Movie Villainess 101 Rank #11

With a kill count in double figures, this lethal henchwoman certainly is a jewel

Movie

Bounty Tracker (1993)

The top ten ranking places are reserved for female main villains, so Cyndi Pass’ lethally efficient mercenary gets the honour of being the highest ranked legendary henchwoman. A constant presence throughout the film, Jewels is always involved. Not content to be a minor background character, she happily guns down innocent civilians, provides technical support, acts as the intermediary between main baddie Erik Gauss (Matthias Hues) and his mafia paymaster, and simply looks mean and badass whenever there’s a lull in the frantic action.

B-movie martial arts star Lorenzo Lamas (known for TV series Renegade) is Paul Damone, a bounty hunter who gets the typical establishing action hero scene when he beats up a gang of thugs and arrests a minor villain. With that out of the way, it’s time to move onto the main plot. An accountant and his partner plan to give financial data to the police that incriminates a mob boss. He might think he’s safe in his office in broad daylight, but Gauss and his mercenary hit squad have other ideas.

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Jewels – wearing smart clothes and shades – leads the assault. An innocent secretary barely has time to ask a question before the female assassin blasts her with a machine pistol. The first of many killing sprees then follows, with nobody safe from gunfire. One man takes cover in an office, but Jewels simply shoots him through the wall. Gauss wipes data from the computers and kills the accountant, but his partner escapes. Matthias Hues is well known for playing muscle roles, but for those unfamiliar with his work, there’s a scene where two cops attempt to arrest Gauss only to end up on the receiving end of a brutal response.

When it’s revealed the man who escaped is Damone’s brother – and the bounty tracker is in Los Angeles for a visit – any action fan knows what’s coming. The witness has police protection, but these men are no match for Gauss’ team. Jewels takes up a position overlooking the house, coolly snipes a sentry, then announces the coast is clear. Fifteen minutes into the movie, and the villainess has racked up several kills already.

Damone and his brother were enjoying a family get together, but that was never going to last. Gauss raids the house and the hero does put up some resistance, taking on and eventually finishing off a couple of minor henchmen in the process. Jewels isn’t about to die this early however, and pins down Damone with bursts of gunfire. The villainess doesn’t care an innocent female relative gets caught in the crossfire – she’s simply another witness to eliminate. Without Damone to protect him, the brother is easy prey for Gauss.

The police give the hero the lowdown on the main villain, and this is a fairly routine revenge thriller from this point on. Gauss and Jewels make fine adversaries, and there are plenty of mooks for Damone to get through before he catches up with the main players.

Villainess

Jewels (Cyndi Pass)

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Mercenary work can be expensive, so Gauss sends Jewels – posing as a smartly dressed attorney – to visit the imprisoned mafia boss. She arranges payment in diamonds, but the man quite unwisely decides to romance the deadly assassin. Her response is very cold, and even in this in dialogue heavy sequence, the henchwoman still finds time to slam a prisoner (who made chauvinistic comments earlier) into the cell bars.

Damone’s investigation – based on a mercenary tattoo – takes him on a familiar montage trek through the city streets, and he eventually gets a lead on Gauss thanks to assistance from a crippled veteran. This lead happens to be a martial arts school staffed with men loyal to Gauss, which is mainly an excuse to have a mass brawl. When unarmed attacks prove ineffective against Damone, the tougher thugs arm themselves with melee weapons, but the hero is more than a match for this riff raff.

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Gauss – being the meticulous sort – sends Jewels after Damone as backup, and when the martial artists fail, she follows the hero back to his hotel. A maid becomes the henchwoman’s latest innocent victim, then the female assassin busts into Damone’s room. In the resulting shootout, Damone manages to escape (killing heroes is never easy) by jumping down to a garbage bin, but Jewels finds a tattoo picture when she searches the room. Time to report back to Gauss, and make a promise not to fail again.

One witness remains at large, but Jewels and a fellow mercenary track a police detective to the isolated safehouse. The cops are again outmatched by the mercs who come equipped with silenced weapons and tear gas. With the opposition incapacitated, the black-clad Jewels and Gauss put on gas masks and eliminate their targets. Unfortunately, this is a somewhat murky scene, but that henchwoman body count keeps on rising.

After Gauss murders the cripple in relaliation, Damone teams up with gang members the vet was helping rehabilitate into society, and the unlikely team of heroes locate Gauss’ base of operations. The trailer is empty now, but Damone still makes the mob boss connection after he sees a television news report. Planning to follow the money trail to the villains, one of the gang bangers hides in the trunk of a car and provides directions to Damone who follows in a van.

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The mafia are smart enough to pay Gauss with real diamonds, but after a radio call from Damone reveals the stowaway, the lesser villains all become expendable. Jewels wastes no time in shooting a slow to react henchmen, and easily hunts down the escapee. It’s all set for a final standoff between Damone and the man who killed his brother. Eventually there’s a big fight between the two men in the junkyard that goes on for several minutes, with Gauss eventually taken out by a convenient protruding nail and a spectacular kick from Damone.

Before that there’s a certain henchwoman and an unnamed mercenary to deal with first. The male is finished off rather unceromoniously, but Jewels gets a couple of shooutouts and an unexpected fight with Damone. Her martial arts skills are rather weak compared to gunplay, so the hero defeats her quickly. Rather foolishly, Damone leaves Jewels alive, but her latest attempt to kill the heroes ends with a fatal gunshot. A somewhat bland end, but this leather clad henchwoman quite possibly has the highest female kill count in movie history.

Video Review

Honourable Mention (Unranked)

Mission of Justice (1992) – Rachel Larkin (Brigitte Nielsen), Erin Miller (Cyndi Pass)

Watch enough direct-to-video actioners and the players become very familiar. Both Matthias Hues and Cyndi Pass are in this one, but instead of Lamas it’s Jeff Wincott as hero ex-cop Kurt Harris. His establishing badass scene is that old favourite: a store hold up. That’s before a combination of red tape and a domestic violence victim convince Harris to quit the force. It’s not too long before a boxer friend of his named Cedric meets a sticky end, and Harris is back on the case as a civilian investigator.

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Harris’ partner and contact on the force is Lynn Steele, a woman as tough as she sounds. Played by martial artist Karen Sheperd, she also gets to take down her fair share of bad guys. Harris’ off book detective work leads him to mayoral candidate Dr. Rachel Larkin (Brigitte Nielsen). The actress looks attractive in a blonde wig and has a private army of vigilantes to clean up the streets. That’s the cover story anyway, because Larkin’s true right wing agenda is to acquire money and power by any means necessary.

Larkin ditches the wig when she visits Cedric to persuade him to support their cause. The boxer puts up a fight against the villainess’ brutal brother Titus (Hues), but he’s essentially a plot device to get Harris involved. Once Titus has done the roughing up, Larkin gets to finish the job with twin daggers, but this part is disappointingly brief. Most of the movie has Harris infilitrating the Peacemakers and doing some noctural detective work. Surprisingly there are no corrupt cops on Larkin’s payroll, and the bureaucratic sergeant is seen off to frame Harris for murder.

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The Peacemakers are an all-male group except for Erin Miller, though she exists mainly as a female opponent for Steele during the climax. Miller is Larkin’s secretary and just as evil as her boss. The henchwoman enjoys torturing people for information and assisting Larkin when she murders an elderly woman for her inheritance. This is a great villainess duo scene, but Miller doesn’t get to put her martial arts training to use until the final encounter.

In fairness, Miller puts up a better fight against the heroine than most of the men did. It’s a rough, full on fight in the office that results in a lot of destruction, but in the end Steele wins comfortably. Miller comes back for another try as the action flips between her fight and the inevitable Harris vs. Titus, but it’s about a minute and half of action in total.

After Titus is beaten (is that even a spoiler?), Harris confronts Larkin during a press conference. Thanks to a recording of Larkin committing torture and admitting her involvement in murder, the hero is exonerated. The villainess refuses to go quietly and comes at Harris with her twin daggers, but the final hurrah is over within seconds and gives way to the usual hero wrestling with his conscience resolution. Worth a watch, if only to see Cyndi Pass getting experience as a henchwoman before going on to shine in the superior Bounty Tracker.

Movie Villainess 101 Rank #15

Two villainesses and one henchwoman – females are definitely represented in this revenge saga

Movie

Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003)

In Quentin Tarantino’s two volume revenge saga, it’s the men who do the talking while women fight to the death. Events are often violent and bloody, but what do you expect when the protagonist is a deadly assassin and her old team members are the targets? Uma Thurman’s Bride (her real name is revealed to be Beatrix Kiddo in Volume 2) is left for dead at a wedding rehearsal in Texas, but the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad should have made sure to finish her off when they had the chance (something these supposedly elite killers are repeatedly guilty of).

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There are ten chapters split across two films, presented in non-chronological order. The first target we see is actually the Bride’s second: Vernita Green aka Copperhead (Vivica A. Fox). She’s enjoying retirement in suburban America and is now married with a young daughter, but that doesn’t earn her any sympathy from the Bride. The two women battle each other and wreck most of the furniture, and it’s a fairly even contest before Vernita’s little girl shows up and the assassins put the fighting on hold. It’s a very brief pause, before Vernita attempts to shoot the Bride with a concealed gun. It’s never a good idea to miss a target, especially one that’s carrying a knife to throw back in retaliation.

With one victim dead, we’re shown puzzled Texas cops investigate the chapel aftermath and the supposedly dead Bride who turns out not to be. Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) is the most psycho assassin and really hates the Bride, so she’s not best pleased when the titular Bill (David Carradine, though we never see has face in the first movie) decides it’s not chivalrous to kill a woman in a coma and orders his subordinate off. Skip forward four years, and the Bride wakes up with a metal plate in her skull and a vendetta against the hit squad who murdered her groom.

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The four hour long tale (counting both films) is overlong with lots of dialogue. The Bride gets a samurai sword made by a master smith in Japan, but did we really need five minutes of her pretending to be innocent Yankee tourist? Said smith actually survives the encounter, and should consider himself lucky. Most men (and women for that matter) are treated as expendable, often with fancy camera angles and tinted colour palettes to add variety to the ongoing violence. A handful of characters actually put up a worthy fight, but most never last more than ten seconds.

The Bride is a one woman army, and while the individual female antagonists by themselves might just scrape legendary status at a push, the ensemble trio of villainesses are worthy of a top fifteen ranking place.

Villainesses

O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox), Gogo Yubari (Chiaki Kuriyama)

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As the final boss of Volume 1 – and it’s appropriate to use videogame analogies – O-Ren Ishii gets a badass introduction. Acually, three of them. First up is an animated backstory that shows O-Ren’s own revenge tale against the Yakuza boss who murdered her parents, her rise as an assassin, and finally the wedding attack that made her the Bride’s first target. The seven minute cartoon is just as violent as the live action segments, but for those eager for “real” action, that comes soon enough when O-Ren decapitates a crime lord who refuses to fall in line because of her Asian-American heritage. That ends any dissent and establishes the villainess as a truly ruthless woman.

