Movie Villians--Chapter 3--Castor Troy

This international criminal mastermind was, ahem... faced with a bone-chilling scenario one dark night. He awoke in a medical clinic after spending days in a coma following a dramatic gunfight with Sean Archer (John Travolta) and dozens of his fellow federal agents. Kept alive by the government, Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage) discovered something that makes the "kidney removal" urban legends pale in comparison: someone had taken his face... off. *insert face removing gesture here*

In Face/Off, the truth was that Castor and his brother Pollux had planted a bomb somewhere in L.A. and only they knew its location and how to disarm it. With Castor seemingly a vegetable, Sean Archer entered a top-secret prison posing as Castor Troy, complete with surgical alterations and Castor's own face in place of his own. As soon as Archer uncovered the bomb's location from Pollux, his mission was complete. But that's when Castor Troy unexpectantly woke up...

Castor would undergo the same procedure Archer did, this time taking Archer's face and assuming his identity. As a top federal agent, "Sean Archer" would be unstoppable and hold significant power, taunting the real Archer and leading raids against his terrorist rivals; at one point, he even slept with Archer's own wife. As a notorious terrorist, "Castor Troy" would be locked away in prison forever. Until he breaks out, of course.

With murder, kidnapping, and many other forms of terrorism under his belt, Castor Troy was already a very clever and extremely aggressive sociopath, but having his face stolen truly put him over the edge. Castor had once tried to assassinate Archer, but accidentally killed Archer's son in the process. Castor couldn't understand why Archer would take things so personally, but he would when Archer dropped Castor's own brother from the top of a building to his death. Castor's ability to withstand pain and improvise in many deadly ways certainly makes him a vile entry on the Mofo scoreboard. But oddly enough, some people will only remember some of his most evil deeds... committed by Sean Archer.

Bill the Butcher--A Few Potraits

Movie Villians--Chapter 2--Bill the Butcher

For many outside the United States, the shores of America represent opportunity and freedom. For William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting, seeing foreigners enter this land is right on par with cockroaches scurrying across your kitchen floor: they are unwelcome guests and ought to be exterminated by the rightful owner of the place. As a hardcore "Nativist," Cutting - portrayed by Daniel Day-Lewis in an Oscar nominated performance - controlled the Five Points section of New York with an iron fist, and personally led a number of New York's worst gangs into battle against their Irish counterparts, led by Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson). Fighting by the rules of the streets, the Priest would die and the Natives would win.

Every year on the anniversary of the battle, The Butcher would celebrate this victory and invite a select few. Many years later, the tradition would continue, and one mysterious young man would appear and hope for an invitation of his own. His name is Amsterdam (Leonardo DiCaprio) and he is the Preist's son, hell-bent on revenge. His plan is to get close to The Butcher and gain his trust, then kill him in front of everyone at the annual celebration. In the meantime, however, Amsterdam would begin to understand why so many support the Natives and their shrewd practices. In the streets, many things do not come easily, but they come easier when you're on the right side.

For Bill the Butcher, he was a businessman with political ties, and he was a merciless fighter and leader of his own giant gang. He did have some sense of honor and his growing admiration for Amsterdam would show his softer side. Indeed, Amsterdam's personal vendetta would become vastly more complicated. The Butcher is still the Butcher, though, and his viciousness is undeniable and unrelenting when challenged. In the end, Amsterdam's victory is somewhat hollow because of how deep the Butcher cut psychologically. For a young man who saw his father cut down when he was a boy, to kill the only other man to treat you like his son seems, well, foreign.

Source:movievillains.com

Movie Villians--Chapter 1--Agent Smith

After having free reign over The Matrix, Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) finally met his match in a savior also known as Mister Anderson (Keanu Reeves). The Matrix is a construct of our world created only to harvest human beings and their energy - essentially, to make batteries out of people. But a few humans were able to escape the hold of the elaborate computer program keeping them "asleep" from the real world. Before escaping, they had to get by the agents - counteractive programming, if you will - who were led by Smith.

Once awakened, humans were able to build up a resistance against the machines while also evening the odds against them back in the Matrix. No longer shackled by the chains of the harvesting machines, humans could check in and out of the Matrix, fighting agents and hoping to free more minds. One such mind was Neo, a.k.a. Mr. Anderson. He had the ability to move and fight like the agents, and for some reason, was able to destroy Agent Smith at one point. Or so he thought.

Smith became a rogue program, resurfacing in various spots all over the Matrix without being under the control of the machines. Just as Neo did, Smith began to learn that the boundaries of his programming could be broken and discovered new powers, including being able to clone himself, copying his self on top of another program, i.e. another person in the Matrix. This led to the frightening paradox of Smith finding himself in the real world, having taken control of a mind and sabatoging a rebel ship, leading to a showdown with Neo.

As his numbers grew, so did Smith's superiority complex. He already felt he was a supreme being, above humans and all other life forms, but his hold of the Matrix expanded once he took over the Oracle's program. With seemingly boundless knowledge and abilities, Smith once again found himself facing Neo, this time for control of the Matrix. In the end, the Smith program was terminated, obliterated by Neo and the machines in a rare union between humans and their sworn enemies. But we all know, if Smith rose before, he can certainly rise again.

