Stories where the big twist is that the protagonist is actually the bad guy (spoilers

[TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW]

"Bad Guy" being a relative term. I'm not talking about antiheroes and so on. Also, THIS THREAD WILL BE NOTHING BUT OPEN SPOILERS BY ITS NATURE.

From another thread, about the book I am Legend - "The vampire creatures end up forming their own society, which Neville is of course unaware of. He has been killing their ranks during the days, and they seem to frown on this. Eventually he is captured by some of them and realizes that like the virus that caused all this, humanity itself has evolved. This new society has actually replaced us on Earth, and to them HE is the monster. Much like how we have legends such as Dracula, or Werewolves, or the Lost City of Atlantis...he is their legend. He is what parents will tell stories of to their children at night. He will remain a horror story in their literature for all time."

That's a great twist!

A similar one that springs to mind is the film The Others, which is a good old-fashioned haunted house story - until the big reveal, where you find out that the characters that you've been following are not being haunted, but are actually ghosts and are inadvertently DOING the haunting, and the "ghosts" are the living people now occupying the house.

A third example is a now-classic issue of the comic book The Invisibles, which tells an entire story from the perspective of one of the enemy's completely random, anonymous foot soldiers - up to the point where he's unceremoniously killed by one of the book's regular heroes during a battle. Way to flip the perspective!

What are some other great twists or reveals of this nature?

[Interrobang!?]

Robert Bloch's novel Psycho explicitly treats Norman and Mother as two different people, until the big reveal towards the end of the book. The movie is pretty similar, but the book is actually told from Norman's perspective -- he's horrified watching Mother kill the investigator, for example.

I don't imagine this twist surprises many people anymore...

Oh, and the classic film example: Kevin Costner in No Way Out. He is the Russian mole.

[cher3]

Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot has a friend, Captain Hastings, who often functions as a sort of Watson to his Sherlock Holmes. In The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the story is narrated by a similar character who seems to be taking the place of Hastings in helping Poirot solve the mystery. It turns out, though, that the narrator himself is the murderer.

[Antinor01]

Frailty, in a way.

Haute Tension (Titled High Tension in the US). Horrible movie by the way, the twist comes out of basically nowhere and leaves so many holes in the story that it's just rediculous.

[OneCentStamp]

How about Fight Club?

[kingpengvin]

Not a surprise twist but Blade Runner really works when you view the protagonist as the bad guy. Deckard isn't joyful about his job, but he keeps killing these people to the end. He is cowardly to the point where he shoots women in the back fer cryin out loud.

[Annie-Xmas]

Gone With The Wind. Both Rhett and Scarlett.

[TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW]

Haute Tension (Titled High Tension in the US). Horrible movie by the way, the twist comes out of basically nowhere and leaves so many holes in the story that it's just rediculous.

Terrible movie. To quote Ebert, it creates a plot hole big enough to drive a truck through and then literally drives a truck through it.

[Antinor01]

Terrible movie. To quote Ebert, it creates a plot hole big enough to drive a truck through and then literally drives a truck through it.

Heh, I hadn't heard that. I completely agree though.

[Wee Bairn]

Terrible movie. To quote Ebert, it creates a plot hole big enough to drive a truck through and then literally drives a truck through it.

I read that review, and was curious even though that type movie is not my cup of tea, and could never find what he was referring to online- can anyone 'splain?

[tdn]

The Usual Suspects is an excellent example.

[Zebra]

No Way Out

Brillant movie.

[Hampshire]

Kevin Costner in No Way Out.
He's a naval officer who starts an affair with Sean Young. Little does he know she's the mistress of the US defense secretatry, Gene Hackman. Hackman finds out she's seeing someone else (doesn't know who) and accidentally murders her. Politician trys to find out who the "other guy" is so he can pin the murder on him. Claims the other guy is a KGB mole so everyone searches for him.
Turns out at the end that Costner actually IS a KGB mole.

[Antinor01]

I read that review, and was curious even though that type movie is not my cup of tea, and could never find what he was referring to online- can anyone 'splain?

To sum up, Girl on college break goes home with a female friend to stay with her family out in the country. Girl is secretly in love with her friend and while masturbating in bed hears a truck pull up. She looks out and sees a guy get out of the truck and the guy proceeds to come in, slaughter the family and kidnap her friend. Girl sneaks into the back of the truck (More like a cargo van really) and goes along for the ride and attempt to rescue her friend.

Turns out, the girl is really the guy who broke in. Some sort of alter-ego thing and if I recall she ends up in a mental hospital. The number of plot holes are quite astounding, I would imagine that line refers to how she is somehow in the back of the truck with her tied up and gagged friend (who is reacting to her) while at the same time being the guy up in front that is driving.

[TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW]

Heh, I hadn't heard that. I completely agree though.

Yeah. I mean, if there's no bad guy, then where does the truck come from?! WHAT?

[TroubleAgain]

De Niro in Hide and Seek. Johnny Depp in Secret Window.

[Mahaloth]

Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot has a friend, Captain Hastings, who often functions as a sort of Watson to his Sherlock Holmes. In The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the story is narrated by a similar character who seems to be taking the place of Hastings in helping Poirot solve the mystery. It turns out, though, that the narrator himself is the murderer.

Three Act Tragedy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Act_Tragedy) also ends in a similar way.

Charles Cartwright helps with solving the crime, is one of the protagonists, and turns out to be the actual murderer.

[Rysto]

Agatha Christie pulled a similar trick in Curtain, in which the murderer has a history of getting people killed, but Poirot, who can't prove that the murderer committed any crime, kills the murderer himself.

[Wee Bairn]

To sum up, Girl on college break goes home with a female friend to stay with her family out in the country. Girl is secretly in love with her friend and while masturbating in bed hears a truck pull up. She looks out and sees a guy get out of the truck and the guy proceeds to come in, slaughter the family and kidnap her friend. Girl sneaks into the back of the truck (More like a cargo van really) and goes along for the ride and attempt to rescue her friend.

