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Questionable Authority: 10 Crazy Leaders in Movies

Horrible Bosses

By Ben Cosgrove
March 18, 2013

TIME offers a look at 10 cinematic leaders — historical and fictional, monstrous and embraceable — who remind us that the line between utterly crazy and genuinely charismatic is not merely thin. Sometimes it’s downright invisible.

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Caligula

Crazy Leader: Caligula

Penthouse Films International

John Gielgud, Peter O’Toole, Helen Mirren, Malcolm McDowell — titans of the stage and screen who, collectively, have given some of the most powerful performances in some of the most celebrated cinematic works of the past seven decades. And then there’s Caligula. Directed (for the most part) by Tinto Brass, written (largely) by Gore Vidal, the 1979 history-porn debacle combined sleaze, brutality and pretension to a degree rarely seen this side of a Steven Segal production. Outlining the myriad reasons why Caligula has become the standard by which all artistically-minded movie failures are measured would require volumes — starting with the fact that most of the cast and crew thought they were making one movie, while producer Bob Guccione (yes, of Penthouse magazine fame) was determined to make another, porn-ier film.

In the meantime, suffice to say that Malcolm McDowell, in the eponymous role as the demented 1st-century Roman ruler, manages to invest a hateful, murderous Caesar with a kind of pitiful grandeur. There’s no reason to see this movie more than once — but all serious moviegoers should try and sit through one viewing, if only to watch the talent on display valiantly struggling against Guccione’s “vision” for the film, which can perhaps best be described as sado-puerile.

Director: Tinto Brass
Year Released: 1979
Studio: Analysis Film Releasing
Cast: Malcolm McDowell, Teresa Ann Savoy, Helen Mirren

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW3E8vs-MUI#

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The Wicker Man

Crazy Leader: Lord Summerisle

British Lion Film Corporation

Not too many people are lukewarm about the original Wicker Man. Most of those who have seen the 1973 cult classic either revere it as a truly creepy exploration of faith and violence, or dismiss it as 83 minutes of boredom with five minutes of predictable “horror” slapped on at the end. (No such schism exists over the 2006 remake starring Nicolas Cage — everybody hates that one.) But even the original movie’s detractors can agree that Christopher Lee’s portrayal of the Medusa-haired leader of the pagan island community is among his very best — and that’s saying something, considering Sir Christopher has appeared in nearly 300 movies. At the end of the film, as Lord Summerisle leads his pale, windswept flock of loons in the most terrifying rendition of the medieval song, “Sumer Is Icumen In,” that any of us will ever hear (god willing), Lee seems not so much to be acting the part as inhabiting the body and soul of a true believer caught in the throes of pantheistic ecstasy. That’s entertainment!

Director: Robin Hardy
Year Released: 1973
Studio: British Lion Films
Cast: Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Diane Cilento

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FdV-O8o7ok#ws

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The Dictator

Crazy Leader: Admiral General Haffaz Aladeen

Paramount Pictures

Often overlooked in any critical take on Sacha Baron Cohen’s satires-on-steroids is the Cambridge-educated Englishman’s not insubstantial acting chops. Sure, when he’s portraying Ali G, Borat and his other preposterous inventions, his performances can sometimes feel not so much like acting as a kind of manic, unfiltered bit of improv. But that “Oh, he’s just being himself” interpretation of what he’s up to diminishes Baron Cohen’s uncanny ability to actually be his characters. In The Dictator, his portrait of the despicable President Prime Minister Admiral General Haffaz Aladeen (and his double, Efawadh) is at times howlingly funny: beyond the astonishingly offensive blather pouring from his mouth, he looks and sounds like the sort of self-assured, power-crazed maniac who might, in fact, rule over a northeastern African “republic.”

Director: Larry Charles
Year Released: 2012
Studio: Paramount
Cast: Sacha Baron Cohen, Anna Faris, Ben Kingsley

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C3KzALgzIc#ws

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Gladiator

Crazy Leader: Commodus

Dreamworks SKG

As entertaining as Gladiator is, and as deserving of an Oscar as Russell Crowe was for his performance, Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus is ultimately the crazy glue that holds it all together. The script can’t decide just what it is that makes the character so twisted. Daddy never loved him? Raging envy of Crowe’s Maximus? Incestuous cravings for his sister, Lucilla? Or is he just a bad seed?  It hardly matters in the end. What draws us to Commodus, even as his behavior grows increasingly repellent, is the lonely little boy that we occasionally glimpse inside the power-crazed emperor. Phoenix’s great achievement, meanwhile, is to convince us that the little boy might still be saved — even as we see the grown Commodus smothering him further with every brutal, irrecoverable act, just as he strangled his own father.

Director: Ridley Scott
Year Released: 2004
Studio: DreamWorks
Cast: Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2jbK6dGLGc#ws

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Toy Story 3

Crazy Leader: Lotso

Pixar

Of all the plush, purple, huggable and irredeemable villains in all of movie history, Lots-O’-Huggin’ Bear is the plushest, purplest, most huggable. And the one most clearly without any hope of redemption. As voiced by the great Ned Beatty, Lotso is, at first, a mellow, comforting presence: a strawberry-scented guide for Woody, Buzz and the rest of the toys as they navigate their confusing new home at the Sunnyside Daycare Center. Before long, though, Lotso’s true colors come through. Untrustworthy and ruthless, the bear has a tragic back story — he was (he believes) heartlessly abandoned by the little girl who once owned him — but even the cruelest personal history can’t mitigate his level of malice. With his coterie of sycophants and his deceptively easy-going Southern accent, Lotso brings to mind Strother Martin’s sadistic Captain in Cool Hand Luke: a jailer and leader who pretends he wants to be loved, but is far happier being feared.

Director: Lee Unkrich
Year Released: 2010
Studio: Walt Disney
Cast: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNMpa5yBf5o#ws

-By Ben CosgroveMarch 18, 2013, http://entertainment.time.com/2013/03/18/

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