Five Movie Characters I Love

by Patrick Bromley

Some fictional people with whom I totally love to spend time.

1. Marge Gunderson, Fargo (1996)

My all-time favorite movie character from a movie that's definitely a favorite. Marge Gunderson is everything that is good in the world: a fiercely intelligent officer of the law, a supportive partner, warm, compassionate, capable. Every single thing she does is the best, from eating Arby's to identifying herself as the law by pointing to her hat to thinking she's gonna barf. Marge represents nobility and goodness without ever becoming saccharine or self-righteous. She simply believes in decency, in being a good person. Even when things seem to be at their worst, she can appreciate a Beautiful Day.

2. Snake Plissken, Escape from New York (1981)/Escape from L.A. (1996)

At almost the opposite end of the spectrum is Snake Plissken, the antihero created by John Carpenter and Nick Castle and portrayed almost as self-parody by the great Kurt Russell. Snake is a cartoon caricature of an anti-hero, but every time we think we know exactly who he is and what he's going to do, he has the ability to surprise us by going even darker and more defiant, particularly in the 1996 sequel that ends with him intentionally bringing about the end of civilization. In political times like these, we all need more Snake Plissken in our lives. He's a guy who wasn't born with enough middle fingers.

3. Barton Keyes, Double Indemnity (1944)

I revisit Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity -- the noirest film noir ever made -- two to four times a year because I teach it most semesters and it never gets old, in part because of how much I love Edward G. Robinson's performance as Barton Keyes, an insurance claims investigator and crusty friend to Fred MacMurray's doomed lead. Keyes isn't just a great detective, sniffing out phony claims with the help of his "little man" (the name he gives to his gut); he's also a great friend and mentor, making the disappointment and betrayal he expresses in the final scene sting more than the gunshot from which Walter is suffering. The dialogue in Double Indemnity is some of the best in any movie ever (no wonder, as it's written by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler) and none of the actors deliver it better than Robinson.

4. Alabama Worley, True Romance (1993)

One might think that Christian Slater's comics-loving, movie-obsessed Clarence Worley would be my favorite character in True Romance, my favorite Tony Scott movie and one of my absolute favorite movies of all time. After all, in many ways I am Clarence Worley, which explains why this movie made such an impact on me when I saw it opening night in 1993. But the character that brings me back to the movie time and again is his wife Alabama, a former sex worker who falls in love with Slater in the span of a single night. On paper, the character is a total Quentin Tarantino screenwriter construct -- a movie geek's idea of a Dream Girl -- but as played by a never-better Patricia Arquette with equal amounts adorableness and pluck, she's something truly special. In a movie bursting with great characters, from wannabe actor Dick Ritchie to perpetually stoned Floyd to Hollywood assistant Elliot Blitzer to gangster Vincent Coccotti, Alabama is the best of them all. I love her so much.

5. Sydney, Hard Eight (1996)

A part written specifically for Philip Baker Hall by Paul Thomas Anderson for his debut feature (originally titled Sydney and still called that by douchey film bros who want to prove they're Real Ones), Hard Eight finally gives a great role to an actor who had already given a lot of great performances but rarely in parts worthy of his talents. From the moment he approaches the grieving John Finnegan (John C. Reilly) and offers to buy him a cup of coffee, Sydney is an enigma -- his motivations unclear, his past shrouded in mystery. And, yet, I immediately love and respect Sydney because he lives by a very clear code. I love a guy that lives by a code.