Turns out, the girl is really the guy who broke in. Some sort of alter-ego thing and if I recall she ends up in a mental hospital. The number of plot holes are quite astounding, I would imagine that line refers to how she is somehow in the back of the truck with her tied up and gagged friend (who is reacting to her) while at the same time being the guy up in front that is driving.


Huh. I guess if you really wanted to you could explain that away like Hitchcok's Stage Fright (which also fits in this category)- what you think are real events that actually happened are just in the characters head, or what they want someone to believe happened. I read Hitchcock took much flak for it, as it was the first time something was shown to be a real event in a movie but actually wasn't, exlcuding it was all a dream endings. I think.

[Miller]

To sum up, Girl on college break goes home with a female friend to stay with her family out in the country. Girl is secretly in love with her friend and while masturbating in bed hears a truck pull up. She looks out and sees a guy get out of the truck and the guy proceeds to come in, slaughter the family and kidnap her friend. Girl sneaks into the back of the truck (More like a cargo van really) and goes along for the ride and attempt to rescue her friend.

Turns out, the girl is really the guy who broke in. Some sort of alter-ego thing and if I recall she ends up in a mental hospital. The number of plot holes are quite astounding, I would imagine that line refers to how she is somehow in the back of the truck with her tied up and gagged friend (who is reacting to her) while at the same time being the guy up in front that is driving.

Donald Kaufman: I'm putting in a chase sequence. So the killer flees on horseback with the girl, the cop's after them on a motorcycle and it's like a battle between motors and horses, like technology vs. horse.

Charlie Kaufman: And they're still all one person, right?

Donald Kaufman: Right.

Charlie Kaufman: How is that even possible?

Donald Kaufman: Trick photography?

[NailBunny]

Primal Fear? Because, while we know that Alan committed the murder while under control of his alternate personality Roy, we learn at the end that Alan doesn't exist, "Roy" was in control the whole time and is an evil bastard.

[Mahna Mahna]

The Others, but only kinda-sorta. Nicole Kidman's character isn't exactly a bad guy, per se, but it's a similar twist in that you come to realise that rather than being terrorized by hauntings, it is she and her family that are the ones doing the haunting.

Good twist, though I have to admit that I saw it coming from a mile away.

[JohnT]

Oh, might as well throw a spoiler warning in here.

So here it is: Spoiler!!!!





In The Sixth Sense this poor kid is bothered by seeing ghosts all the time, then is perpetually traumatized by this idiotic ghost who is trying to psychoanalzye him.

[Infovore]

How about Fight Club?
Or pretty much anything else by Chuck Palahniuk, for that matter.

[Sage Rat]

Odd that no one has mentioned Memento, yet. The main character abuses (and probably has done so before) his own handicap to cause himself to murder people that annoy him.

[Argent Towers]

There's this movie called No Way Out. With Kevin Costner. It definitely falls into this category.

[Malodorous]

Odd that no one has mentioned Memento, yet. The main character abuses (and probably has done so before) his own handicap to cause himself to murder people that annoy him.

Hmm...that's not how I remember it at all. It was the cop that was pretending to help him (Ted?) that was using him to murder people. When he realizes it, he sets himself up to kill Ted, but because he realizes he's using him, not because he's "annoyed".

[TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW]

The Others, but only kinda-sorta. Nicole Kidman's character isn't exactly a bad guy, per se, but it's a similar twist in that you come to realise that rather than being terrorized by hauntings, it is she and her family that are the ones doing the haunting.

Good twist, though I have to admit that I saw it coming from a mile away.

Yeah, it's in the OP.

[Saint Cad]

Although not quite what the OP had in mind, I would put Fallen in this category.

[Kythereia]

In Perfect Stranger, Halle Berry--the beleaguered journalist trying to catch the killer Bruce Willis--is revealed to have been the villain all along.

I Googled the ending so I didn't have to watch it, I swear.

[Ephemera]

À la folie... pas du tout, a 2002 French film starring Audrey Tautou, is told from two perspectives, the first appears to be an affair between Angelique, a university student, and a doctor but the second shows the whole relationship to be only in her head and that the doctor is completely oblivious to her and her affections.

[Meltdown]

Anyone remember Angel Heart, that psychosexual Mickey Rourke / Lisa Bonet movie from the late 80s?

I don't remember much about it either, except that the twist at the end makes it fit right in this category.

[Meltdown]

Oh yeah, and from the comics world -- "Bem" by Gilbert Hernandez, from the first volume of Love and Rockets.

[El_Kabong]

I'll nominate Christian Bale in The Machinist. I mean, there's obviously something wrong with him right from the beginning, but it's not until the end of the film that we find out just how messed up he is, and why.

On the literary side, consider Sheriff Nick Corey in Jim Thompson's novel Pop. 1280 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop._1280).

[Contrapuntal]

There's this movie called No Way Out. With Kevin Costner. It definitely falls into this category.Didn't he have like a fake mole on his face that was actually a microphone set up so he could learn the secret recipe of KFC?

[Antinor01]

À la folie... pas du tout, a 2002 French film starring Audrey Tautou, is told from two perspectives, the first appears to be an affair between Angelique, a university student, and a doctor but the second shows the whole relationship to be only in her head and that the doctor is completely oblivious to her and her affections.

There was a similar storyline in the TV movie Obsessed, starring Jenna Elfman. She imagines an affair with a man she barely knows and ends up in jail for stalking and other things, all the while convinced that her delusions are fact and that he is lying.

[Noone Special]

Anyone remember Angel Heart, that psychosexual Mickey Rourke / Lisa Bonet movie from the late 80s?

I don't remember much about it either, except that the twist at the end makes it fit right in this category.
A-yup... I came in here to mention that. Angel (Rourke) keeps ending up places just before someone there is brutally murdered... starts investigating... turns out he (his alter-ego?) sold his soul to the Devil and is unknowingly the murderer in all the cases.

Or something like that -- my memory is a bit hazy too.