With the Bride now in Tokyo (after a flight where katanas are apparently allowed in the main cabin), there’s a montage of her wearing a yellow jumpsuit on a motorcycle while O-Ren rides in a limousine flanked by her own biker enforcers. The Bride – by means of a voice over narration – introduces O-Ren’s key lieutenants. These include the domino masked leader of the “Crazy 88” gang, her beautiful but timid assistant Sofie Fatale, and the far more deadly and sadistic Gogo. For the third introduction (okay, we get O-Ren’s a badass by now), the villainess enters her club with her minions close behind as epic music plays in the background.

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The final chapter of Volume 1 is essentially a half hour long action sequence where the Bride takes on all comers. Like any crime boss, O-Ren has disposable mooks to throw at the anti-heroine. After the Bride chops off Sofie’s arm just to show she’s serious, one poor guy is sent in alone, and routinely dispatched as the villainess watches from the balcony. Then come a few more guys for the Bride to deal with, none of them any good. There’s a female in the mook ranks too, but she doesn’t last much longer.

It’s not until Gogo steps down to the lower floor that the Bride has any real competition. As the only henchwoman to receive an introductory flashback, it’s obvious the ball and chain wielding psycho will prove more difficult to defeat. After a lengthy opening attack where Gogo demolishes the club decor, she disarms the Bride and gets her in a chain chokehold. The Bride proves equal to the challenge, and improvises by using a block of wood (and sharp protruding nails) to finish off her opponent.

There’s a humorous interlude where O-Ren gloats that it won’t be that easy before a horde of masked mooks arrive. It’s then the Bride versus a whole army of thugs. Most of the carnage is shot in black and white, but the violence isn’t toned down at all. Plenty of people lose arms and legs fighting the Bride, but don’t manage to land a single blow against their well trained adversary. Even the leader lasts less than a minute, knocked from the upper balcony after the Bride slices off his leg. O-Ren walks away mid-fight, almost as if her goons are intended to tire the Bride out rather than kill her. The villainess even admits this when the Bride has finally seen off the Crazy 88s and steps out into a snowy landscape to confront the boss lady.

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After all the buildup, don’t expect a great final confrontation. It’s stylish enough – with the two female swordswomen circling about each other as the tempo raises – but very few blows are traded. O-Ren proves a match for the Bride and slashes her in the back. Then comes a moment to gloat, before the Bride rises to fight on. After a few more moves, it’s O-Ren’s turn to get cut, only this blow cleanly cleaves off her scalp. O-Ren has just about enough time to acknowledge the Bride’s victory before she collapses dead in the snow.

My prevailing thought was “Is that it?”, and I suspect many other villainess fans will feel the same. So brilliant up to the last encounter, but ultimately a letdown.

Video Review

Honourable Mentions (Unranked)

Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004) – Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah)

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While the first volume did have roughly 50% action, there’s barely 5% in the second half. By now the Bride has three targets remaining. Budd (Michael Madsen) is a washed out hitman living in a trailer, and Bill is now a family man fond of lengthy conversations. Once more, it’s left to the females to deliver the excitement. If this summary seems brief, it’s because there’s not much to discuss despite the movie being over two hours long. Even a minor character – an Asian assassin who the Bride talks down by revealing she’s pregnant – gets more action than Bill who’s eventually taken down by a death touch.

Yes, the final boss fight never materialises. This movie tends to subvert expectations, and has a lot of skilled assassins achieve victory over superior opponents by cheating. The Bride shows up to confront Budd – all decked out in ninja garb – only to get shot and buried alive in the desert. So it’s a good thing she listened to her brutal sensei and can bust her way out of a wooden box. After literally rising from the grave, it’s time to confront the final woman on the hit list.

The treacherous Elle finishes off Budd – who she could easily kill in a fair fight – by planting a snake in a bag of money. There’s a wonderfully chilling scene where the assassin reads out the properties of the venom coursing through Budd’s veins, then the Bride returns and the real fight begins. Elle now has the sword and advantage, but the Bride is a tough woman to take down. Like most locations where female assassins have it out, the trailer ends up destroyed. The Bride gets hold of Budd’s old sword, and it’s revealed how Elle lost her eye.

Telling a vengeful woman you murdered her former mentor is probably not the smartest play, and the Bride responds to Elle’s confession by plucking out her remaining eye. The anti-heroine leaves the blind woman alone with her pet snake, and Elle’s final fate is left to the viewer’s imagination.

Guns, Girls and Gambling (2012) – The Blonde (Helena Mattson)

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Not one of Tarantino’s films, even though it pretends to be. Weird characters populate this “man caught in the middle of a gang war” tale, all conveniently introduced with title cards just so we know who they are. Cowboys and Indians are a prominent theme (two assassins even go by those very names), and there’s an overall modern western feel. Two bosses – The Chief (Gordon Tootoosis) and The Rancher (Powers Boothe) – fight over a tribal warrior mask stolen by a gang of Elvis impersonators. Yes, this movie is just as crazy as it sounds.

The man in the middle (mentioned above) is John Smith (Christian Slater), and there are also appearances by Jeff Fahey as the double revolver toting Cowboy, Gary Oldman as the ringleader Elvis Elvis, and Megan Park as the seemingly innocent Girl Next Door (naturally, not who she seems). Plenty of people die before the final showdown is done, with minor characters such as henchmen and two corrupt sheriffs biting the dust before the more important players.

The deadliest assassin in town is the unnamed Blonde who recites Edgar Allen Poe quotes before blowing her victims away. This woman – dressed in black and the subject of frequent sexy rear shots – is the coolest character, and skilled in both acrobatics and firearms. This allows her to emerge unscathed from her bloody encounters, escape double crosses and surprise attacks, and ride off into the sunset with her prostitute accomplice and a suitcase full of money. Everyone else ends up on the losing side, except for John Smith who played everyone from the start.

The Blonde’s standout moments – and there are plenty to choose from – are assassinating a man in a toilet cubicle (yes, really), and besting the Indian (who foolishly brings a tomahawk to a gunfight) at a deserted ranch. In a movie full of corpses, this female assassin has the highest kill count. John Smith wisely lets the Blonde and her leather-clad lover keep their share.

Movie Villainess 101 Rank #16

This particular contract carries a high penalty for failure

Movie

Final Contract: Death on Delivery (2006)

This fast paced action thriller is a throwback to the days of real stunts, unlikely heroes and tough women with ponytails dressed all in black. The villainess Lorca does answer to a sleezy criminal paymaster, but be in no doubt the main threat (and selling point) is the ruthless assassin with the crossbow. Too bad the police finger an innocent patsy and spend the whole movie chasing him, while wrecking dozens of vehicles in the process.

Motorcycle courier David (Drew Fuller) is an American working for his uncle in Berlin, and has a blossoming romance with fellow employee Jenny (Tanja Wenzel). David has the usual teen love problems and a few speeding tickets, but nothing serious. That all changes when a beautiful woman jumps into his car (that always spells trouble) and claims to be a cop hunting a contract killer who’s just murdered a key trial witness. Bad guys want to stop her, leading into the first of many chase scenes where David shows off his driving skills. The passenger Lara is handy with a sidearm, and after a high speed shootout – and all the traffic chaos that results – she shows her appreciation with a kiss.

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David – realising Lara has left her bag behind – follows her into a hotel. She warns him the lobby is under surveillance, so David agrees to check in at reception and enquire about a contact. Lara later joins David in the room, now scantily dressed and in full on seduction mode. Being a young man David lets his guard down and stands up Jenny (something she’s clearly not happy about) in favour of Lara. Pity all this is just a setup and the woman David spent the evening with is actually the contract killer Lorca – who murders a second witness while he’s asleep.

David wakes up to find the hotel swarming with police. Hillman (Ken Bones) is the man in charge and has a personal vendetta against the assassin. So he’s awfully pleased with himself when his armed response team corner David on the roof, and take the supposed “assassin” into custody. The courier brought along a bag at the villainess’ request, not realising she stowed a crossbow inside to implicate David.

Two dumb cops (there are plenty in this movie) take a detour and beat up David for crimes he didn’t commit. They’re enjoying their brutality until the real assassin – now dressed in leather and looking far more villainous – executes the two men without a second thought. She contemplates killing David too, but decides to spare his life. Seems the patsy is still important to the villainess’ plan, if only as a distraction for the cops to pursue while she targets the third and final witness.

Villainess

Lara / Lorca (Alison King)

With an assassin on the loose and the entire Berlin police force after him, David is a stranger in a foreign land with few allies to call on. His uncle is frustrated and outright refuses to help, and Jenny is also reluctant given their recent history (though she does offer David a ride). Lorca has vanished, but David has enough problems with the cops. There are multiple car chase scenes and lots of property damage, but David manages to evade the authorities thanks to help from a shady mechanic he’s made deliveries for. Jenny isn’t too pleased with the danger her boyfriend has put her in, and with the romantic angst over it’s time for the villainess’ return.

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The third witness is very well guarded, so Lorca beats up David and kidnaps Jenny to force him to co-operate. David has a clever idea to use the vehicle’s GPS tracker, but the villainess anticipates this and the trail ends at an abandoned warehouse. Meanwhile Jenny frees herself by cutting her bonds on a convenient sharp object (there’s always one around). It’s a bold escape attempt, but one that ends very quickly after Lorca tracks Jenny down and recaptures her. The crossbow wielding villainess isn’t in the mood for disobedience, and tortures Jenny with electric shock therapy to show David who’s in charge.

The assassin has David wear special camera glasses – so she can watch everything on her hi-tech monitor screens – and instructs him to attend the courthouse, where she’s already stashed a gun for her patsy to use. David is seemingly out of options, and can only watch helplessly as a young girl is brought in. The witness is a child, and if David refuses to eliminate her, Lorca will kill Jenny. To make things worse, Hillman and the police are on site and still suspect David.

After an interlude, the prosecutor questions the girl and asks her to point out the offender. Lorca demands David shoot her, and gets increasingly angry. Seeing no response on her screens as the witness identifies her client, the villainess grabs her trusty crossbow and threatens to shoot Jenny unless David pulls the trigger first. After a tense exchange, David – who’s tracked the villainess using a clue Jenny provided – shoots the assassin. As Lorca struggles to comprehend the turn of events, it’s revealed David’s uncle finally agreed to help and is the person wearing the glasses at the courthouse.

