleased when a Fergal Sharkey lookalike got pasted in an Arnie flick. I think it was Commando.

[Depressed Beyond Tables]

It wasn't Commando. Maybe Raw Deal.

Commando killcount

Personal favourite is Maradona at 72.

[padougy]

I'm trying to work out the level of fame you're aiming at, cohaagen.

You mean sort of like this guy? Or is he too famous?



If you can tell me three films he's from but not his name, I guess he fits.

[kidsick5000]

That's Zed isn't it?

[Serge]

As the tension is clearly killing you I'll reveal that 'Rat Face' was in fact Brion James of 1985's Crime Wave fame, where I think I'm right in saying he played a rat-faced exterminator/hitman.

As soon as I read 'Rat Face', I thought of Brion James. You're spot on about who he played in 'Crime Wave'.

[Ignatius_S]

...Brion James is an interesting case. In the space of two years he went from a major role as the studio head in Altman's The Player to crashing through a polystyrene wall, pulling out a flick-knife, and saying his Bladerunner "time to die" line in Albert Pyun's Spitfire....

His part in The Player was a good one, but personally I would say it was more of the kind of supporting character role that Jones was great at, rather than a major role.

Two years after The Player, he had a very significant supporting role in the Radioland Murders – although that was a flop (but a film that I think is pretty entertaining), it had a decent budget, was a labour of love for George Lucas and had a very strong supporting cast. This with quite a few parts, meant that it wasn't all downhill post-Player.

[Schlippy]

Usually popped up in mid to late 1980s action films playing yer typical Columbian/Mexican goon.

Just to reiterate:

Possibly hispanic, pockmark-faced, rapey-looking, greased hair and moustache, carrying a big blade optional.

Not pock-marked, but other than that it sounds very much like Luis Guzman:



Been in everything.

[Cerys]

Uncanny!

[Cohaagen]

Personal favourite is Maradona at 72.

Who is in fact the aforementioned Tommy Rosales Jr, who also personally gets wasted by Strudel in at least four other films. He even bites it in Kindergarten Cop[nb]Actually, now that I think about it, I don't think he does. I think the Oak just points a shotgun at him and says he's Detective John Kimble and he loves his "caaahh"[/nb].

If you can tell me three films he's from but not his name, I guess he fits.

I actually know this guy's name, because I'm a sad fuck, but to most people he'll just be "Zed out of Pulp Fiction" or "that gangster out of Usual Suspects" or, for intellectual night owls, "that guy from that weird film on Channel 4 where he scrubs himself with steel wool".

From the tinted side of the spectrum, the late Steve James was another good one. He held his own in a number of Cannon flicks in the 80s and was being groomed to be the next black action star before his untimely death.



Also, this guy needs no introduction:



Possibly the ultimate Stupid Chief. I bet he has an entire drawer full of confiscated badges and guns from over a dozen different police forces.

Luis Guzman is a great choice. The acme of Hispanic sleaze. He's also in The Hard Way, one of the great underrated action movies of the early 90s (which in sensibility were really just the late 80s).