# Best villainous monologues **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 13, 2008, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-villainous-monologues/467748 "2008-10-13T18:18:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-villainous-monologues/467748/1 "2008-10-13T18:18:48Z")
Forget what the Incredibles say. There is a use to the villainous monologue, but only if you do it right. There needs to be a credible reason for the villain to say it; it needs to be brief; and it needs to be done right. [This clip from the Justice League Unlimited finale](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgf3LwbXybk)has one of the best, but I’m sure my fellow Dopers can find other worthy ones. ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-villainous-monologues/467748/2 "2008-10-13T18:24:22Z")
“Ah, Father. You’re so wrong. Let me explain. Life, which you so nobly serve, comes from destruction, disorder, and chaos. Now, take this empty glass, here it is: peaceful, serene, boring. But if it is destroyed–” (he smashes the glass, little machines emerge to dust up the pieces) "Look at all these little things, so busy now. Notice how each one is useful. What a lovely ballet ensues, so full of form and color. Now, think about all those people that created them. Technicians, engineers, hundreds of people who will be able to feed their children tonight so those children can grow up big and strong and have little teenie-weenie children of their own and so one and so forth, thus adding to the great chain… of life. You see, Father, by creating a little destruction, I’m in fact _encouraging_ life. In reality, you and I are in the same business. Cheers." (I can’t believe I still don’t own _The Fifth Element_…) ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-villainous-monologues/467748/3 "2008-10-13T18:24:49Z")
Are you restricting it to over-the-top Villiany? Personally I would have to say the best Villianous Monologues are the ones where, at the end you start to realize that maybe he has a point, and isn’t a caricature of evil. His methods may be ‘evil’ his ends are more ambiguous, but still a fair bit insane. The best recent example is Nicholson’s “You can’t handle the truth” from _a few good men_. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-villainous-monologues/467748/4 "2008-10-13T18:33:57Z")
The Immortal Bard was the master of the villainous monologue, and he was at the top of his game with **King Lear**. Act I, Scene II: > [@](#): > > EDMUND > > ``` > Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law > My services are bound. Wherefore should I > Stand in the plague of custom, and permit > The curiosity of nations to deprive me, > For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines > Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base? > When my dimensions are as well compact, > My mind as generous, and my shape as true, > As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us > With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base? > Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take > More composition and fierce quality > Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed, > Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops, > Got 'tween asleep and wake? Well, then, > Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land: > Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund > As to the legitimate: fine word,--legitimate! > Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed, > And my invention thrive, Edmund the base > Shall top the legitimate. I grow; I prosper: > Now, gods, stand up for bastards! > > ``` Another gem from Edmund, later in the same scene: > [@](#): > > EDMUND > > ``` > This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, > when we are sick in fortune,--often the surfeit > of our own behavior,--we make guilty of our > disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as > if we were villains by necessity; fools by > heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and > treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, > liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of > planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, > by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion > of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish > disposition to the charge of a star! My > father compounded with my mother under the > dragon's tail; and my nativity was under Ursa > major; so that it follows, I am rough and > lecherous. Tut, I should have been that I am, > had the maidenliest star in the firmament > twinkled on my bastardizing. Edgar-- > > Enter EDGAR > > And pat he comes like the catastrophe of the old > comedy: my cue is villanous melancholy, with a > sigh like Tom o' Bedlam. O, these eclipses do > portend these divisions! fa, sol, la, mi. > > ``` In fact - **Skald** , I think I’d like to nominate Edmund for President. He’s pragmatic, logical, and I doubt he’d be afraid to confront the religious fundamentalists. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-villainous-monologues/467748/5 "2008-10-13T18:36:57Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > Are you restricting it to over-the-top Villiany? Nah. Each poster may define villainy as he or she chooses without fear of being attacked by flying monkeys. (Doubly true as I have moved on to flaming, flesh-eating-bacteria-infected mosquitos.) ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-villainous-monologues/467748/6 "2008-10-13T18:37:43Z")
I’ve always been rather fond of, “I expect you to die, Mr. Bond.” ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-villainous-monologues/467748/7 "2008-10-13T18:38:19Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Nah. Each poster may define villainy as he or she chooses without fear of being attacked by flying monkeys. (Doubly true as I have moved on to flaming, flesh-eating-bacteria-infected mosquitos.) Er - m’lord **Skald** , wouldn’t the mosquitos be more effective at spreading the flesh-eating bacteria if they weren’t on fire? They’d certainly live longer. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-villainous-monologues/467748/8 "2008-10-13T18:41:57Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > Er - m’lord **Skald** , wouldn’t the mosquitos be more effective at spreading the flesh-eating bacteria if they weren’t on fire? They’d certainly live longer. Obviously the flames are TINY, and the mosquitos are magically engineered to be immune to it. The idea is to sow maximum fear in the people of :: checks list to see who I irrationally hate today :: Seattle. ---