[Barrett Bonden]

Strawberry Spring is a short story in the Stephen King compilation Night Shift. It turns out that the narrator has some issues.

[Sage Rat]

Hmm...that's not how I remember it at all. It was the cop that was pretending to help him (Ted?) that was using him to murder people. When he realizes it, he sets himself up to kill Ted, but because he realizes he's using him, not because he's "annoyed".
Except that, a) he was aware that his wife was really alive so the fact that he's killing anyone at all was an issue of him wanting to murder people, and b) the person who annoyed him in the movie is the cop, so we can say definitively that he has killed someone at least once just for the sake of annoyance, and c) it's likely that the cop isn't the first and that they had a mutual relationship where one covers up the murders and the other gets a personal assasin.

[TV time]

Not as much in the movie as the stage musical but the German friend Max in Caberet.Granted he is not the lead, but in the first act, there is no real hint he is a Nazi, and the audience bonds with him as does the young couple. He is sort of the Van Johnson to Gene Kelly in Brigadoon or something. Then in the second act, he is revealed as a real shit.

The subtlty is brilliant. Now this is in the original production. The updated version in the '90s was more like the film and had more clues to the character's soul so the reveal was not as powerful.

[SpoilerVirgin]

One more Agatha Christie to add to the list: Endless Night (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endless_Night).

[Lute Skywatcher]

Icebreaker (http://www.amazon.com/Icebreaker-Flemings-Master-James-Bond/dp/B000IWSKHK/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199398485&sr=1-12) has three protagonists who aren't what they seem.

[Wee Bairn]

À la folie... pas du tout, a 2002 French film starring Audrey Tautou, is told from two perspectives, the first appears to be an affair between Angelique, a university student, and a doctor but the second shows the whole relationship to be only in her head and that the doctor is completely oblivious to her and her affections.

An awesome film, sadly its pretty much unknown in the US- great ending, great job of showing how certain events could be perceived differently, etc. One of my all time favs.

[redman]

Does Mulholland Drive by Lynch fit this category? It's pretty twisty/twisted.

[well he's back]

how about "The Third Man"?

[BlueSilver]

An awesome film, sadly its pretty much unknown in the US- great ending, great job of showing how certain events could be perceived differently, etc. One of my all time favs.


Agreed, that was a cool twist. I'm concerned that it might continue to be unknown in the US though if nobody points out that its english title is "He loves me...He loves me not".

I would also submit a movie called "The Usual Suspects".

And from the horror genre, "Happy Birthday to Me" starring Mary from Little House on the Prairie.

[Malodorous]

Except that, a) he was aware that his wife was really alive so the fact that he's killing anyone at all was an issue of him wanting to murder people, and b) the person who annoyed him in the movie is the cop, so we can say definitively that he has killed someone at least once just for the sake of annoyance, and c) it's likely that the cop isn't the first and that they had a mutual relationship where one covers up the murders and the other gets a personal assasin.

Pretty sure that your misremembering the plot of the film (hey, its ironic!). I just double checked wiki's plot synopsis. The protagonist's wife is dead (there is some ambiguity about how she died), he kills the cop because the the cop confesses he is setting him up to kill people (knowing he won't remember the confession) not because he's annoying, and it isn't just likely that the cop isn't the first person he kills, it's shown explicitly that they killed someone else (Trinity from the Matrix's boyfriend).

[Xema]

One more Agatha Christie to add to the list: Endless Night (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endless_Night).
And let's not omit The Mousetrap (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mousetrap) - probably her most famous work, and the longest-running play ever.

[Cunctator]

The "narrator as perpetrator" theme is one that Agatha Christie used throughout her career. As well as the ones already mentioned, there's another variation on this theme in The Man in the Brown Suit. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_Brown_Suit)

[Spoke]

It's been a while since I've seen it, but doesn't Tape (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0275719/) qualify?

[Peter Morris]

Yet another Agatha Christie: In A Glass, Darkly.


The Doctor Who story arc Trial Of A time Lord where the prosecutor turned out to be a future incarnation of The Doctor.

[ZebraShaSha]

Does Mulholland Drive by Lynch fit this category? It's pretty twisty/twisted.

I think you have to have a plot before you have a big twist, let alone protagonists/antagonists.

(FTR, I love Eraserhead.)

[Arnold Winkelried]

A-yup... I came in here to mention that. Angel (Rourke) keeps ending up places just before someone there is brutally murdered... starts investigating... turns out he (his alter-ego?) sold his soul to the Devil and is unknowingly the murderer in all the cases.

Or something like that -- my memory is a bit hazy too.Here's what I remember:
A certain Lou Cyphre (Robert de Niro with a pointy beard and reeeeeally long fingernails) hires private detective Harry Angel to find disappeared person Johnny Something. During the investigation, people questioned by Harry Angel die right after Harry Angel has interrogated them.
Plot twist:
Lou Cyphre is - guess who? Johnny Something had sold his sold to Satan to achieve success. Then Johnny tried to avoid paying his debt by performing a magic ritual to hide his soul in someone else's body - Harry Angel's. Harry Angel is actually Johnny. In flashbacks we see that all the murders were committed by Harry / Johnny. Lou Cyphre knew this all along and the whole "investigation" was Lou's plan to bring about Harry's awareness of who Johnny really is.

[HoboStew]

I think you have to have a plot before you have a big twist, let alone protagonists/antagonists.

(FTR, I love Eraserhead.)Interesting, I hated Eraserhead & loved Mulholland Drive. Of course I didnt love it until I read this (http://www.franksreelreviews.com/reviews/mdexplain.htm) explanation. It's weird, and surreal, but it adds up if you watch it again with this in mind. Of course its not exactly what the OP had in mind - the shift is more of a dreamworld vs reality thing, not a good guy = bad guy thing.

Now if someone could give me an explanation for Lost Highway, I'd love to hear it. I LOVE that movie (specifically, the first half before the inexplicable character shift), but it just does not make any sense.

[devilsknew]

In Richard Matheson's short story, Mad House- The twist is the opposite of the OP.