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Lorca isn’t finished yet and attacks David while his girlfriend watches in terror. Being a trained assassin, the villainess has the upper hand. After being dealt a few blows, David takes advantage of a rare opening and throws Lorca over a guardrail. Seeing her plan fall apart, the villainess flees and uses a speedboat to make her getaway. David is determined to prove himself innocent, and chases after the assassin on a motorcycle.

The final big action set piece follows, with a police helicopter following David. Snipers attempt to shoot the hero, despite Jenny (who’s been brought along as a suspect) doing her best to inform Hillman the woman in black is the assassin they’re after. After a lengthy pursuit – including a few narrow escapes – David rides up a ramp and performs an improbable jump to Lorca’s boat. Lorca fights David and gets the better of her weaker opponent, but then makes the mistake of readying her crossbow. That tips off Hillman who the real assassin is, and he finally realises his mistake.

Now exonerated, it’s still down to David to best Lorca in a fight – which he just about manages – and send the speedboat crashing into dry land. This takes the assassin out of the equation, and an apologetic Hillman has Lorca arrested while the heroes kiss and make up.

Video Review

Honourable Mentions (Unranked)

Hard Target 2 (2016) – Sofia (Rhona Mitra)

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This sequel to the 1993 movie doesn’t involve Jean Claude Van Damme or John Woo, but does come with leather clad villainess Sofia. Yes, Rhona Mitra plays another badass female, alongside Scott Adkins as a martial artist seeking redemption for his chequered past and Robert Knepper as a psychotic criminal fond of big speeches. Exactly the casting – or should it be typecasting? – we’ve come to expect in the direct-to-video action market.

After MMA fighter Wes Baylor (Adkins) accidentally kills his friend and competitor during a fight, he winds up on a much less prestigious underground circuit in the far east. When a sinister man named Aldrich (Knepper) offers Baylor a half million payday, he quickly accepts the offer. Except the proposed fight in Myanmar never was and Baylor is now the latest player in a sadistic game of hunt and kill. Aldrich’s crew include all kinds of rough types plus the now expected tough girl Sofia who’s got a serious chip on her shoulder and a love for crossbows.

It’s all standard stuff, so don’t expect any surprises. As the hunting party track Baylor through the jungle, he teams up with a local named Tha (Ann Truong). She’s the typical resourceful type who gets the occasional fight when Baylor is otherwise occupied, but mainly exists so the hero can confess his sins and pray to Buddha. Baylor kills off a few careless bad guys before Aldrich gets super annoyed and orders out weaponised motorcycles to give the villains an (even more) unfair advantage.

One of the better action scenes has Sofia and two mooks chase down Baylor. The other hunters go down fairly easily, leaving Sofia to fire her vehicle mounted weapons and corner her prey in a deserted village. Baylor acquires a bike of his own and fires a net to dismount the villainess. Not finished yet, Sofia draws two mini crossbows and advances while scenery explodes behind her. After a thankfully brief family history lesson about her wealthy father, Sofia fights Baylor with a baton and puts up a decent struggle before he sends her flying through a destructible wall.

Baylor does the heroic thing and leaves Sofia alive, and inevitably it’s the two women who go at each other in the final battle. Sofia – armed with a big crossbow now – confronts Tha, but prefers to show off her combat skills so fights unarmed. This leads to a disappointing finale on a rusty old train, with the action interrupted by those cutaway moments directors are so fond of. For an experienced huntress, Sofia is bested by Tha very easily and never looks like winning before she gets impaled on a spike. Like so many henchwomen, overconfidence is her undoing.

Ballistica (2009) – Alexa (C.B. Spenser), Fang (Lauren Mary Kim)

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No crossbow this time, just secret agents able to dodge bullets at close range. The title refers to the ludicrous concept of – as the villainess puts it – kung fu with guns. In addition to bizarre fight scenes, there’s a training montage of the hero Damian (Paul Sloan) working out with dual pistols, a shadowy CIA department with a hi-tech control room, minor female agents who exist purely as eye candy, and a treacherous blonde who seduces the main character before revealing her true allegiance. Derivative stuff, in case you’re wondering.

A number of B-movie stars feature. Robert Davi is the agency boss who might be corrupt, Martin Kove is a dependable ally, and Andrew Divoff plays a Russian baddie who’s the main antagonist before the villainess’ reveal. Special effects are atrocious at times and the fight scenes are poorly done with no on-screen physical contact, but there’s some enjoyment to be had if you can forget the laws of reality.

The plot involves a nasty bomb that terrorists want to acquire. Lauren Mary Kim – known mainly for stunt work, with the occasional acting gig whenever a female Asian badass is required – plays the minor villainess Fang. She’s a nondescript… um, Asian badass who beats up the captured hero and throws a prototype weapon his way. Too bad she forgot to lock the door, and gets the bomb tossed back at her. A stupid death scene to end Fang’s far too brief role.

Alexa is actually convincing as an innocent scientist who wants to help. She receives martial arts training, talks with Damian about his tragic past, and even gets a pool lovemaking scene. This all seems to be the standard sidekick trajectory until Damian kills his nemesis with half an hour left on the runtime clock. Then Alexa reveals herself to be adept at ballistica and takes out an entire SWAT team with acrabotic gunfire. Damian arrives to discover Alexa has activated the bomb she was supposedly there to defuse, before the villainess puts a bullet in his chest.

Good thing Damian was wearing a pendant – yes, that bullet blocking trick we’ve seen countless times before. While office politics and treachery unfold back at base, Damian chases after Alexa in a car, bringing the bomb along for the ride. There’s a lengthy pursuit scene through the streets of Los Angeles with very noticable green screen background shots before the villainess crashes and the confrontation continues on foot.

Alexa gives us a “reason why” speech when cornered by the hero – the usual about the need to commit a terrorist act to secure funding – then it’s a ballistica duel. Alexa proves Damian’s equal in agility and style, but somehow these two elite agents can’t hit a target at arm’s length. Finally the villainess has Damian in her sights, but he manages to load a spare bullet in mid twist and finish her off.

Movie Villainess 101 Rank #17

Don’t let this woman develop a crush on you, Mr. Bond

Movie

GoldenEye (1995)

Pierce Brosnan’s four Bond movies were escapist material, allowing for some outlandish characters such as a Georgian female assassin who crushes men between her thighs. Xenia is the first of two legendary villainesses from the Brosnan era to make the top twenty, so it was very much the golden age for evil Bond girls.

The change in leading man comes with a (mostly) new supporting cast. There’s now a woman in charge of the 00 section with Judi Dench getting her first outing as spymaster M. Samantha Bond is Moneypenny, and by this point Q (Desmond Llewelyn) is truly a veteran. Bond one liners and crazy gadget exposition scenes are present as always, and director Martin Campbell – helming the first of his “reboots” – brings style to the frantic action set pieces. There are many big explosions, close calls, dramatic escapes and impossible stunts packed into the two hours. Welcome to the 1990s, Mister Bond.

The formula was still intact at this point in the franchise, but the filmmakers were starting to experiment with the tried and tested. There are two surprise bad guys thrown in the mix, though savvy viewers will guess both twists fairly easily. Building a secret lair and hiring an army to protect it is standard for any Bond villain, but controlling a Russian satellite weapon requires a technical genius. Discounting leading lady Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco), that leaves only the egotistical Boris Grishenko (Alan Cumming) as the probable insider.

Besides introducing the new James Bond actor – with the usual ambiguous camera angles before his grand entrance – the prologue attack on a Soviet chemical weapons lab also features Sean Bean as 006 Alec Trevelyan. He supposedly gets executed after the mission goes wrong, setting up a vendetta between 007 and Colonel Ourumov (Gottfried John). However, since Bean is listed second on the opening credits and always seems to play bad guys, it’s no real shock he ends up miraculously surviving to become the main villain. This makes for an interesting dynamic in the second half, since Trevelyan knows Bond – and his tricks – very well.

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Xenia is the only woman in the villain’s ranks, but is arguably the most physical female opponent Bond has ever faced. That covers both sexual activity – not advisable with Xenia – and getting beaten up by the hero. She’s able to take a lot of punishment (and actually enjoys receiving it), given her background as a fighter pilot in the Soviet military.

The villainess certainly knows how to exploit male weaknesses. Her first appearance comes during the “Bond discovers an evil plan in motion” storyline variant, with the hero’s driving skills evaluated by a female operative. That goes how any 007 fan would expect, with Bond flouting the rules and getting into a race with a mysterious brunette driving a Ferrari. She’s actually a very good driver herself, able to to pull off swerving manoeuvres at high speed. There are several near fatal accidents before Bond wisely decides to break off the contest and romance his companion instead.

Bond catches up with Xenia at a Monte Carlo casino. She’s having good luck at the Baccarat table until the charmer in the tuxedo shows up to change her fortune. The typical James Bond introduction then follows with names exchanged in classic style. It turns out Xenia already has a date for the evening with an admiral, but Bond suspects something amiss, so has Moneypenny run a background check. Not spending the night with Xenia turns out to be a smart move, since the assassin murders the admiral in bed with her signature thigh crushing routine. When Bond discovers the body the next morning, at least it appears he died happy.

Xenia and her male accomplice use the admiral’s stolen ID to board a French warship. The villainess murders two pilots to steal their flight jackets (that come with convenient dark tinted visors), all to hijack a prototype helicopter during a demonstration exercise. Bond arrives too late to stop them, and the detained hero can only watch as the villains escape.

Villainess

Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen)

Three murders in the opening half hour tell us Xenia is not a woman to trifle or even cross paths with. Bond’s nemesis Ourumov – now a general – runs a weapons test at a remote Siberian facility, though that’s merely a ruse to steal the arming keys for a satellite based electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapon. Xenia quite happily eliminates the civilian staff with a submachine gun once they’ve outlived their usefulness, and even Ourumov looks uneasy at the villainess’ enthusiasm for mass murder. The only survivor is computer programmer Natalya, who escapes the massacre through a combination of luck and ingenuity. As Bond women go, she’s at the more competent end of the spectrum.

As expected, we’re shown how devestating the stolen GoldenEye weapon is when the villains use it to fry the computers and cover their escape. Back in London, Bond and MI6 watch the attack unfold on monitors, and Natalya is now the only person who can identify those responsible. Of course, the first person she contacts is the traitor Boris. Natalya is already nervous when she arranges to meet at an eerie dark church, and gets a fright when she discovers Boris brought along the woman who murdered her colleagues.

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Bond’s investigation takes him to St. Petersburg, where he receives help from CIA agent Jack Wade (Joe Don Baker is one of those actors to play multiple roles in the series, a non-villainous role this time) and forms an uneasy alliance with Russian mob boss Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane). Bond asks too many questions, the kind of thing villains get annoyed about. So it’s time to send Xenia for a (literal) steamy encounter in the hotel sauna. Their third meeting is a lot more intimate, a bizarre mix of verbal exchanges and rough sex. Xenia attempts to thigh crush Bond, but he’s able to free himself. The hero has had quite enough of the foreplay and demands to meet the boss.

