Clarence has one of his men thrown onto Murphy’s patrol car windscreen during the chase near the start of the film
with a send off line like “can you fly?”
Henchwoman wasn’t it? And later he shoots another higher up henchman as “the price of failure Mr. Bond”
From what I remember off the UK History channel, a Roman commander pursuing Spartacus was so infuriated by the inability of his Legions to defeat Spartacus that he ordered the decimation to spur on his men before more able military commanders did the job for him (IIRC he was a politician looking for some kudos and not a military man proper) Other soldiers were supposed to go along the ranks and kill every tenth man.
Yeah, it’s quite common in Bond movies. Some that immediately come to mind is that Franz Sanchez kills both Milton Krest and his (Sanchez’s, not Krest’s) main accountant in License To Kill. Renard kills a Russian nuclear scientist whose name I also forget in The World is Not Enough, and, while it’s not quite the same category, Elektra King’s master plan calls for Renard to die implementing it.
Well, the Bond movies got it from the Bond books – Ian Fleming did it to dramatic purpose in THUNDERBALL (the book), I think 1959 publication date. The plot there, however, was that the henchman had raped the gang’s kidnap victim, so after the father paid the ransom, she was not returned “unharmed.” It wasn’t just a gratuitous slaying of the henchman.
How else is a evil genius best able to demonstrate his evil if he’s not allowed to kill a minion or two? Henchmen are the most expendable of all characters, far more even than good guy red-shirts.
Plus he’s allowed to kill them without first explaining the entire plot to them and inventing a pointlessly complicated way of doing it. A busy Evil Genius simply doesn’t have the time these days to be doing that all the time.
Sure, he did. It just took a while.
Either I was *whooshed * or you mean Seth Green?
Oh, I remember that one! “Supperman II: Return of the Prime Rib.”
A truly delicious movie.
Crassus had dispatched two green legions with Mummius to shadow Sparticus’s forces and report on their movements, while he kept the rest of his legions in the area he expected Sparticus to move to. Mummius, though, disobeyed him and attacked. His troops were routed, and so Crassus ordered decimation of the first 500 men who fled, decimation being an accepted punishment in the Legions for cowardace by a unit.
Nup, Mustafa, the henchman with the fez.
There was a movie starring Sylvester Stallone and John Lithgow that was set on a snow covered mountain. John Lithgow played a ruthless crime boss who shot a female cohort just to show Stallone’s companions he would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. I can’t remember the title of the movie, however.
In Conan the Barbarian, James Earl Jones’ character has one of his followers kill herself just to impress Conan with how loyal they are.
And there was a scene in Pirates of the Caribbean where Geoffrey Rush’s character shoots one of his own crewmen in the heart to test whether or not the curse is lifted. The crewman lives but only because the curse is still in effect.
Thanks for catching that; I hadn’t been back to this thread yet.
Kill Bill Vol. 1: O-Ren Ishii decapatates a Yakusa boss who had brought up her ethnic heritage and then gives a lovely speech laying out her management style for her new comrades-in-arms.
In Bad Girls, Kid Jarrett shoots one of his henchman who runs away from the girls’ ambush.
In Undercover Brother, White She-Devil kills two of her own henchmen because of her love for U.B. I’m not sure if that counts, though, since the then became one of the good guys.
In The Mask of Zorro, the lead villain shoots the soldier who has accidentally killed Don Diego’s wife.
I’ve read a story (sorry, no cite) that the pirate Blackbeard would invite various members of his crew to dine with him, and then “randomly” shoot one of them under the table. Just to keep them on their toes, it would seem.
Nope, though he does leave him behind during the prison break in the second film.
Cliffhanger. Janine Turner was Stallone’s co-star.
Desperado - Bucho shoots one of his henchmen to demonstrate how easy it is to kill someone (because no one can seem to kill El Mariachi)
Perhaps the most recent example? Travolta kills a henchman in The Punisher.