(Personally, I don't see the big deal about Matheson's, I am Legend. This was a much better story, stylistically (literary).)

[Mrs. Cake]

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, another creepy delight written by Shirley Jackson. If you liked The Haunting of Hil House and have not read this one, do. I'm not going to spoil it here. It would have made a great Hitchcock film.

Also, Thomas Tyron's The Other.

[Ferret Herder]

Pretty sure that your misremembering the plot of the film (hey, its ironic!). I just double checked wiki's plot synopsis. The protagonist's wife is dead (there is some ambiguity about how she died), he kills the cop because the the cop confesses he is setting him up to kill people (knowing he won't remember the confession) not because he's annoying, and it isn't just likely that the cop isn't the first person he kills, it's shown explicitly that they killed someone else (Trinity from the Matrix's boyfriend).
Also, the cop (Teddy) was setting him up to kill people not only to take care of "bad guys" that the cop wants to dispose of (?) but also because when Leonard (the protagonist) managed to find and kill the guy he'd thought was the killer, with the cop's help, he then forgot that he'd done so and went back on his quest.

When Teddy explains all of this, Leonard gets pissed off, and before he forgets, he writes down a couple of "false" clues that implicate Teddy as the killer. And so, after he forgets, he pieces the clues together, and kills Teddy. I say "false" because Teddy says that there are a lot of "John G"s (what Leonard thinks is the killer's name) out there to kill; even his real name happens to be John G., and Leonard's written note that he is not to be trusted is in fact correct.

[Wendell Wagner]

The 2002 film _Spider_ directed by David Cronenberg.

[Pushkin]

If you look on Iain M Banks "Culture" as good, I suppose you could have the character Horza (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bora_Horza_Gobuchul) from Consider Phlebas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consider_Phlebas) as a sort of protagonist we like who turns out to be bad.

In his other book Use of Weapons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_Weapons) the protagonist has assumed the identity of someone else more heroic who actually committed suicide (IIRC) that he pushed to commit suicide.

[thelurkinghorror]

In The Book of the New Sun, Severian ultimately saves Urth, but at the cost of countless deaths. The Ascians and anti-government types are opposed to him not because they're evil but because of the high cost of fixing the sun.

The Atreides family from Dune is similar, IIRC.

[Sage Rat]

Pretty sure that your misremembering the plot of the film (hey, its ironic!). I just double checked wiki's plot synopsis. The protagonist's wife is dead (there is some ambiguity about how she died)
She is dead, but not due to being murdered by the attackers (as Lenny, the main character, likes to delude himself.) She died of diabetes almost a year later.

He tells himself that he is out to revenge his wife against the attackers, when really he's out killing due to anger over his condition.

[TV time]

In the comedy Arsenic and Old Lace, while the delightful old aunts are not the primary protagonists (I suppose that falls to Mortimer although in the play the aunts each have many more lines than he), as serial killers I suppose they could be called "bad guys" even though nephew Jonathon is much worse. Still the "twist" is that they are serial killers, but I think virtually no one holds it against them.

[Koxinga]

Never Talk to Strangers (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113965/)

[mabes10]

Also, the cop (Teddy) was setting him up to kill people not only to take care of "bad guys" that the cop wants to dispose of (?) but also because when Leonard (the protagonist) managed to find and kill the guy he'd thought was the killer, with the cop's help, he then forgot that he'd done so and went back on his quest.

When Teddy explains all of this, Leonard gets pissed off, and before he forgets, he writes down a couple of "false" clues that implicate Teddy as the killer. And so, after he forgets, he pieces the clues together, and kills Teddy. I say "false" because Teddy says that there are a lot of "John G"s (what Leonard thinks is the killer's name) out there to kill; even his real name happens to be John G., and Leonard's written note that he is not to be trusted is in fact correct.


You're right about Teddy being a bad guy. But right at the end of the movie, after Teddy tells him that his wife didn't die, Leonard comments that he knows he is going to forget this, which will allow him to continue on his "crusade".

My question is, is his wife really alive or is it one of Teddy's lies, with Sammy being real? If the latter, the movie loses credibility - the idea that he could investigage a man with this condition and then develop it himself is about as fantastic as, well, the idea that Neil Young could have two children with cerebal palsy by two different mothers.

[mabes10]

Well, now I see I misread your post. Thought you were saying that only Teddy was the bad guy.

[Reloy3]

The Baldur's Gate video games arguably belong here. You, the protagonist, slowly discover you are the child of a particularly evil and brutal god, and you have to fight off the urge to follow in his footsteps by occasionally turning into a demonesque monster. Granted, the player really chooses his or her own destiny and can decide to be a good guy, but the story line is there.

[Merijeek]

My question is, is his wife really alive or is it one of Teddy's lies, with Sammy being real? If the latter, the movie loses credibility - the idea that he could investigage a man with this condition and then develop it himself is about as fantastic as, well, the idea that Neil Young could have two children with cerebal palsy by two different mothers.

It seems to me that it was fairly clear what happened. Lenny killed his wife with an insulin overdose because she was "testing" him in the same way that Sammy Jankis was tested by his wife - but of course, Sammy Jankis didn't actually have the condition and was busted by Lenny as a fraud (and, I assume, never killed his wife, unless he was a really dedicated fraud). Lenny's memories got corrupted in that he mixed and matched bits of Sammy with bits of Lenny.

Teddy, of course, knows the truth and TRIED to talk sense to Lenny before being killed - even though he knew it wasn't going to work.

-Joe

[Lemur866]

I'd say Dune is an edge example, because although the Atreides family aren't mustache-twirling villains like the Harkonnens and they aren't portrayed as particularly evil, if you look at the things Paul does he's a monster.

Another good example that I remembered from another thread is "My Best Friend's Wedding". Julia Roberts has to bust up the impending wedding of her soul mate in classic rom-com fashion. Except her classic rom-com deceptions and stunts would be the actions of a major league asshole if someone did them in real life, and at the end of the movie Julia Roberts realizes that she has indeed been a major league asshole.