Another gloomy meeting location – this time a statue graveyard. It’s here Bond knocks Xenia out and discovers both the missing helicopter and the man running things. Bond is surprised to see his old partner Alec alive, but soon realises he’s walked into a trap. Trevelyan makes the mistake all villains in the series seem to, and doesn’t kill the hero outright. No, he locks both him and Natalya in the helicopter, and sets off radar guided missiles to destroy all the evidence and pesky secret agent and witness. Of course, Bond uses the ejector seat to escape the blast.

The hero barely has time to argue with Natalya before the Russians show up. That gives the heroes an opportunity for more friendly talk before the interrogation begins. Natalya fingers Ourumov, but he soon shows up to frame Bond for the murder of the defense minister. Xenia is absent for the action that follows, with a chase in an archive building that results in Natalya being recaptured. After a dramatic escape, Bond steals a tank to pursue the villains. This leads to a rather one sided chase with Bond even more indestructible than usual.

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After wrecking half of St. Petersburg, the hero tracks the villains to an old Soviet missile train. The armoured vehicle survives a tank cannon blast, but not a head on collision with the tank. Bond has the upper hand against Trevelyan, but his foe knows his weaknesses too well and has Ourumov bring Natalya in to use as a bargaining chip. Now the true villain has been revealed, Ourumov is expendable, and Trevelyan repeats the mistake of locking Bond in with Natalya and arranging an explosion. Didn’t he learn the first time?

After another escape – and loud bang – the heroes swap the dreary Russian backdrop for sunny Cuba. There are some romantic moments in the sun and attempts to humanise Bond, but this is only a brief interlude before the heroes go secret base hunting. The final confrontation between Bond and Trevelyan takes place in a replica space control facility hidden underwater. Everything is formula here – gadgets, resourceful female ally, close quarters fights, and one liners – but it’s worked for thirty years, so why change things up?

Bond’s final encounter with Xenia occurs in the jungle after a plane provided by Wade is shot down by a missile. With the hero dazed from the crash, Xenia descends on a rope from a helicopter and easily overpowers him. Despite being armed, she has to humiliate Bond and crush him between her thighs. Natalya attempts to intervene, but gets a headbutt from the villainess (if you’re watching the uncensored version). After a very brief struggle, Bond uses Xenia’s weapon to shoot the helicopter, and the villainess gets dragged between two tree branches. Time for a trademark Bond one liner to end things, though Xenia deserved a longer fight scene.

Video Review

Honourable Mention / Discussions (Unranked)

The Living Daylights (1987)

Timothy Dalton played a far more serious Bond than his predecessors, though many fantastical plot elements remain. Locations are still exotic, the gadgets hi-tech, and the women beautiful, but the storyline and villain ambitions are toned down somewhat. The grittier 007 films tend not to feature female foes, and even the leading lady – Maryam D’Abo as cellist Kara Milovy – is fairly incompetent and present for romance only.

Kara receives an intriguing introduction, going from a seemingly innocent performer to a sniper who Bond is reluctant to kill. This is later revealed to part of a setup to fake a defection and Kara innocent after all. When Bond has Q research female assassins, one particularly strong woman’s MO is stranglulation by thighs. Foreshadowing for GoldenEye, perhaps?

Other than Kara, all the main players in this Cold War thriller are male, and the villains – especially an American arms dealer – are among the weakest in the series. The CIA use Bond’s weakness for females against him by employing two beautiful agents, but aside from trapping 007 very easily, they’re strictly background characters.

Licence to Kill (1989)

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Dalton’s second and final entry dispensed with the humour almost entirely and gave us a tough and violent revenge thriller. James Bond goes rogue and seeks payback when drug dealer Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi) leaves Felix Leiter a hospitalised widower. The plot is less outlandish than usual, even if Sanchez does operate a drug factory disguised as a temple. The trademark action sequences and improbable stunts are all present, with a ten minute long explosive tanker truck chase (as destructive as you might expect) to round things off.

Like other more realistic offerings, there are no henchwomen on show, but the female characters are stronger than expected. Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell) is one of the most competent leads in the series, able to own her own in a fight. Absent for the first half, she makes a strong impression in the second as an undercover operative equal to 007. Most of the simple plot revolves around Bond and Pam inflitrating Sanchez’s organisation and turning the villains against each other. One highlight is an extended role for Q – who proves to be an unlikely and helpful field agent – but ultimately this comes down to Bond vs. Sanchez.

Talisa Soto as the villain’s mistress Lupe is a more traditional Bond girl, but still proves a capable and valuable ally. There’s also an unmasking scene after two “ninja” narcotic agents – including one woman – fight and capture Bond on a rooftop. Unfortunately this attack screws up Bond’s attempt to kill Sanchez, and the female dies in a hail of bullets not long after.

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Not for the first time in a Bond movie, an insane villain plans to start a war between two nuclear powers. This time it’s the UK against China, and the man responsible is Elliot Carver, a media mogul who thinks global conflict will improve ratings. After the era of fake news and foreign interference, this techno thriller doesn’t seem quite so implausible today, and there’s enough action – including a spectacular motorycle chase scene in Saigon – to make this a very watchable if routine 007 adventure.

As the only Brosnan movie not to feature a female villain, the bad guys are fairly generic. Joanathan Pryce is a hammy main villain whose plan is revealed far too soon, and for hechmen he has a tough muscular guy to do the fighting and a computer hacker for misinformation. Fortunately the women are more interesting than usual. Teri Hatcher is the wife of the villain who had a previous relationship with Bond, and that description alone suggests it will end tragically.

China send an agent of their own – Wai Lin – to investigate Carver’s network. She’s played by Hong Kong action movie veteran Michelle Yeoh, and gets to do all the fighting and stunts you would expect. Other than a couple of moments of incompetence, she’s a very effective secret agent and a one woman ninja army during the otherwise lacklustre climax on a stealth boat. She does end up getting captured and the romance feels awkward and unnecessary, but Wai Lin is one of the series’ best female leads.

Die Another Day (2002) – Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike)

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Michelle Yeoh was slated to return for Brosnan’s fourth and final Bond outing, but she probably dodged the proverbial bullet by not appearing. The end product is a mess, with a watchable – though far fetched – first half followed by a truly awful second half. The villain is a North Korean colonel obsessed with conquering the South by any means necessary. After his supposed death, he takes on the identity of British entrepreneur Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens) to complete his evil scheme.

The main plot detail revealed early on – the ability to replace human DNA and completely change apperance – actually seems believable compared to the invisible car, solar powered heat ray operated by wrist computer, and super charged electrified defence armour. Other than a fencing match between Bond and Graves that turns into a brutal swordfight – that wrecks a private club in London – this film is overblown and too ridiculous even for 007.

Halle Berry plays NSA agent Jinx who actually becomes the main protoganist at times, right down to daring solo action and spouting awful puns that pass as humour. When she converses with Bond, it’s truly painful. There’s a female North Korean interrogator who stings prisoners with scorpion venom, but she only features in the prologue and opening titles.

The main villainess is Miranda Frost, an MI6 operative working undercover as Graves’ publicist. In fact, she’s a double agent who betrayed Bond to the North Koreans. Frost is introduced as an Olympic champion fencer (complete with an unmasking scene), and a briefing with M reveals her as a spy. She finally shows her true colours when Bond confronts Grave in his ice palace (more silliness), only to discover his ally is not so trustworthy.

After Bond escapes and rescues Jinx (no surprises there), the two agents go after the villains. The climax takes place on a military aircraft with Bond battling Graves and his electrosuit, while Jinx and Miranda have a swordfight. The skimpy outfits make the whole fight seem even more ludicrous, and eventually Jinx completes Bond’s revenge mission for him. Yes, Bond doesn’t even get that satisfaction and when he arrives to see Miranda already dead, he doesn’t look too happy.

(Note: The “missing” third Brosnan film will be covered as a ranked villainess entry later)

Movie Villainess 101 Rank #28

She’s not really your wife Doug, so don’t hesitate to shoot her

Movie

Total Recall (2012)

This remake is widely regarded as inferior to the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger film, and does fall short in some key areas. The Earth setting doesn’t quite capture the sci-fi feel of Mars and Jessica Biel is rather bland as resistance fighter Melina. But this list is for ranking female villains, and Kate Beckinsale’s version of Lori – an all-action, tough as nails operative – is a notable improvement on Sharon Stone’s great but underused femme fatale.

Anyone who’s seen the 1990 movie will mostly know what to expect from the story, though the update does throw in a few tricks and variations. Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) is a factory worker from The Colony (that would be 22nd century Australia) employed in the United Federation of Britain (UFB for short). In this post apocalyptic version of the British Empire, much of the planet has been rendered uninhabitable by chemical warfare, and commuters travel through the Earth using a gravity elevator known as The Fall.

Doug has been having strange dreams of late, seeing himself as a secret agent on some mystery mission with a beautiful woman. Fleeing UFB troops in black armour is more exciting than his day job, so it’s no wonder Doug wants more of this. So – against the advice of his friend – he goes to a company called Rekall who implant memories to people strapped in a chair. These tech wizards have a safety policy that nothing in the simulation can actually be true in real life, but it’s only a dream, right? Actually, it turns out Doug really is a spy (with a heavy dose of amnesia), and the UFB are very interested in finding him.

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Whatever Rekall did activates Doug, and he takes down a dozen UFB troops with martial arts and inventive use of grenades. Not sure what to do, he goes home to his devoted wife Lori, only for her to suddenly develop a British accent and reveal herself as a UFB operative who’s only known him for six weeks. Doug is able to get her at gunpoint for some brief questions (and some vague answers), but Lori is far more skilled that the guys Doug has dealt with so far and quickly regains the upper hand. Doug flees with Lori hot on his tail, which leads to a chase across the enormous Colony shanty town and its Oriental style tiered levels.

After eluding his false wife, Doug gets a call from a phone implanted in his hand (that he didn’t know was there) and a message from a former colleague. The man advises Doug to get rid of the phone – which is also a tracking device – and directs him to a safety deposit box. Happy to have some assistance, Doug uses a broken piece of glass to cut out the phone, and gives it to a homeless guy who soon receives an unfriendly visit from Lori. This is definitely not a woman you want to be on the bad side of.

Lori asks her boss for information about Doug’s identity and doesn’t seem too happy with his reply. In fact, she orders the UFB mooks to shoot on sight. In the safety deposit box, Doug finds recorded video instructions (from himself before the memory wipe) and hi-tech spy equipment which may just come in handy for figuring out who the hell he really is.

