The Devil's Own - Cinema's Greatest Stand-In Satans, Part 1
They're no fallen angels but judging by their wicked ways, they're as close as hell to the Devil incarnate.
The Joker, Batman (1989)
It’s often been said that James Coburn has a devilish smile, but it’s peanuts compared to the grin sported by the criminal formerly known as Jack Napier. Beneath the latex and the lunacy, Jack Nicholson conjures up perhaps his best post-Cuckoo’s Nest performances eradicating all memories of the campy Caesar Romero. Indeed, he’s so sinister, you can see why some see the legend of the Dark Knight as a biblical confrontation: the Devil as the Joker, and Jesus as Batman. Shaun Ryder might have been on to something…
Vincent Coccotti, True Romance (1993)
”I am the Antichrist,” declares Cosa Nostra enforcer Vincenzo Coccotti and who’d argue with him? Certainly not Dennis Hopper’s former cop whom Coccotti slugs and slices open in an effort to discover the whereabouts of Dennis’ wayward son Clarence. Tony Scott’s movie has a definite cartoon quality but there’s nothing two-dimensional about Christopher Walken’s Mafioso. “Tell the angels that you had never seen pure evil so singularly personified as you did in the face of the man who killed you,” he informs Hopper. Inform yourself that it’s only a movie.
Sergeant Barnes, Platoon (1986)
Tom Berenger has starred in so many straight-to-videos duds you’d be forgiven for forgetting that he created one of the great screen villains of the 1980s. However, scar-face Staff Sergeant Bob Barnes is more than just a big-screen rival to The Terminator, the Predator and Gordon Gecko. According to director Oliver Stone, Barnes is, in fact, the Devil locked in an epic battle with Willem Dafoe’s Christ-like stoner Sergeant Elias for the soul of Charlie Sheen’s naïve grunt, Chris. So, not a film about the Vietnam War then…