Source: movievillains.com

The Ripper's Victims

The Ripper

Jack the Ripper! Few names in history are as instantly recognizable. Fewer still evoke such vivid images: noisome courts and alleys, hansom cabs and gaslights, swirling fog, prostitutes decked out in the tawdriest of finery, the shrill cry of newsboys - and silent, cruel death personified in the cape-shrouded figure of a faceless prowler of the night, armed with a long knife and carrying a black Gladstone bag.

—Philip Sugden, The Complete History of Jack the Ripper

India Guilty of Discrimination

People in India discriminate against each other all the time. A large portion of India is not even recognized as part of mainland India's interpretation of what India stands off. Cautionary note: Hate fuels HATE. The media is to blame for leaving a worrying majority of people ignorant. The idea of mainstream India is what the Aussies seemingly despise. What goes around comes around indeed. India is more than just Bollywood. Spare us that wretchedness. Remember India's North East. The beauty of the people in that region cannot be matched. Period.

New Orleans--America's Murder Capital

I decided to write this after watching a documentary on the television. It was about these 3 kids and their bids to survive the hell that is modern day New Orleans. We're talking about a reality in which kids live with the uncertainty of whether they're gonna make it through to see themselves graduate high school. The reasons discounting the possibility vary from the more obvious ones of being uninspired to the more extreme ones of death and pregnancies.


Imagine being made to go through a metal detector topped with a thorough frisking just to get into your own school. Constant surveillance is a mandate here. Most of the kids attending schools have some sort of gang affiliation. Its a world where a minor scuffle can get you killed. "Guns are easier to find than books"...a direct quote from the Doc.

What do you do faced with such a monstrosity?

Death, it seems is all too familiar. Memorial services held in celebration of the ones slain are all too frequent. Kids killing other kids. What kind of a world are we offering them? The United States we believe has to look internally and address this issue; if they are to set any kind of legitimate example to the rest of the world.


New Orleans lies in a state of bedlam. The world watches...

Acid Attacks

The Supreme Court Monday had asked the Indian government to examine the feasibility of having a stringent penal law akin to the one in Bangladesh to deal with cases of women and young girls being attacked with acid. It has also asked the government to examine the feasibility of regulating the sale of acid on the lines of provisions in Bangladesh. India's neighbouring country has an Acid Control Order, which regulates the sale of the material. But in India it is available for sale across the counter and proves to be a lethal weapon in the hands of people with a criminal bent of mind.

This was way back in April, 2008 and as always the government has failed to act with any sort of urgency. The matter is still caught up in bureaucratic red tape and in all probability will not see the light of day anytime soon.

Meanwhile, countless women across the country bear the brunt of these barbaric cowardly attacks most commonly at the hands of shunned "lovers".

What fine people are running this country....

The Indian Hate Sena (Army)

Self proclaimed protectors of what they think is Indian culture have taken it upon themselves to launch various types of protests against Valentine's day celebrations across a few states in India. These Hindu extremists groups often christen themselves after Hindu gods as if to suggest that they are performing God's work. When all these sanity deprived, frustrated attention seeking hooligans really do is terrorize innocent people on the premise of very flimsy grounds. In response to the now infamous Mangalore incident the union minister for women and child development, Renuka Choudhary termed it a Talabanizaiton of India by to put it quite bluntly hordes of sexually frustrated men. And this to me is fact. As one victim of the incident recounted, "we were groped and molested in the name of God."


The names of these groups are not worth a mention right now. All the while its leader, a notorious thug with numerous criminal cases pending against him, claimed and still continues to do so blatanly adamant as ever, that they carried out the act i.e. the assualt on helpless young women, in the interest of protecting Indian culture.

White Collar Crime--India's ENRON

On 7 January 2009, Satyam Computer Services Ltd. Chairman Ramalinga Raju resigned after notifying its board members and the SEBI that he had falsified accounts.

He stated that:

"What started as a marginal gap between actual operating profit and the one reflected in the books of accounts continued to grow over the years. It has attained unmanageable proportions as the size of company operations grew significantly (annualised revenue run rate of Rs 11,276 crore in the September quarter of 2008 and official reserves of Rs 8,392 crore). As the promoters held a small percentage of equity, the concern was that poor performance would result in a takeover, thereby exposing the gap. The aborted Maytas acquisition deal was the last attempt to fill the fictitious assets with real ones. It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten.”

Analysts in India have termed the Satyam scandal as India's own Enron scandal. Immediately following the news, Merrill Lynch (Now with Bank of America) terminated its engagement with the company as Credit Suisse suspended its coverage of Satyam. It was also reported that Satyam's auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers will be scrutinized for complicity in this scandal. Satyam was the 2008 winner of the coveted Golden Peacock Award for Corporate Governance under Risk Management and Compliance Issues, which was stripped from them in the aftermath of the scandal.

The New York Stock Exchange has halted trading in Satyam stock as of 7 January 2009. India's National Stock Exchange has announced that it will remove Satyam from its S&P CNX Nifty 50-share index from January 12. The founder of Satyam has been arrested two days after he admitted falsifying the firm's accounts. Ramalinga Raju is charged with offences including criminal conspiracy,breach of trust and forgery. Satyam's shares fell to 11.50 rupees on 10/01/2009, their lowest level since March 1998. Last year they hit a high of 544 rupees.