[Spoke]

Also arguably qualifying (depending on your interpretation of the film) The Hitcher (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091209/).

[Freudian Slit]

Does the Twilight Zone episode where the guy turns into Hitler count?

[mabes10]

It seems to me that it was fairly clear what happened. Lenny killed his wife with an insulin overdose because she was "testing" him in the same way that Sammy Jankis was tested by his wife - but of course, Sammy Jankis didn't actually have the condition and was busted by Lenny as a fraud (and, I assume, never killed his wife, unless he was a really dedicated fraud). Lenny's memories got corrupted in that he mixed and matched bits of Sammy with bits of Lenny.

Teddy, of course, knows the truth and TRIED to talk sense to Lenny before being killed - even though he knew it wasn't going to work.

-Joe

That makes perfect sense. Was caught up in thinking that his memory of Sammy was either completely true or completely false.

[Lemur866]

I don't think we really know much of anything about Sammy Jankis. Maybe he didn't even exist. But it seems clear that lots of things Lenny attributed to Sammy actually happened to Lenny. Either that, or Lenny started attributing things to himself that actually happened to Sammy.

Anything shown in flashback is unreliable, and anything said by any character is unreliable. Teddy believed that there was a Sammy Jankis, and that Lenny proved he was a "fraud", in that his memory loss wasn't physical but psychological. But is Lenny's memory loss physical or psychological?

In any case, at first Lenny seems to be a victim, struggling against his condition and trying to achieve justice for his wife's murder. But we find out that Lenny really is a kind of monster, who is willing to leave himself clues that he knows he will later misinterpret. He's willing to lie to his future self to get his future self to kill Teddy. And he doesn't want the truth, any time he finds out the truth about what really happened to his wife, or what really happened to him, he destroys that evidence so that his future self won't know.

And to top it all off, it's suggested that Lenny's case isn't physical either, but psychological. He blanks out his own memories because he can't live with the truth. Lenny is a monster because he runs around killing people for reasons he can barely understand. And what makes him more of a monster is that he turned himself into that monster on purpose.

[Ferret Herder]

The Baldur's Gate video games arguably belong here. You, the protagonist, slowly discover you are the child of a particularly evil and brutal god, and you have to fight off the urge to follow in his footsteps by occasionally turning into a demonesque monster. Granted, the player really chooses his or her own destiny and can decide to be a good guy, but the story line is there.
Along those lines, the Knights of the Old Republic video game (the first one) fits as well. You play a Republic soldier who turns out to have a talent for the Force, and are trained as a Jedi to help you and your team defeat an evil Sith Lord who wants to destroy the Republic. This Sith had turned on his master, Darth Revan, taking advantage of the Jedi attacking Revan at the same time, and Revan was killed in the crossfire.

Except, you turn out to be Revan. He/she was only badly injured and comatose, and the Jedi created a new personality and memories and implanted the body with them, creating you and hoping you'd lead them, following these "visions from the Force" to Revan's old source of power that the new Sith Lord had taken over. After you find out you got lied to by the Jedi, you can opt to screw them over and try to reclaim your old mantle as the Lord of the Sith.

[PBear42]

IIRC, Morgan Freeman's character in Chain Reaction (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115857/) (1996) fits the OP to a tee. Our heroes, Keanu Reeves (Og help us) and Rachel Weisz are on the run, framed for murder. Freeman, Reeves' mentor, helps as much as he can. Only, it turns out ... (see the plot summary).

[Spoke]

IIRC, Morgan Freeman's character in Chain Reaction (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115857/) (1996) fits the OP to a tee. Our heroes, Keanu Reeves (Og help us) and Rachel Weisz are on the run, framed for murder. Freeman, Reeves' mentor, helps as much as he can. Only, it turns out ... (see the plot summary).

Oh, well, crooked mentors (as opposed to protagonists), that's a whole other can of worms. (L.A. Confidential, Unbreakable...)

[jellyblue]

Didn't he have like a fake mole on his face that was actually a microphone set up so he could learn the secret recipe of KFC?

No, no, not KFC, KGB ! :p
Or maybe the KGB KFC, I can't remember...

Okay, almost embarrassed that I remember this one, but I flipped by it the other night: "Shattered" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102900/)

[Tapioca Dextrin]

No one's mentioned Heroes (http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/) yet?

Come to think about it, there's also plenty of times in Lost (http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/index?pn=index) where the good guy ends being the bad guy. only to become good and/or bad as the seasons go by.

[Leaper]

Yet another Agatha Christie: In A Glass, Darkly.


Of course, by "Agatha Christie" you mean "Sheridan Le Fanu."

[Der Trihs]

In the Sten series, after seven books, the hero finally realizes that the Emperor he's been working for isn't really much if at all better than the people he's been fighting. And that all he's been really been doing is protecting and promoting a tyranny with a better sense of propaganda than most.

My memory's very vague, including about the title. But there was a story about a government agent hunting down an android in his likeness, that was supposed to infiltrate his planet, then detonate a planet cracking bomb by speaking certain preprogrammed words. Finally, he corners and shoots the android, who lies on the ground, spurting blood, and not oil or sparks. And he says, "But if he's the real one, then I'm" - and the explosion can be seen a million miles away.

In the webcomic Goblins, there's a scene where the matriarch goblin points out to one of the adventurers that whatever other goblins have done, this particular village hasn't attacked anyone. The adventurer looks around with this horrified expression at all the dead goblins, and the maniacal looking adventurers chasing the survivors, and says, "but . . . but . . . we're the good guys . . . right ?!"

[Der Trihs]

H.P. Lovecraft, The Outsider. Where the protagonist at the end discovers that the hideous undead abomination that everyone is running from - is a mirror.

T and I, where the protagonist discovers that he is the artificial alternate personality of T, a goodlife ( collaborator with Berserkers, anti-life war machines ), rapist, murderer and all around scum.

[Peter Morris]

Of course, by "Agatha Christie" you mean "Sheridan Le Fanu."

