Bill Lumbergh – Office Space

Everybody has had a boss that they despise, a boss like Bill Lumbergh.

At first Lumbergh, played by Gary Cole, does not sound like that bad of a guy. He walks around a stereotypical office in a tie and suspenders, holding a coffee mug, talking very slowly and checking up on his workers.

However, as you watch Office Space you will instantly feel distaste for him like his coworkers do. After hearing him ask different people to come in on weekends and get their work done something about him just seems completely evil. It could be the way he says it, stretching out every word and adding an “m’kay” or “yeah” every couple words; or the way he carries himself around the office, leaning up against whatever surface there is and slowly sipping from his mug.

Whatever it is, something is really disturbing and annoying about Lumbergh; maybe it is just because he is a boss and wants people to work all the time.

Agent Smith – The Matrix trilogy

The suit, sunglasses, monotone voice, lack of human emotion, and not even being human all add up to one of the coolest movie characters of all time, Agent Smith.

Played by Hugo Weaving, Agent Smith is actually an AI program inside the Matrix, a computer simulation that humans live in for what the movie is named after. He shows little emotion, because he is not human, and has a very linear fashion in all of his actions. He does not seem to care, although he has a specific task that he is driven to carry out.

As the main antagonist in The Matrix, Agent Smith’s task is to eliminate Neo (the protagonist), or as he memorably refers to as “Mr. Anderson”. His look in a suit and sunglasses gives him a modern eerie and scary look that creates a monster as great as Freddy Krueger or Michael Myers for the age of the Internet.

Mr. J. Jonah Jameson – the Spider-Man series

Mr. J. Jonah Jameson: the fast talking, cigar smoking businessman that runs the Daily Bugle. Played by J. K. Simmons, Mr. Jameson is known best for wanting pictures of Spiderman.

Mr. Jameson’s character is that of no other. He is constantly talking, whether it is about a masked menace, money, or firing and un-firing his workers. Mr. Jameson rapidly talks to different people about different subjects simultaneously, and with seemingly no time for anyone to think or react to what he is saying.

Despite his obscure and minor his role in Spider-man, Mr. Jameson is definitely one of the most distinctive movie characters ever. He is one of the few characters in the series that is commonly imitated or referenced in pop culture. He only has a few short lines, but his character is guaranteed to stick with you.

Sergeant Hartman – Full Metal Jacket

If you ask a veteran what boot camp was like, they will talk about their drill sergeant, the man that turned everyone into soldiers. This is Sergeant Hartman.

Sergeant Hartman was played by R. Lee Ermey, a veteran that is now known for being that crazy guy that blows up watermelons on the History Channel. At one time Ermey was actually real-life Marine Corps drill sergeant.

Sergeant Hartman is constantly demeaning the men who he will turn into Marines. He pushes the men to their limits physically, all while constantly insulting and swearing at the men. He sees all his men as being “unorganized grabastic pieces of amphibian shit.” It is hard to believe that Sergeant Harman, an unbelievably horrible character, is something completely factual. Think of him as a really good insult comedian, but if you laugh he makes you do push-ups, or he just hits you.

Snake Plissken – Escape from New York

With an eye patch, leather sleeveless shirt, low grunt, burning cigarette, and mean five o’clock shadow, Snake Plissken defines badass.

In 1981, Kurt Russell starred as Snake Plissken in Escape from New York; a film that took place in the future, 1997. In the 90s, crime would dramatically increase and New York would be turned into a giant prison where criminals would run free in their own dreadful and demented society. The streets run rampant in chaos and crime, and at night the crazies come out. Snake Plissken, a man with an indefinite past, would be sent in to this dark city to save the President of the United States with a 24-hour time restraint.

A simple character, most of Snake Plissken’s dialogue is composed of very short lines usually containing a grunt. He normally deals with people by putting a gun to their head or just immediately killing them. His defining, and maybe longest, quote is “I don't give a fuck about your war... or your president.”

Snake Plissken (along with the rest of this movie) may sound a little corny or cliché, but at the time much of it was original. In fact, a modern day video game badass, Snake from the Metal Gear franchise, is drastically based off of Snake Plissken.

Walter Sobchak – The Big Lebowski

Walter Sobchak, played by John Goodman, is one of the oddest characters that remind everybody of someone they know. A Vietnam veteran who loves to bowl, Walter Sobchak thinks he knows everything about everything and will not back down.

Whenever Walter is around, he takes things too far and makes a simple situation go completely wrong. At a bowling game he pulls a gun out over the score. When a group of men try to take his money in a parking lot he nearly kills them over a couple bucks in his wallet. When a boy refuses to speak to him about his homework Walter destroys a car with a crowbar just to show how serious he is.

All these horrible actions seem to be part of damage caused by Walter’s involvement in the Vietnam War. In fact, Walter brings up Vietnam whenever he possible can whether it has relevance or not.

Despite his extraordinary character, he can seem very familiar at times. Whether it is his horrible temper, his belief that he is always right, his constant speeches about Vietnam, or even just his strange dress, Walter can easily remind us of somebody we know.

Chad Feldheimer – Burn After Reading

Everyone knows somebody like Chad Feldheimer: the guy always riding his bike with the iPod, the guy that drinks two gallons of water a day, or the energetic personal trainer at the gym. Chad Feldheimer is the work-out freak everyone knows.

Chad Feldheimer works as a trainer at the Hardbodies Gym. He gets caught up in a scandal involving some strange documents found at his workplace locker-room. As he gets deeper and deeper into the strange documents, he gets in way over his head and reveals just how clueless he is of absolutely everything.

Brad Pitt does an amazing job at capturing such a cliché character. Every aspect of Feldheimer seems perfect, his posture, the white ear buds, his working out craze, and even constant gum chewing.

Captain John Miller – Saving Private Ryan

I could honestly go on forever about this movie; it is one of my favorites. All of the characters are outstanding; however, Captain John Miller seems to play the biggest role in the movie.

Played by Tom Hanks, John Miller is a captain in the Marines division in WWII. The movie opens with Captain Miller on a landing craft giving his men some final words before they storm Omaha Beach on D-day. At first Captain Miller seems like a pretty average role for a war movie, but eventually he stands out amongst all the characters as a single unique individual caught up in the world’s second great war.

Captain Miller is a mysterious character, at first almost nothing is known about him. His first name is not even revealed until a good twenty minutes into the movie. Miller makes himself a mystery to everyone he knows. The other characters mention a contest to find out where Miller is from or what he did for a living back home.

The depth of his character slowly evolves as he shows more of himself through his emotions. There is a scene in the movie where a man under Miller’s command dies, one of almost a hundred men who had been killed under Miller’s command. After this character’s death, Miller wanders away from the squad. He cries for a moment, and after regaining his composure, he goes back to his men with a stone face.

As a man of mystery, you never really learn much about what Captain Miller has done or who he was before the war. Instead his true character is revealed through his secrecy and how he reacts to emotions.

Mission Statement: What This Is

When we think of movies, we usually have a favorite character that stands out from the rest. It could be because the character is funny, they remind us of ourselves, or we just think they are a really cool character.

This site will be dedicated to showcasing some of those memorable characters. Some will be easily recognizable, others you may have never heard of, and some you may look at differently after seeing them showcased. The characters mentioned here will have a brief description and their part in the story, without spoiling anything big in the plot.

If you have not already, I sincerely hope you see any of the movies mentioned here because of these characters. They are all great movies and have at least one good character that is sure to leave an impression on you in one way or another.