Villainess

Lori (Kate Beckinsale)

The villainess becomes the main foe for Doug over the course of the movie. Despite working for the ruthless UFB dictator Chancellor Cohaagen, she’s the antagonist with the most screen time. Action ramps up several notches when Doug travels to the UFB, escapes the authorities (with a false ID and holographic disguise), and jumps onto a highway. Good thing the woman from his dreams arrives to rescue him. Melina is a member of the resistance and handily a skilled hovercar driver. Apparently she and Doug were lovers, which adds romantic spice to the high speed chase that follows.

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Lori (who else?) leads the pursuers. In addition to regular troops, the UFB have a droid army at their disposal (or perhaps for disposal?). This leads to a CGI heavy action sequence with all kinds of crazy stunts. Melina gets in a few jibes about Lori before she pulls off a dramatic swerve and shoot maneuver. Lori is not that involved, in truth. Mostly it’s just shots of her looking frustrated, and eventually Quaid eludes the UFB by disabling the hovercar’s magnetic system and dropping to the streets of London. Down there vehicles still have wheels, including traditional red buses.

Doug gets another message from his former self – this time hidden in a piano – which reveals he previously looked very different and was called Hauser. The former UFB agent apparently had a change of heart and now plans to aid the resistance by providing information stored in his brain. Not long after this revelation, Doug’s friend from work (his mundane factory job) turns up and claims it’s all a dream. His arguments aren’t at all convincing – such as wearing a bulletproof vest because Doug put it on him and speaking in a different accent as part of the fantasy – but it takes a drip of sweat on Melina to stop Doug shooting her and turn his weapon on his “friend” instead.

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After that dialogue heavy ruse section, Lori ditches her concerned wife act (part of said ruse) and resumes her role as the badass agent. The ensuing chase – with a relentless Lori and her droid support hunting Doug and Melina through the dense structures and transporter shafts – is the most exciting scene in the movie. The villainess is actively involved throughout, whether she vents insults at Doug or uses her robots for mobile cover (and disposable shock troops) while advancing on the trapped heroes. Lori thinks she’s victorious after she bests Melina in a catfight and plants an explosive charge, but Quaid and Melina prove equally resourceful and jump to another platform in time to escape the blast.

We’re then treated to bleak landscapes as the heroes enter contaminated territory outside the clean centre of London. However, Doug’s joy at contacting the resistance proves short lived when it’s revealed the “information” in his brain is really a virus and the whole sequence of events has been a clever charade by Cohaagen to locate the rebel leader. Hauser never switched sides and volunteered to have his mind wiped. Lori gets to gloat before the UFB take Melina prisoner and strap Quaid to a memory implanting machine. Fortunately the villains don’t stick around (when will they ever learn to make sure the heroes are beaten?), and a resistance friendly trooper frees Doug before the procedure.

With the resistance wiped out, Cohaagen launches a droid invasion of The Colony to gain the most valuable resource in this dark future: living space. Lori’s not so involved in the big action set piece that follows. Her scenes are limited to chasing the heroes around a Fall transporter and being ordered not to intervene directly, while Quaid plants explosives to sabotage the operation. Cohaagen shows up in person to fight the hero and has numbers and adrenaline on his side, until Melina pilots a gunship and evens the odds with bursts of gunfire. With the villain foiled, the heroes make a dramatic escape from the explosion and Lori is seemingly killed in the blast.

Quaid wakes up in an ambulance with Melina by his bedside. A supposedly dead villainess killed off screen – that can’t be right, surely? Lori’s ploy to impersonate Melina using a holographic disguise may have worked if not for the real heroine having a wounded hand (and the projection doesn’t). Quaid fights Lori – briefly – then finishes her off with an electric paddle stun and a gunshot.

Video Review

Honourable Mention (Unranked)

Total Recall (1990) – Lori (Sharon Stone)

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To avoid repetition, this extended honourable mention is light on story details. Douglas Quaid is played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Melina by Rachel Ticotin, and Cohaagen by Ronny Cox. Other than that, it’s the same tale of an ordinary worker discovering he’s really a secret agent and that plenty of people want him dead. The second half is on Mars and there’s a subplot about an alien device that generates oxygen from ice. Cohaagen’s main henchman is Richter (Michael Ironside), and Lori is relegated to a support role.

Despite this, Sharon Stone makes an impression leaving the viewer wanting more, though what we do get is very good. Lori’s reveal is better handled, with a shadowy figure attacking Quaid after he returns home from Rekall. After a brief shootout, the “intruder” is revealed as Lori and Doug discovers his wife has martial arts skills. She plays the innocent woman to buy time, but Doug is too smart to fall for that.

After flying to Mars, it’s Melina who becomes the main woman while Richter pursues the hero. There’s also an annoying taxi driver who’s obviously a mole – so the reveal is far less surprising than Lori even to a first time viewer – and the false wife doesn’t show up until the villains try to convince Doug he’s experiencing a false memory at Rekall. After Doug sees through their lies, Lori stops pretending to be nice and kicks the hero in some rather sensitive places.

Lori’s best scene is her last one. She gets an extended fight with Melina after the heroine arrives to rescue Quaid. This is a drawn out fight – one of the better female v female examples – and finally it’s Lori who literally gets on top. Just when the villainess is about to kill Melina with her own knife, Doug shoots the weapon from her hand. Lori pleads for mercy, but Quaid shows her none and gets a trademark Arnie one liner: “Consider this a divorce”.

Movie Villainess 101 Rank #32

She’s got a personal one to settle

Movie

Final Score (2018)

It had to happen eventually. Ever since Die Hard in 1988, the tried and tested formula of a lone hero against a small army of villains has been reused in nearly every conceivable scenario. Now the action has come to a football stadium. Americans might call it a soccer stadium, but doing that in East London is likely to get you a punch in the face (as Agent Cho learns the hard way).

Michael Knox (Dave Bautista) is a former soldier whose brother was killed in action following a questionable order. Now Mike is attempting to make amends with his niece Danii (Lara Peake), and what better way to do this than take her to a football match? Especially when that game happens to be a high profile European semi-final and West Ham United’s final match at the Boleyn Ground (or Upton Park, as it was more commonly known). The team have now relocated to London’s former Olympic Stadium, which allowed producers to set off an explosion and do some serious damage in the loud and dramatic climax.

The villains are mercenaries led by Arkady (Ray Stevenson), a ruthless general who wants to find his supposedly dead brother Dimitri (Pierce Brosnan) so badly he’s prepared to threaten the lives of thirty thousand people. The two men were once leaders of a revolution in Sakovia (a fictional Soviet bloc country) and now Arkady wants to lead a second revolt. So for once the motive isn’t nuclear weapons or money. Eveything else is formulaic though, including the villains planting C4 explosives to mask their escape and Knox throwing a dead guy off the stadium roof to convince authorities the threat is real.

West Ham fans are presumably that shocked at their team reaching a European semi-final they don’t notice the chaotic events happening around them, whether that be gun wielding mercs on the concourse, mobile phones going dead, the stadium in lockdown mode, or even a bike chase and crazy stunt jump. To keep the crowd occupied, West Ham score two goals at convenient times. It’s only when the hero runs onto the pitch to avert disaster that anyone pays attention. Knox’s only allies are Steed, a police commander on the outside (who’s surprisingly competent for a change) and Faisal Kahn, a timid steward who provides comic relief. They even work in some dark humour with Faisal acting the Middle Eastern terrorist to clear out hostile spectators.

This is a movie it’s best not to think too hard about unless you want the plot holes to give you a headache. It’s predictable, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing as it delivers what action genre fans expect from a Die Hard clone. There’s a gung ho hero, nasty villains, fights in claustrophobic locations, and an unexpectedly great bad girl who leaves a lasting impression.

Villainess

Tatiana (Alexandra Dinu)

After a long series of disappointing henchwomen in these flicks, it’s time we had a female version of Karl from Die Hard and that essentially sums up Tatiana. Arkady’s lieutenant doesn’t care about being attractive – this is a tattooed warrior with a cornrow haircut to match and acts every bit as mean as she looks. All that’s missing is a “last woman standing” scene, since Tatiana dies before the grand finale. At least she goes down fighting, and has several run ins with the hero and his niece. That’s enough to rank Tatiana as the best Die Hard clone villainess and earn her legendary status.

This movie is the UK answer to Sudden Death and there are a lot of similar themes. Tatiana takes a lead role in the stadium takeover, infilitrating the ground as a paramedic (like the Van Damme film the terrorists disguise themselves as employees). Upon arrival, Tatiana guns down a security guard and innocent civilians in the police control room to quash any idea of resistance.

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After Knox takes out a terrorist in an elevator (or should that be lift?), he gets a big fight in the kitchen. No killer penguin in this one (she featured at #92), but the brute Vlad proves tough to take down. Eventually Knox finishes the big guy off by dunking his head in boiling fat. This really ticks off Tatiana, since she and Vlad were lovers. Next comes a display of rage, with her smashing random items and demanding to be the one who kills Knox. Getting Karl vibes yet?

By now Knox has tipped off the police and offers to rescue Dimitri before the villains find him. Time is of the essence since the mercs have rigged the stadium to explode once the match ends, so Knox grabs a motorcycle to speed things up. There are plenty of other bikes (left indoors for some reason), which is really an excuse to have an action scene. Tatiana and her mooks pursue Knox while stunned spectators wonder what’s going on. When her handgun proves ineffective, Tatiana swaps it for a submachine gun. Eventually Knox reaches the roof with Tatiana not far behind, though her aiming is predictably terrible. It’s much too early to have the crowd flee in panic, so how about a goal so people don’t notice the gunfire and motorcycle jump overhead?

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After Knox makes it to Dimitri, the villains up the ante by kidnapping Danii to use as a bargaining chip. Tatiana takes great pleasure in knocking out Faisal and torturing the hostage girl. Things are personal as far as she’s concerned. Knox reluctantly agrees to trade Dimitri for Danii, leading to a “prisoner exchange” scene on the stadium roof. The villains plan to double cross the heroes and detonate the explosives anyway (did you expect anything different?), but Knox chose the location wisely as blinding floodlights mask his own deception: to go in place of Dimitri.

Knox takes down several mooks with the help of special forces troops. Then it’s the hero against Arkady, with Knox attempting to retrieve the “kill switch” that will deactivate the bombs. This is when Tatiana joins the fight and gives Knox a good beating. He manages to hold the villainess off, but the kill switch rolls off the roof. That’s a convenient time for Knox to grab a banner and do a swinging stunt. He manages to reach the device, but the henchwoman isn’t finished yet.

Tatiana’s final fight is rather brief (and somewhat disappointing), though still delivers excitement while it lasts. The knife wielding villainess attacks Knox, but the hero gets the better of her and the two of them fall over the roof edge. Tatiana ends up impaled on a metal bar, but manages to gloat about the kill switch being fake and that Knox can do nothing about the explosives before she dies. Of course the hero does save the day, but Tatiana still went out believing she’d won.