No, I mean Agatha Christie. Her story told the tale of a man who looks into a mirror and sees a vision of someone in the future committing murder. Over many years he tries to stop the vision from coming true, before discovering that in fact HE is the murderer.

[Wendell Wagner]

Der Trihs writes:

> My memory's very vague, including about the title. But there was a story about
> a government agent hunting down an android in his likeness, that was
> supposed to infiltrate his planet, then detonate a planet cracking bomb by
> speaking certain preprogrammed words. Finally, he corners and shoots the
> android, who lies on the ground, spurting blood, and not oil or sparks. And he
> says, "But if he's the real one, then I'm" - and the explosion can be seen a
> million miles away.

I'm not sure, but I think that you're talking about the 2002 film _Impostor_, which was based on a Philip K. Dick short story.

[Quartz]

Der Trihs writes:

> My memory's very vague, including about the title. But there was a story about
> a government agent hunting down an android in his likeness, that was
> supposed to infiltrate his planet, then detonate a planet cracking bomb by
> speaking certain preprogrammed words. Finally, he corners and shoots the
> android, who lies on the ground, spurting blood, and not oil or sparks. And he
> says, "But if he's the real one, then I'm" - and the explosion can be seen a
> million miles away.

I'm not sure, but I think that you're talking about the 2002 film _Impostor_, which was based on a Philip K. Dick short story.

I remember a very similar story: the protagonist gets arrested as an artificial duplicate of someone and argues his innocence all the way to the moon. Finally exposed to the vacuum, he utters the immortal words above and the explosion is seen all the way from Alpha Centauri.

[Mahaloth]

No one's mentioned Heroes (http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/) yet?



It's more like the opposite here. The antagonist, the man with the glasses, turns out to be good in the end.

Sylar is pretty much evil and the main antagonist very early on.

[Evil Captor]

Terrible movie. To quote Ebert, it creates a plot hole big enough to drive a truck through and then literally drives a truck through it.

You mean, there's some way the ending makes sense? I just figured everybody went hysterical there at the end. There's some interpretation that makes some kind of sense, even in a brain-damaged sort of way? What would it possibly be?

[Evil Captor]

To sum up, Girl on college break goes home with a female friend to stay with her family out in the country. Girl is secretly in love with her friend and while masturbating in bed hears a truck pull up. She looks out and sees a guy get out of the truck and the guy proceeds to come in, slaughter the family and kidnap her friend. Girl sneaks into the back of the truck (More like a cargo van really) and goes along for the ride and attempt to rescue her friend.

Turns out, the girl is really the guy who broke in. Some sort of alter-ego thing and if I recall she ends up in a mental hospital. The number of plot holes are quite astounding, I would imagine that line refers to how she is somehow in the back of the truck with her tied up and gagged friend (who is reacting to her) while at the same time being the guy up in front that is driving.

Really? I was completely misled then, by the fact that the movie showed an actual physical bad guy who is driving the truck while the good girl is in the back with the damsel.

That would at least explain the good girl's curious inability to free the damsel from her bonds.

If I were looking at the story from a French art house perspective, I would say that the bad guy and the good girl were representations of the audience's attitude toward the damsel: they simultaneously are digging on the damsel's helplessness and vulnerability (that would be represented by the bad guy) and they want to rescue her at the same time (represented by the good girl). An interesting idea, too bad it was so clumsily executed. I mean ... where did that truck come from?

[Nzinga, Seated]

I don't think we really know much of anything about Sammy Jankis. Maybe he didn't even exist. But it seems clear that lots of things Lenny attributed to Sammy actually happened to Lenny. Either that, or Lenny started attributing things to himself that actually happened to Sammy.

Anything shown in flashback is unreliable, and anything said by any character is unreliable. Teddy believed that there was a Sammy Jankis, and that Lenny proved he was a "fraud", in that his memory loss wasn't physical but psychological. But is Lenny's memory loss physical or psychological?

In any case, at first Lenny seems to be a victim, struggling against his condition and trying to achieve justice for his wife's murder. But we find out that Lenny really is a kind of monster, who is willing to leave himself clues that he knows he will later misinterpret. He's willing to lie to his future self to get his future self to kill Teddy. And he doesn't want the truth, any time he finds out the truth about what really happened to his wife, or what really happened to him, he destroys that evidence so that his future self won't know.

And to top it all off, it's suggested that Lenny's case isn't physical either, but psychological. He blanks out his own memories because he can't live with the truth. Lenny is a monster because he runs around killing people for reasons he can barely understand. And what makes him more of a monster is that he turned himself into that monster on purpose.

When I chose this movie at Blockbuster, my husband looked at me with that sympathetic cautious look he gives sometimes. I told him, "Don't worry. I will pay close attention, I will watch it twice, I will comprehend and interpret it all on my own, and I will not ask you a bunch of questions". And that is just what I did. I thought. Until this thread. Once again I realize I am an idiot who didn't understand anything.

[Contrapuntal]

When I chose this movie at Blockbuster, my husband looked at me with that sympathetic cautious look he gives sometimes. I told him, "Don't worry. I will pay close attention, I will watch it twice, I will comprehend and interpret it all on my own, and I will not ask you a bunch of questions". And that is just what I did. I thought. Until this thread. Once again I realize I am an idiot who didn't understand anything.I've seen it several times, and the quoted interpretation never occurred to me. I suspect it is just an interpretation. I see no reason to assume that Leonard is a bad guy. How could he be? He can't remember what happens from one day to the next.

I'll watch it again this weekend with an eye toward what Lemur said.

[Sitnam]

The Crossing Guard (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112744/plotsummary) - A man convicted of killing a little girl in a drunk driving accident is let out of prison after 6 years and is confronted with the father of said girl. The father tells the convict he will kill him in one week in the name of revenge. I remember giving 100% of my sympathy to the father at the beginning of the movie only to be on the convicts side by the end.