**Author:** ![Gukumatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/74df32/32.png) [@Gukumatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gukumatz)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-villainous-monologues/467748/9 "2008-10-13T18:42:26Z")
Not precisely villainous, but Edward Norton’s “Fuck it” monologue in _25th Hour_ had me in deep chills the first, oh, twenty times I hear it. [Youtube link. [NSFW, language]](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3aEeykKQpg) > [@](#): > > Fuck me? Fuck you. Fuck you and this whole city and everyone in it. > > Fuck the panhandlers grubbing for money, smiling at me behind my back. Fuck the squeegee men dirtying up the clean windshield of my car. Get a fucking job. > > Fuck the Sikhs and the Pakistanis bombing down the avenues in decrepit cabs, curry steaming out their pores, stinking up my day. Terrorists in fucking training. Slow the fuck down! > > Fuck the Chelsea Boys with their waxed chests and pumped-up biceps, going down on each other in my parks and on my piers, jiggling their dicks on my Channel 35. > > Fuck the Korean grocers with their pyramids of overpriced fruit and their tulips and roses wrapped in plastic. Ten years in the country, still no speakee English. > > Fuck the Russians in Brighton Beach. Mobster thugs sitting in cafes, sipping tea in little glasses, sugar cubes between their teeth, wheelin’ and dealin’ and schemin’. Go back where you fucking came from. > > Fuck the black-hatted Hasidim strolling up and down 47th Street in their dirty gabardine with their dandruff, selling South African apartheid diamonds. > > Fuck the Wall Street brokers. Self-styled masters of the universe. Michael Douglas-Gordon Gekko wannabe motherfuckers figuring out new ways to rob hard-working people blind. Send those Enron assholes to jail for fucking life. You think Bush and Cheney didn’t know about that shit? Give me a fucking break. Imclone. Adelphia. Worldcom. > > Fuck the Puerto Ricans. Twenty to a car, swelling up the welfare rolls. Worst fucking parade in the city. And don’t even get me started on the Dominicans, ’cause they make the Puerto Ricans look good. > > Fuck the Bensonhurst Italians with their pomaded hair, their nylon warmup suits, their St. Anthony medallions, swinging their Jason Giambi Louisville Slugger baseball bats trying to audition for “The Sopranos”. > > Fuck the Upper East Side wives with their Hermes scarves and their $50 Balducci artichoke. Overfed faces getting pulled and lifted and stretched all taut and shiny. You’re not fooling anybody, sweetheart. > > Fuck the Uptown brothers. They never pass the ball, they don’t want to play defense, they take five steps on every layup to the hoop, and then they want to turn around and blame everything on the white man. Slavery ended 137 years ago. Move the fuck on. > > Fuck the corrupt cops with their anus-violating plungers and their 41 shots, standing behind a blue wall of silence. You betray our trust! > > Fuck the priests who put their hands down some innocent child’s pants. Fuck the church that protects them, delivering us into evil. > > And while you’re at it, fuck J.C. He got off easy — a day on the cross, a weekend in hell, and all the hallelujahs of the legioned angels for eternity. Try seven years in fucking Otisville, J. > > Fuck Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and backward-ass cave-dwelling fundamentalist assholes everywhere. On the names of innocent thousands murdered, I pray you spend the rest of eternity with your 72 whores roasting in a jet-fuel fire in hell. You towel-headed camel jockeys can kiss my royal Irish ass. > > Fuck Jacob Elinsky. Whining malcontent. > > Fuck Francis Xavier Slaughtery, my best friend, judging me while he stares at my girlfriend’s ass. > > Fuck Naturelle Riviera. I gave her my trust and she stabbed me in the back. Sold me up the river. Fucking bitch. > > Fuck my father with his endless grief, standing behind that bar, sipping on club soda, selling whiskey to firemen and cheering the Bronx Bombers. > > Fuck this whole city and everyone in it, from the row houses of Astoria to the penthouses on Park Avenue, from the projects in the Bronx to the lofts in Soho, from the tenements in Alphabet City to the brownstones in Park Slope to the split-levels in Staten Island, let an earthquake crumble it, let the fires rage, let it burn to fucking ash, and then let the waters rise and submerge this whole rat-infested place. ---
**Author:** ![Octalcode](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a9a28c/32.png) [@Octalcode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octalcode)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-villainous-monologues/467748/10 "2008-10-13T18:53:53Z")
You’re semi-evil. You’re quasi-evil. You’re the margarine of evil. You’re the diet coke of evil. Just one calorie-- not evil enough. –Dr. Evil ---
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-villainous-monologues/467748/11 "2008-10-13T19:04:38Z")
My nomination is Al Pacino as John Milton (The Devil) in **The Devil’s Advocate** "Let me give you a little inside information about God. God likes to watch. He’s a prankster. Think about it. He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does He do, I swear for His own amusement, his own private, cosmic gag reel, He sets the rules in opposition. It’s the goof of all time. Look but don’t touch. Touch, but don’t taste. Taste, don’t swallow. Ahaha. And while you’re jumpin’ from one foot to the next, what is he doing? He’s laughin’ His sick, fuckin’ ass off! He’s a tight-ass! He’s a SADIST! He’s an absentee landlord! Worship that? NEVER! " ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-villainous-monologues/467748/12 "2008-10-13T19:11:23Z")