Video Review

Honourable Mention

Velocity Trap (1999) – Pallas (Jorja Fox)

Yes, they’ve done Die Hard in space, too. This is one of the better futuristic variants with Olivier Gruner as Stokes, a security officer set up by corrupt colleagues after an assassination. There’s a female killer involved in that plot, but after she detonates an explosive we never see her again, and the first half of the film is mostly just a (very) stretched out setup. Stokes is too honest for the conspirators to work with and killing him would attract too much attention, so they assign their patsy to guard duty on a transport ship carrying 40 billion US dollars. Not only is that the intergalactic currency, but paper money is still apparently in use in the space age.

Before this subplot, we’d been introduced to the main villains: Simmons (Ken Olandt) and his thrill-seeking wife Pallas. Before she played Sara Sidle on CSI, Fox was a crazy henchwoman in this B-movie. Pallas likes to live dangerously, leaving it to the last second to escape an explosion and dock with a freighter. The purpose of blowing up an asteroid only becomes clear much later, when the transporter Stokes is guarding drops out of light speed. The “accident” is all part of the criminals’ plan to heist the money and destroy the evidence. Stokes – with the help of Navigator Beth Sheffield (Alicia Coppola) – is the proverbial “fly in the ointment.”

The hijackers are light on manpower, probably because they expected no resistance. Besides the psycho husband/wife team, there’s a tough guy named Fallout, a tech whiz who doesn’t get any action, and a treacherous engineer who disabled the sentry guns. Fallout gets the honour of the only major fight with Stokes, before he’s incinerated by Sheffield. All the villains wear stylish body armour, and Pallas gets a feminine version that makes her “assets” stand out. After a few onboard encounters, the heroes must take a shuttle ride in space. Pallas – getting really annoyed by now – comes after them in her own fighter craft.

There’s an above average chase with Pallas proving a worthy opponent, second only to Fallout in threat level. It’s disappointing to be a vehicle confrontation, but the villainess manages to evade the sentry guns (no small feat) and do some damage to the heroes’ ship. Then she loses control and crashes into a support strut – that also takes out the engineer in the same blast. A decent demise, and certainly better than the anticlimax that follows.

Movie Villainess 101 Rank #36

Cory essentially played this role twice – double impact indeed

Movie

Double Impact (1991)

When I put together my initial list, Cory Everson’s muscular henchwoman Kara – one of two “enforcer” roles she played – was an obvious choice. On reflection, Kara did drop down the rankings quite a bit, but still does more than enough to be considered legendary. Amazingly, Kara barely features until the latter half of the movie, but then comes into her own with three great scenes to savour.

Before that there’s the setup with two loving parents murdered by Chinese criminals in Hong Kong, leaving their bodyguard / security man Frank (Geoffrey Lewis) to look after their twin infant boys Chad and Alex. Actually, he only manages to escape with Chad, and it’s left to the family maid to deal with the other boy. She gives up on the idea quite early, dropping Alex off at the local orphanage.

Chad grows up in relative luxury in California and twenty-five years later now “works” as a fitness instructor. Since both grown up brothers are played by Jean Claude Van Damme, this is an excuse to show off his trademark leg split. Frank persuades Chad to go with him to Hong Kong, and they soon run into Alex who’s not too friendly, especially after he catches Chad with his girlfriend Danielle (Alonna Shaw). There’s simmering friction between the twin brothers that’s continually brought up, but eventually they work together. Van Damme times two? The villains really ought to have killed these boys when they were babies.

Quite a few action set pieces follow. Alex – now a criminal smuggler – gets into a shootout on his boat following a deal gone bad. Chad – who gets mistaken for Alex – has a run in with the gang leader who killed his parents. That would be Zhang (Philip Chan), who has a brutal bodyguard named Moon (bad guy regular Bolo Yeung). Moon gets the better of Chad in a very one sided fight, but Zhang decides to leave the hero alive (yes, that mistake again) so inevitably there will be a rematch later on.

Meanwhile Danielle searches her office for clues, because it just so happens she works for the other main villain Nigel Griffith (Alan Scarfe). Both the actor and character are British, naturally. This is where Danielle has her first run in with Kara (finally!), who works security for Griffith. Only a brief question this time, but it’s their second office encounter viewers tend to remember.

Villainess

Kara (Cory Everson)

Things heat up after the brothers raid a drugs shipment (thanks to information Zhang gave Chad earlier!) and cause a lot of damage and destruction. This is typical action hero stuff with lots of gunfire and near-death moments, and since there are two heroes – plus Frank as backup – it’s no surprise the place goes up in literal smoke.

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Griffith isn’t too happy with his employees for screwing up, so that’s Kara’s cue to stick a knife in some poor guy’s chest. She flexes her muscles here, and her skimpy outfit means we get to see Kara’s poweful legs as she kneels over her terrified victim (who’d been previously kicked from his chair by another henchman). Anybody who thought this woman was just there for show should think again, and it’s little wonder the men at the table look scared as Kara returns to Griffith with her bloody knife.

The brothers then crash the party, but get seen together for the first time. It’s then Zhang and Griffith now they’re up against a double dose of the Muscles from Brussels, and they’ll need to up their game. So Kara gets the job – and satisfaction – of searching Danielle in the office. This involves more than a customary pat down and is closer to sexual assault. A leather-clad strong woman frisking a terrified assistant – the imagery is pretty clear, and Kara clearly enjoys it. After that, Danielle does the expected thing and calls Alex while the villains and their henchwoman listen in.

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Kara is strictly the enforcer from that point. She leads a group of thugs on a hunt for Chad. The action shifts from a restaurant (and secret back room) to the streets of Hong Kong, and moored sampans. Kara’s action is limited to kicking a civilian and long-distance shots of her in pursuit. After that, she takes to the skies in a helicopter to search for Chad and Danielle, who are now taking a boat trip back to their island hideout. Don’t expect her to be involved in the raid after that, though – that’s left to Zhang and his henchmen.

Alex and Chad fall out over… what else? Danielle. We get Alex imagining her having sex with his brother, though they never did in reaility (pretty much an excuse to show Alonna Shaw naked). Of course the twins put aside their differences to rescue Frank and Danielle from the cargo ship they’re being held on. This final sequence is a long string of fight scenes. Alex and Chad waste the mooks pretty easily, then come the big battles against a spur-heeled killer and Moon. The last one ends with an obvious death by electrocution (the junction box was in shot for a good half minute beforehand).

Eventually both Zhang and Griffith get taken out. Not much fighting compared to what came earlier (though Zhang at least tries with a concealed sword), but their ends are suitably brutal considering the pain they’ve inflicted. From a villainess perspective the main highlight is Alex against Kara. The muscle woman has changed into an all-black outfit and leather gloves now – which suit her – and enjoys steaming Frank and threatening Danielle at Griffith’s request.

Knowing one of the heroes is coming for her, Kara leaves Danielle alone with a henchman who takes the opportunity to molest her. His reward is a headbutt from Alex, but then Kara gets the drop on him, trapping his neck between her thighs. Somehow he gets out of that, leading to Kara drawing her blade in anger. She manages to cut Alex – while Danielle watches helplessly – and grabs her opponent by the crotch. This is probably both to inflict pain and simply because Kara likes the idea of groping Alex’s private parts.

Alex punches her in the face. It’s then (disappointingly) that Kara loses her cool and kicks out in anger, only damaging a steam pipe. It’s then a straight test of strength, but no female – even an Amazon like Kara – is a match for Van Damme. She does (briefly) gain the advantage thanks to supporting fire from Zhang, but Alex quickly turn Kara’s own knife against her and finishes off the villainess with a belly stab. Overall the fight is about a minute and a half long. Not great, but better than many other efforts.

Video Review

Honourable Mention (Unranked)

Ballistic (1995) (aka Fist of Justice) – Claudia (Cory Everson)

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This post could be considered a Cory tribute, as her other notable film Ballistic (aka Fist of Justice) gets an honourable mention to go alongside the superior Double Impact. Her climatic fight scene in this direct-to-video actioner is her best overall, but still doesn’t better Kara when everything is taken into account.

I’d been debating whether to cover this movie as I only had a terrible VHS copy and poor quality, low resolution online clips. Then a DVD was released in Germany weeks before I did this review (talk about a blessing!) and even better it came with an English language soundtrack, which was unexpected. So the henchwoman Claudia gets an extended honourable mention.

Good thing Cory chose to put in appearance, because the movie is bland otherwise. Detective Jesse Gavin (Marjean Holden) – the statuesque martial arts heroine – is out to prove her father (Richard Roundtree) was framed by corrupt cops. There’s a lot of dirt in the department, right from the rookies on the take to the Captain at the top. Gavin’s only allies are another female on the force called Lynn and her boyfriend (who’s a handy fighter himself).

The villain is some guy named Braden (Sam J. Jones) who deals in drugs and illegal weapons, and arranges rigged fights for money. All the generic bad guy motives rolled into one, which makes the story feel tired. There’s also a witness who gets silenced while Gavin is protecting him, and a busty assistant for Braden to have sex with, in case more overused plot elements are required. Michael Jai White plays a henchman named Quint, but his fights aren’t really that impressive – which can be said for most of the action. So it’s all down to Cory to save the show, which she does admirably.

Besides playing the silent glaring type whenever Jesse shows up and Braden shows more interest than he probably should, Claudia is the villain’s chief henchwoman for eliminating problems. She has little trouble besting a corrupt cop who knows too much, and knees the guy in the groin just to show her superiority. Then Claudia tosses the guy around his apartment and breaks his neck, leaving a dead body for Jesse to explain. The charges don’t stick (though she is supended) and the heroine is able to prove her father was set up.

This all leads to a climax at Braden’s warehouse hideout. Once again the main villains are easily taken care of – albeit with a big explosion – and it’s Claudia who provides Jesse’s only real test. Holden and Everson get a rewarding and lengthy fight scene, with Claudia in red spandex and Jesse in black. It’s an even contest with the women trading blows and insults. Boxes get used as makeshift weapons and Jesse’s father shows up with a gun. Fortunately he stays out of it, and it’s down to his daughter to defeat the henchwoman. Jesse gets her opponent in a chokehold, then Claudia regains the advantage with an overhead kick.

The overconfident villainess puts her arm around Jesse’s neck, ready to snap it, but lets her guard down and allows Jesse to turn the tables once more. After a struggle, Jesse inverts the hold and snaps Claudia’s neck. Not many scenes in the movie of note, but this makes up for it.

Movie Villainess 101 Rank #41

Maddy does have a thing for knife kills

Movie

The Marine 6: Close Quarters (2018)

The WWE produced “one man army” action movie franchise has a high batting average for female villain inclusion (to use an appropriate American analogy). Six Marine films were made altogether, with four having a bad girl thrown into the mix, and for the last outing we finally got a woman as the main antagonist. If Becky Lynch beating up men isn’t enough, there’s a second female among the villain’s crew who also gets a lengthy fight scene.