[Rubystreak]

Some of my favorite stories have the "bad guy" as the protagonist:

Grendel, by John Gardner: the monster is the narrator and rationalizes his consumption of humans and terrorizing them.

The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis: letters from a senior devil to a junior one, teaching him how to corrupt humans. The Enemy in this novel is God, not Satan.

Gertrude & Claudius, by John Irving, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, by Tom Stoppard, both give the POVs of characters considered villains in Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Zombie, by Joyce Carol Oates: protagonist is a Jeffrey Dahmer-esque serial killer who gets away with it.

The Sopranos: Tony Soprano is probably a sociopath, but is definitely not a good guy anywhere but his own mind, possibly not even there. You think he might be destined for redemption, but... nope.

[Wendell Wagner]

Rubystreak, note that in the books you cite, the protagonist turning out to be the bad guy is not a twist. It's clear from the beginning that they are bad people.

[Leaper]

No, I mean Agatha Christie. Her story told the tale of a man who looks into a mirror and sees a vision of someone in the future committing murder. Over many years he tries to stop the vision from coming true, before discovering that in fact HE is the murderer.

Oooooh, of course, now I remember it. I thought you meant this. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_a_Glass_Darkly)

[Lust4Life]

[QUOTE=Arnold Winkelried]Here's what I remember:
A certain Lou Cyphre (Robert de Niro with a pointy beard and reeeeeally long fingernails) hires private detective Harry Angel to find disappeared person Johnny Something. During the investigation, people questioned by Harry Angel die right after Harry Angel has interrogated them.
Plot twist:
Lou Cyphre is - guess who? Johnny Something had sold his sold to Satan to achieve success. Then Johnny tried to avoid paying his debt by performing a magic ritual to hide his soul in someone else's body - Harry Angel's. Harry Angel is actually Johnny. In flashbacks we see that all the murders were committed by Harry / Johnny. Lou Cyphre knew this all along and the whole "investigation" was Lou's plan to bring about Harry's awareness of who Johnny really is.[/QUOTE



Angelheart is a brilliant movie,one of my all time favourites.

But back to the plot.

The Conversation with Gene Hackman.
Its about some bugging experts who become aware of a powerful older businessmans younger wife and one of his employees falling in love.

Hackman throughout the film feels sorry for the doomed lovers,knowing that the husband will have them both killed.


But at the end of the film the lovers brutally murder the husband.

[moes lotion]

Just watched the new Jet Li film, War, which has a nice, but not entirely unexpected twist at the end. The revenge driven FBI agent who has been obsessively chasing the super assasin to avenge the murder of his former partner (and the partner's wife and 4 year old daughter), turns out to have been in the pay of the Yakusa boss who ordered the hit on the partner. Plus, the supposed super-assasin turns out to actually be the supposedly dead former partner, who knowing that someone on the inside of the FBI task force must have set him up, manages to kill the assasin (after his wife and daughter have been killed) and takes his place in order to get a chance to kill pretty much everyone else.

[cerberus]

Arguably, the Bruce Willis character in What Lies Beneath qualifies.

[Amp]

Arguably, the Bruce Willis character in What Lies Beneath qualifies.
That would be Harrison Ford (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0161081/).

[Peter Morris]

Bruce Willis?

[1010011010]

I see no reason to assume that Leonard is a bad guy. How could he be? He can't remember what happens from one day to the next.Is he a bad guy most of the time? No, he's working with what he's got, doing the best he can. For the brief moments when he has enough information to evaluate the authentic monstrosity of his situation, what he has done, what he will do again, he destroys the evidence that led to his knowledge.

Plus, in his normal pre-injury life he worked for an insurance company to help deny claims, justified or not. Of course he's a bad guy!

[Contrapuntal]

Is he a bad guy most of the time? No, he's working with what he's got, doing the best he can. For the brief moments when he has enough information to evaluate the authentic monstrosity of his situation, what he has done, what he will do again, he destroys the evidence that led to his knowledge.That's the part I don't remember. Him realizing he has done monstrous things and deliberately concealing it.

Plus, in his normal pre-injury life he worked for an insurance company to help deny claims, justified or not. Of course he's a bad guy!I guess you're joking, but if not, there's no twist there.

[JohnT]

Arguably, the Bruce Willis character in What Lies Beneath qualifies.

Also arguably, Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind.

However, it's not really a "twist" per se.

[Drum God]

Couldn't Total Recall apply here. It's been a while since I have seen it, but IIRC, Arnie is never quite sure if he's a good guy or a bad guy through most of the movie. He also has no idea who his friends and enemies are, or even who his own wife is. At one point, one of the people he is looking for turns out to be the cab driver.

[1010011010]

That's the part I don't remember. Him realizing he has done monstrous things and deliberately concealing it.He burns the picture of himself, grinning madly, covered in the blood from his wife's attackers.

[Rubystreak]

Rubystreak, note that in the books you cite, the protagonist turning out to be the bad guy is not a twist. It's clear from the beginning that they are bad people.

Ooops, sorry. I didn't realize the OP meant a twist as in, you're shocked and surprised. I interpreted twist more as, you think the protagonist will be redeemed but he turns out to be a monster to the conclusion of the story. I guess others misinterpreted this also, since I find Scarlett O'Hara to be as unrepentant as Tony Soprano, from beginning to end.

But I like the Paul Atreides mention-- you really do not understand the magnitude of his monstrousness until the end of God Emperor.

[Boyo Jim]

Couldn't Total Recall apply here. It's been a while since I have seen it, but IIRC, Arnie is never quite sure if he's a good guy or a bad guy through most of the movie. He also has no idea who his friends and enemies are, or even who his own wife is. At one point, one of the people he is looking for turns out to be the cab driver.

I can't recall the book, it's been so long -- but in the movie, kinda, IIRC. The Arnold character WAS a bad guy who had his memory erased to infiltrate the opposition, but at the end he turns traitor and saves the world.

[Wendell Wagner]

_Total Recall_ wasn't inspired by a novel. It was a short story. The short story only inspired the first half of the film (approximately). The rest of the film was completely original.