No mention of Al Pacinos rant in The Devil’s Advocate? “Let me give you a little inside information about God. God likes to watch. He’s a prankster. Think about it. He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does He do, I swear for His own amusement, his own private, cosmic gag reel, He sets the rules in opposition. It’s the goof of all time. Look but don’t touch. Touch, but don’t taste. Taste, don’t swallow. Ahaha. And while you’re jumpin’ from one foot to the next, what is he doing? He’s laughin’ His sick, fuckin’ ass off! He’s a tight-ass! He’s a SADIST! He’s an absentee landlord! Worship that? NEVER!.. …I’m here on the ground with my nose in it since the whole thing began. I’ve nurtured every sensation man’s been inspired to have. I cared about what he wanted and I never judged him. Why? Because I never rejected him. In spite of all his imperfections, I’m a fan of man! I’m a humanist. Maybe the last humanist. Who, in their right mind Kevin, could possibly deny the twentieth century was entirely mine…ALL OF IT KEVIN!! All of it! MINE!! I’m peakin. It’s my time now. It’s our time… …We’re coming out!! GUNS BLAZIN!!!” ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-villainous-monologues/467748/13 "2008-10-13T19:12:15Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > No mention of Al Pacinos rant in The Devil’s Advocate? I’ll go ahead and be embarrassed for you. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-villainous-monologues/467748/14 "2008-10-13T19:17:05Z")
Ah well…I’ll nominate his rant in The Recruit. “Well, will you look at this? Twenty seven years, I’m finally in the spotlight, huh? What do you know. What do we do now? Come get my gun? Or do you just want to hang me? Hang the traitor! You ready for that, Slayne? I hear you. ‘Why’d you sell us out, Burke?’ I sold you out? No way! Twenty seven years, neck deep in shit! Sell you out? Did I do my job? I ask you: you do your job? I hand you the target, I tell you who and where. All you got to do is act. What do you do? Do you do your job? No! I’m obsolete! I’m irrelevant! Me! Shame on you! You yank me home, you shove me out in the woods! Some Ivy League prick who’s afraid of having dinner in DC because of street crime is judging my worth! … shoving me in the fucking woods… You got me! HAND IN THE COOKIE JAR!!” ---
**Author:** ![Smitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Smitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smitty)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-villainous-monologues/467748/15 "2008-10-13T19:19:46Z")
Christopher Walken in **The Prophecy** [YouTube Link](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH3RQZMSZSI) “I’m an angel. I kill first borns while their mamas watch. I turn cities into salt. I even, when I feel like it, rip the souls from little girls; and from now 'til Kingdom Come the only thing you can count on in your existence is never understanding why.” ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-villainous-monologues/467748/16 "2008-10-13T19:28:52Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I’ve always been rather fond of, “I expect you to die, Mr. Bond.” That’s a great line, but I was going to mention something from later in the same movie. When Bond finds out about Operation Grand Slam (or so he thinks), he tells Goldfinger all the reasons why it won’t work; how much gold, how many men to load it on to how many trucks. Goldfinger gets this wonderfully smug look and says “who said anything about removing it?” And then he teases Bond along in figuring out the real plan. Gert Fröbe makes that scene work because he’s just so satisfied with his own cleverness that he has to tell someone, someone who can appreciate it. I think a lot of movies that came after tried to copy that scene as necessary exposition, but forgot to give the character a reason for it. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-villainous-monologues/467748/17 "2008-10-13T19:37:06Z")
From now on, we are enemies, You and I! Because You will not enter me, with all my need for you; because You scorn my attempts at virtue; because You choose for Your in- strument a boastful, lustful, smutty infantile boy and give me for reward only the ability to recognize the Incarnation; because You are unjust, unfair, unkind, I will block You! I swear it! I will hin- der and harm Your creature on earth as far as I am able. I will ruin Your Incarnation. What use after all is Man, if not to teach God His lessons? - **Salieri** - _Amadeus_ ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-villainous-monologues/467748/18 "2008-10-13T19:52:59Z")
Mark Rydell as Marty Augustine in **The Long Goodbye**. I don’t have the exact quote, but he starts out by walking over to his girlfriend and telling Philip Marlowe how much he loves her. It goes on for a little while, a gentle expression of deep abiding love. Then he smashes a glass bottle into her face. He turns to Marlowe and says, “That’s someone I love. You, I don’t even like.” ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-villainous-monologues/467748/19 "2008-10-13T20:08:41Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I’ve always been rather fond of, “I expect you to die, Mr. Bond.” [Best riff on that scene, ever.](http://www.xkcd.com/123/) ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-villainous-monologues/467748/20 "2008-10-13T20:21:11Z")
Blake (Alec Baldwin) in _Glengarry Glen Ross_: \*That watch costs more than you car. I made $970,000 last year. How much you make? You see pal, that’s who I am, and you’re nothing. Nice guy? I don’t give a shit. Good father? Fuck you! Go home and play with your kids. You wanna work here - close! You think this is abuse? You think this is abuse, you cocksucker? You can’t take this, how can you take the abuse you get on a sit? You don’t like it, leave. \*Mamet manages to turn profanity into an art form. Stranger [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-villainous-monologues/467748.md?page=2)