Six movies in fresh ideas are understandably hard to come by, so why not use the obvious template for a lone action hero? You guessed it – Die Hard. Jake Carter (Mike “The Miz” Mizanin, veteran of Marine 3, 4 and 5) is trapped in an abandoned brewery, up against a criminal gang holding an innocent woman named Sarah (Louisa Connolly-Burnham) hostage. The villainess’ father is in court accused of – um, bad stuff that’s not really explained in any detail – so Maddy threatens to kill Sarah unless her juror father causes a mistrial. Too bad Jake Carter is paying an old war veteran a visit when he hears screams from upstairs.

After the villains lock the building down, it’s up to Jake and his former commanding officer Luke Trapper (fellow WWE star Shawn Michaels) to protect Sarah. Cue the usual fisticuffs, shootouts and an air vent (sorry, grain chute) escape. The veteran provides assistance, but he’s obviously going to end up dying heroically as minor characters do in these films. More shocking is the villainess killing Jake before the movie’s done (yes, the main character), which grants Maddy a higher placing on my list than would otherwise have been the case.

Villainesses

Maddy Hayes (Becky Lynch), Katrina (Anna Demetriou)

The henchwoman Kat seems to be a non-action mook at first, relaying footage of the kidnapped Sarah to her father and showing up at the trial as a “friendly” reminder to comply. This proves an effective tactic, but it’s the second half of the film when Kat joins the action that things get more intresting. She returns to the brewery and leads a group of bad guys on a hunt for the heroes. By now they’ve escaped the building and entered a tunnel system. A good a setting as any for an ambush, and the gothic Kat sure looks creepy holding a chemical flare.

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The hero party (down to Jake, Luke and Sarah by this point) encounter Kat in the tunnels. They openly display distrust, but foolishly decide to follow her down the tunnel. Then Kat gets caught in a lie and a fight ensues. While Jake fights a brute, Kat garottes Luke with a wire cord she seems to keep handy for such occasions. The henchwoman proves surprisingly difficult to shake off and instead of the short expected fight we get a drawn-out struggle. There are cutaway shots to Jake’s fight, but nothing too intrusive. Eventually Luke decides to use his superior strength and slams Kat to the ground. It’s not clear if she survives this, but either way she’s not seen again.

In the opening half Maddy murders a civilian who’d been showing the ex-marines around and one of her own men for failing (despite following her orders not to use weapons). These are both brutal knife executions to establish Maddy’s authority as the primary villain and her preference for close quarters combat, perhaps an allusion to the title.

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Maddy makes an imposing authority figure with her fiery hair and leather jacket, and her mostly male crew is intimidated enough not to challenge her. When Jake is wounded during the tunnel shootout, the mooks know to leave the killing blow to the villainess. Of course, Maddy uses her knife to finish hero, throwing it into his chest. This brings The Miz’s heroic escapades to an end, and leaves Luke with a death to avenge.

Luke wastes no time tracking down Maddy and her thugs who’ve kidnapped Sarah once more. The various henchmen put up little resistance, ultimately leading to a confrontation on a boat. Maddy proves a much more challenging opponent, getting the better of the hero in the early rounds. After a couple of retorts about Jake, Luke uses a rope to ensare Maddy and throw her overboard. The attached anchor weighs her down and we get a length shot of her drowning. Perhaps a little too brief a finale, but Maddy is a rare physical main villainess and not many women can claim to have killed a franchise hero.

Video Review

Honourable Mentions (Unranked)

The Marine (2006) – Angela (Abigail Bianca)

Long before female wrestlers were cast as series henchwomen, we got a more traditional femme fatale / girlfriend character in Angela. The original Marine is essentially an 80s action movie brought into modern times with hero Sgt. John Triton (John Cena) introduced on a combat mission in the Middle East. This is a gung ho sequence with loud explosions and nonsensical bravado – it’s clear what tone the filmmakers were aiming for here.

After psychotic jewel thief Rome (Robert Patrick) pulls off a heist, his crew ecounter John and his wife Kate at a gas station. There’s a rather psycho henchman on Rome’s team who likes to shoot and blow up things without good reason, so Kate ends up kidnapped and John must come to her rescue. Perhaps the bad guys shouldn’t have picked a fight with a former US marine, as he wastes no time in hunting down those responsible.

Angela plays an innocent victim during the jewelry store job, but quickly shows her true colours. There’s a sequence with gratuitous shots of her bare legs, and she’s a willing – and equally crazy – partner to Rome. Angela wastes a couple of guys: a customer at the gas station and later some poor trucker she flags down. Sadly both kills are off screen and we only see the buildup, which means Angela is eye candy for the most part.

There’s plenty of tension between Angela and Kate which slowly builds over time, culiminating in a catfight. That’s the extent of any real action, and the only encounter with the main hero is when John tosses Angela from a truck into an oncoming coach. Her demise is rather bizarre, with lots of broken glass covered in blood suggesting a mangled corpse we never actually see.

The Marine 4: Moving Target (2015) – Rachel Dawes (Summer Rae)

After a solo entry with Ted Diabase Jr., all the remaining films had Jake Carter as the main hero and were set in the US. The fourth film started the trend of including female wrestlers as baddies and Summer Rae received top billing despite having very little dialogue in the movie. Perhaps the producers realised people with limited acting experience work much better as the silent henchwoman type.

In this movie Jake is working for a private security firm, only to get ambushed on his opening day. The target of the attack is corporate whistleblower Olivia Tanis (Melissa Roxburgh), and somebody definitely doesn’t want this lady talking. The movie is essentially one giant chase scene through a forest with sections at a remote cabin safehouse and police station to vary the scenery. Nowhere is safe from the mercs and despite some initial distrust, Olivia soon realises Jake is her only hope of staying alive.

Rachel is a constant presence, shooting an assault rifle and operating a tracking device when the situation calls for it. She lasts for most of the movie, and is the most prominent villain other than main baddie Simon Vogel and traitor agent Ethan. The final encounter between Jake and Rachel is a brief fight which ends with the knife-wielding villainess tossed to the ground. With a mook closing in, Jake uses Rachel as a human shield to protect himself, and so the first female WWE star in the series ends up a bullet sponge.

The Marine 5: Battleground (2017) – Murphy (Naomi)

Jake obviously didn’t like private security details, since he’s quit that job and is now working as a paramedic with Zoe (Anna Van Hooft). This doesn’t stop him getting into trouble, and when he comes to the rescue of a wounded man in a sublevel parking garage it’s the beginning of a very long night. Turns out the man was responsible for a hit on a biker gang leader, and his crew are now out for blood.

The few women in this film all get seen off in brutal fashion. The prologue had Maryse Ouellet Mizanin (the Miz’s real-life spouse) as a civilian trapped in a car. Despite a heroic rescue attempt, she dies on a gurney – essentially a glorified cameo. Zoe lasts approximately half the film – and is reasonably helpful – before the biker gang take her hostage and shoot her just for the hell of it. That’s not a smart move with Jake Carter around and he begins to take out the crew one by one, with action shifting from the parking garage to an amusement park and streets above.

The sole female biker is Murphy, and she’s the first main villain character to die at Jake’s hands. Like all other villainesses in the Marine series, Murphy uses a knife. Actually she has two of them, switching to a second after Jake overpowers her. Despite less screen time overall, Murphy gets a longer fight than Rachel and a more satisfying end when the hero turns her own blade against her.

Movie Villainess 101 Rank #43

An assassin is even more deadly when you can’t see or hear her

Movie

See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989)

One of several comedies starring Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor, this entertaining romp pitted the duo against a sexy and clever hitwoman in Joan Severance’s Eve. Kevin Spacey – long before his rise to stardom and subsquent fall from grace – plays the considerably less intelligent English henchman Kirgo.

Dave (Wilder) is the deaf owner of a New York news kiosk and the blind Wally (Pryor) is his new assistant. The pair get into all kinds of trouble – including fistfights in a bar and arguments with random pedestrians – but their problems really get serious after Wally’s bookmaker unloads a gold coin shortly before he’s bumped off by the female assassin. Wally hears the gunshot (and smells Eve’s perfume as she makes her getaway) while Dave only sees the killer – and her legs – from behind. Naturally the pair get arrested at the scene of the crime, but not before Wally unwittingly collects the coin the criminals are after.

Having two disabled main characters as the centerpiece of the jokes could easily have backfired, but everything is good natured and the heroes overcome their handicaps to triumph in the end. Besides the two killers and their mysterious employer Sutherland (Anthony Zerbe), Dave and Wally must also contend with the obsessed Captain Braddock (Alan North) who’s convinced the pair are guilty. Fortunately they have an ally in Wally’s sister Adele (Kirsten Childs). No prizes for guessing the girl ends up captured by the villains, forcing the heroes to come up with a daring rescue plan.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil was one of several action comedies I considered for a top half ranking slot. Ultimately this movie placed over its competition because of the superior humour, stylish villainess, and inventive situations.

Villainess

Eve (Joan Severance)

From the moment Eve makes her first appearance at the newstand, it’s clear she’s a dangerous woman. She may not be top of the villainous hierarchy, but Eve is ultimately the comedy duo’s deadliest opponent, more competent than the hapless Kirgo and smarter than her employer gives her credit for. No surprise it’s Eve who survives while her fellow villains bite the dust.

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After failing to acquire the coin from the bookmaker, Eve and Kirgo soon discover the arrested Dave and Wally have their prize and so the villains pose as lawyers to get close to them. Tipped off by Eve’s legs and perfume, the deaf / blind protagonists deduce their “attorneys” are there to kill them and decide to make a dramatic escape. That part goes well – thanks to the ineptness of the NYPD – but the villains soon catch up.

Eve retrieves the coin and Dave even persuades her to kiss him, but this villainess is not one for mercy and Kirgo is even less generous. With things looking gloomy, the duo combine their skills. Dave reads Eve’s lips while she talks on a payphone and Wally surprises Kirgo with a punch. The heroes then go on the run – or rather a chaotic drive – through the streets of New York City. This car chase goes on for several minutes with both assassins and police in pursuit. Somehow Wally avoids a major road accident, but does crash into a garbage-laden barge much to Dave’s disgust. Despite eluding Eve and Captain Braddock, the heroes realise the only way to clear their names is to enlist Adele’s help and get the coin back.