[Lemur866]

That's the part I don't remember.
Heh.

Yeah, it seems to me pretty clear that anything shot in "normal" format is presented as actually happening. But anything shot in black and white format is supposed to be Lenny's memory. And we know that Lenny's memory is completely unreliable. And we also know that the things Lenny says, and the things other characters say isn't neccesarily the truth.

Other characters lie to Lenny, Lenny lies to other characters. Sometimes we see them lie and eventually we learn that they're lying, like with Trinity. Other times they admit to lying to Lenny, like the hotel clerk who tells Lenny he's renting several rooms in the hotel, but that Lenny has forgotten it, and that he'll forget that the hotel clerk told him. And of course Teddy, who apparently has been using Teddy to kill various people, for reasons of his own.

But Lenny is a monster. That picture of him grinning after having killed his wife's attacker? He destroys it, because if he killed his wife's attacker then his quest for revenge is over, and since he won't be able to remember that he killed his wife's attacker, he'll never be able to stop the desire for revenge. That missing page from the police report that contains the true story? Lenny destroyed it himself. And how about that sequence where Lenny hires a prostitute, knowing that he'll forget she was a prostitute and think she's his wife for a while? And he provides her with props from his wife (or are they?), which he later burns. And of course, the part where Lenny, in revenge against Teddy for revealing the truth (or is it?), plants evidence that he knows his future self will interpret to mean that Teddy was his wife's killer.

And the sick part is, from what Teddy says, the person Lenny triumphantly killed could have been anybody. We see Lenny execute two people for being his wife's attacker, he kills Teddy and he kill's Trinity's boyfriend, each time believing he's killed his wife's attacker. And he's killed others in the past and he'll continue in the future.

And we don't even know that Lenny's wife is actually dead. Maybe she left him, and he made up the whole story. Or perhaps Lenny somehow killed her...either he mixed up his wife's medication somehow, and then attributed that story to Sammy Jankis, or maybe HE was the violent attacker that he's been searching for.

Not that any of these interpretations have to be correct or false. The point of the movie is that the past only exists in our memories, so how can we say what happened in the past? We remember things happening, but our memories lie to us. And if we lie to ourselves enough, we turn into monsters who are capable of anything.

[Zebra]

In the comedy Arsenic and Old Lace, while the delightful old aunts are not the primary protagonists (I suppose that falls to Mortimer although in the play the aunts each have many more lines than he), as serial killers I suppose they could be called "bad guys" even though nephew Jonathon is much worse. Still the "twist" is that they are serial killers, but I think virtually no one holds it against them.


Well, actually, the aunts have offed one more than Jonathon. (at least in the play)


OH and speaking of Harrison Ford, the movie Presumed Innocent is a great example of the OP, although Mr. Ford is not the person I'm talking about.

[Drain Bead]

Well, actually, the aunts have offed one more than Jonathon. (at least in the play)


OH and speaking of Harrison Ford, the movie Presumed Innocent is a great example of the OP, although Mr. Ford is not the person I'm talking about.

I actually came into this thread to metion Presumed Innocent, although technically it wasn't the protagonist who was the bad guy--he was just protecting her through a misguided sense of guilt and obligation.

[Contrapuntal]

Lemur866, thanks for the synopsis. A few questions, if you don't mind, following your quotes.



And we also know that the things Lenny says, and the things other characters say isn't neccesarily the truth. But the things Lenny says could be, right?


But Lenny is a monster. That picture of him grinning after having killed his wife's attacker? He destroys it, because if he killed his wife's attacker then his quest for revenge is over, and since he won't be able to remember that he killed his wife's attacker, he'll never be able to stop the desire for revenge. Why can't he tattoo it?



maybe HE was the violent attacker that he's been searching for.How did he get his debilitating injuries?




Not that any of these interpretations have to be correct or false. The point of the movie is that the past only exists in our memories, so how can we say what happened in the past? We remember things happening, but our memories lie to us. And if we lie to ourselves enough, we turn into monsters who are capable of anything.You are, of course, correct. I will have to view it again, with what you have said in mind.

[Ferret Herder]

Why can't he tattoo it?
I don't think he wants to. Out of anger at being told the truth (?), he frames Teddy in his notes so that after his next amnesia, he'll kill Teddy.

[Lemur866]

Well, of course some things Lenny says could be the truth. They could really be true, they could be false but Lenny mistakenly believes they are true, they could be false but Lenny delusionally belives they are true, or they could be false but Lenny lies about them.

Ferret Herder is correct about the tattoo. Lenny doesn't WANT to solve his wife's murder. According to Teddy, he's already gotten his revenge, but of course he forgot about it. A normal person would eventually get over their need for revenge. But since Lenny can't remember anything that happened since his wife's attack, it's like it just happened. He can't get over it, because it's not the distant past for him, but the recent past. If he had a tattoo that told him that he solved his wife's murder, his life would have no purpose. The only thing Lenny lives for is revenge, and if he got his revenge he'd have nothing left except to sit in a rest home and watch TV...not the shows, they'd be too long, but the commercials.

And that presumes that Lenny's presentation of the attack has any truth to it. Was his wife really attacked by a stranger? We really don't know for sure. And if there was no attack, how did Lenny get his condition? As Lenny explains, there could be a physical cause, or a psychological cause. If Lenny was the real attacker, or if he accidentally killed his wife through an overdose, his amnesia could be psychological.

[Scubaqueen]

can't believe nobody's mentioned 'identity.'

great movie.

[Merijeek]

It's more like the opposite here. The antagonist, the man with the glasses, turns out to be good in the end.


I assume you're talking about Claire's dad - the guy who was totally peachy-keen with murder, torture, and genocide...until his daughter was going to be the one under the scalpel?

-Joe

[Elendil's Heir]

Edward Hermann seems to be a nice, helpful guy in The Lost Boys... but he's not.

[TV time]

Sorry to bring this back so long after the fact, but I got to thinking about it the other night. Would George and Lenny qualify in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men?