This eventually leads to a comical sequence of events at a rural hotel resort where the duo impersonate foreign doctors (rather hopelessly, it must be said). Adele distracts Kirgo while Dave searches Eve’s room and Wally stands guard outside (a least until he’s dragged into a medical conference). After Dave retrieves the coin once more, a towel wrapped Eve walks in on him after finishing a shower. Dave uses – er, let’s say unorthodox means – to improvise and get Eve to raise her hands. Dave takes the opportunity to kiss the naked woman (who can blame him?) before leaving, but it doesn’t take long for the assassins to realise Adele is working with the duo.

Sutherland’s estate – the setting for the final showdown – is a many-windowed mansion patrolled by a burly groundskeeper and ferocious guard dogs. Wally and Dave manage to rescue Adele – even knocking out Eve for good measure – but both men are captured. Kirgo brings Wally before Sutherland, who then reveals the “gold coin” is actually a room temperature superconductor. The foolish henchman decides to renegotiate his cut – prompting Sutherland to switch off the lights and shoot him. It turns out the main villain is just as blind as Wally, leading to a standoff with the two men stalking each other around the room. This is a tense and rather original sequence, sadly cut short by Eve’s arrival.

The henchwoman is far more perceptive and Sutherland’s attempt to repeat the “lights out” trick ends with him being shot repeatedly at point blank range and flying out the window. Eve dashes to a waiting helicopter, but the heroic duo aren’t about to let her escape. So Dave and a reluctant Wally slide down a conveniently placed wire to get the drop on the villainess. Then Adele arrives with the cavalry.

Video Review

Honourable Mention (Unranked)

Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) – Karla Fry (Brigitte Nielsen)

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This comedy sequel made my original list, but on reflection there were better examples to include. Things certainly get off to an explosive start with the statuesque blonde Karla leading a jewelry store heist in Beverly Hills. After shooting up the place – overly dressed in a white coat, high heels and sunglasses – the villainess leaves behind an envelope labelled with a capital A. So begin the alphabet bandit crimes, with letter B delivered after an attempted hit on police Captain Andrew Bogomil. That would be Axel Foley’s friend from the first movie, so now the villains have the full attention of Eddie Murphy’s con artist with a badge.

Karla stands out largely because the other villains are so uninteresting. Maxwell Dent (Jürgen Prochnow) is a shady businessman running an insurance scam and arms deals on the side, and Charles Cain (Dean Stockwell) is simply a fall guy. Among the jokes and various cons – which soon become tired and repetitive – there’s a scene with Karla at a gun club and not much else until the next big heist. The City Deposit is probably the best robbery of the bunch, with the black clad Karla masking up to lead an assault while Foley and his sidekicks race to stop them.

Karla plays policewoman and wears a gas mask for the final armed robbery at Dent’s racetrack. It’s here she gets arguably her best moment, shooting Cain and another accomplice as part of a double cross. Sadly the finale at an oilfield is very dull compared to the heists that preceeded it, with Karla only briefly seen and Dent too easily disposed of. The villainess gets the drop on Foley, only to be shot by a secondary character. As anticlimatic as it sounds, unfortunately. Well, at least there’s a (poor) joke at her expense and a trademark Eddie Murphy laugh.

Movie Villainess 101 Rank #44

Equally generic sequel, much improved villainess

Movie

Crackerjack 2 (1997)

Sequels often feature better female villains than the first effort, and that’s certainly the case here. The original Crackerjack (1994) was basically Die Hard at a mountain ski resort, with Christopher Plummer doing a rather meek Hans Gruber impression as stereotypical German baddie Ivan Getz. The villain and his trigger-happy mercenaries occupy an entire mountain just to get their hands on a repentent mob boss’ diamonds. Surely there’s an easier approach to getting rich.

This B-grade action movie is a complete ripoff of the 1988 classic that doesn’t pretend otherwise. Jack Wild is a loner cop with family members among the hostages and Getz shows no concern for human life, whether it be civilians or his own men. The sole female villain Alex (Dorothy Fehr) acts tough, crushes a nut and shoots some innocent guy, but her involvement is mostly restricted to standing around while Getz does the talking. In the end, Alex gets a “blink and miss it” death when she’s blown away without so much as a one liner.

Thankfully the villainess in Crackerjack 2 is far superior. Sure, the film has an equally trashy cookie cutter plot, but at least there’s something going for it. While the second film appears to be a train set Die Hard clone at first (it was actually titled Hostage Train in the US), the action mostly takes place in a sealed off tunnel. Convenient when you need nondescript concrete rooms to hide a low budget.

Thomas Ian Griffith must have been unavailable for the sequel as the main character Jack Wild is now played by Judge Reinhold. If you’re wondering who that is, he was Eddie Murphy’s sidekick in the Beverly Hills Cop films. One assumes B-movie action regulars turned the producers down as well, though Reinhold is passable in all fairness.

The setup is completely by the numbers. Wild’s wife was murdered by the terrorist Hans Becker (Karel Roden), and the same bad guy is planning to extort a bunch of investors who just happen to be on the same train as Wild’s fiancee Dana Townsend. She’s played by Carol Alt – a former swimsuit model – so we get scantily clad scenes to keep the viewer’s attention until the action kicks in. Once it does, it’s revealed Becker is not actually the main villain. That would be Michael Sarazzin as some guy called Smith (probably an alias, but never confirmed), who poses as an innocent passenger but abandons that ruse so quickly it’s pointless.

This is a generic cut and paste affair, so anyone who’s seen this type of film before will know what to expect. The villains are way ahead of the incompetent authorities and only Jack Wild can save the day. Special forces attempt an airborne assault only to get blown up along with a decoy train. The baddies have an escape plan which involves killing the hostages. For comic relief, there’s a model train enthusiast who exists solely to provide information. Just like the first Crackerjack, the whole plot reads like a Die Hard ripoff checklist, and without Jasmine the movie would be pretty unbearable.

Villainess

Jasmine (Katerina Brozova)

The “prologue” portion of Crackerjack 2 is the expected loud action sequence that introduces the feud between Wild and Becker, and also the incompetent boss (who even goes so far as to arrest Wild for obstruction of justice). Jasmine is absent for all of this, but shows up for the aftermath at the villain’s hideout with two mooks and a wounded businessman in tow. The villainess claims he was “no fun” moments before she garottes him live on camera. The kill itself happens off screen, but this is already an improvement on the first Crackerjack film.

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It’s a little while before Wild discovers the hideout and the man’s body (he was too busy having sex with Dana and fighting off one of Becker’s thugs). Turns out the dead guy was due to meet Dana on a train, except Becker has taken his place and mailed the snuff video to the authorities with a fake ransom demand. Wild – with the help of a helicopter pilot friend – gets on board and ends up trapped in the tunnel system with terrified hostages and terrorists. Any of this plotline sound familiar?

With her introduction out of the way, Jasmine helps Smith conduct interrogations of the investor prisoners. Add a sadistic henchwoman to the cliches, because she likes to pull out teeth with pliers. Plural, because Jasmine takes a tooth from the wrong side and is overjoyed when she gets to do the whole thing again. Perhaps the investor should have taken the hint and provided his bank account details. This guy isn’t smart, however. Not only does he insult his wife when she’s threatened by Smith, but also threatens Jasmine after she drags him back to the cell. Does this idiot realise the villains don’t need him anymore? A point the henchwoman is only too happy to clarify by shooting him in the back.

The next investor in the hot seat is reluctant to give up his account details too. Jasmine’s persuasion method this time is to sexually assault the man’s wife / girlfriend. The hostage squirms uncomfortably as Jasmine squeezes her legs, and eventually the investor caves in. Shame for the villain’s techie guy Krill – he seemed to be enjoying it.

There are quite a few more interrogations, but these are the only two shown in detail. Meanwhile Wild finds his way into the hostage room, but nobody seems to want to escape. Perhaps they’d rather be tortured by Jasmine? Once Wild has ticked off Becker and taken out a few of his thugs, it’s high time the two met. Wild sneaks up on Becker and has him at gunpoint. Does he shoot the man who murdered his wife? Of course not! Then the hero couldn’t be captured and get a bomb taped to his chest.

Smith and Jasmine consider Becker and his thugs expendable, so they accelerate the countdown and flood the tunnels with water from the reservoir above. Just so Wild can acquire the disc with the investors’ financial data, Krill is sent with one man for protection. The bodyguard goes down after one punch and the techie puts up little resistance. Smith isn’t too happy with Krill’s failure, so Jasmine gets a second strangulation kill. She clearly gets all excited and sexually aroused, but the camera cuts away to shots of Wild struggling to escape – so this is another mostly off screen murder.

After Jasmine executes another mook and take Dana hostage to trade for the disk, the hostages decide it’s a good time to leave. The final controntation takes place in a shaft. Jasmine mouths off to Wild, but then it’s her turn to get shot in the back. Smith really doesn’t believe in sharing his ill gotten gains. The villainess’ death is a disappointing end to what came before. Don’t get any hopes up for a good climax. Smith gets tossed down the shaft by Dana (who finally uses the self defence training that had been foreshadowed much earlier), and the heroes survive an explosion with little more than blackened faces.

Video Review

Honourable Mention (Unranked)

Rush Hour 2 (2001) – Hu Li (Zhang Ziyi)

This action comedy sequel pitted detective duo Lee and Carter (Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker) against Chinese triads in Hong Kong, though they were back to causing chaos in America by the end. Asian martial arts actors tend to get cast as villains in Hollywood productions, and Zhang Ziyi – of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame – plays the enforcer to chief baddie Ricky Tan (John Lone).

Events play out with no major surprises. There’s a female customs agent (Roselyn Sanchez) with questionable loyalty who undresses while the cops stake out her Los Angeles apartment. Hu Li shoots Tan on his yacht and apparently kill him, but the old staged assassination ploy won’t fool seasoned viewers – especially since the film has established a backstory around Tan and Lee’s former partner.

Hu Li doesn’t get any direct kills at all, despite having a fair chunk of screen time. Her main acts of villainy are setting off bombs in buildings, acting cold and mean, and knocking out the two heroes with high kicks. There’s also skewering an apple with a throwing knife, if you count that. All the encounters – mostly between Hu Li and Carter – finish with effortless victories for the villainess.

The main action set piece – where Hu Li finally gets to do some serious fighting – is set in a Los Vegas casino. The villainess tapes a grenade in Lee’s mouth while gloatingly holding a detonator, which leads to an inventive brawl with the hero desperately trying to remove the explosive. With Carter’s assistance, Lee survives this messy situation and goes after the big boss while his partner takes on Hu Li. The fight is played for laughs, but Carter holds his own (mostly by accident) against a much more skilled opponent. Somehow the loud mouthed cop wins and Hu Li ends up impaled on a decorative spear.

If that “demise” was disappointing, then get ready for worse. Hu Li survives her injury to show up at the villain’s penthouse holding a bomb. No reason is given why a previously icy and composed woman would suddenly become so hysterical and suicidal. This seems to be a stupid plot device to add in a big explosion and one final stunt sequence.