Suggested by Destroyer Don’t underestimate Coraline. Her power is matched only by her creativity but in the end that will not be enough to beat this guy. The Marshmallow Man is simply too big and too powerful. With a single punch he can deal absolutely devastating damage. Coraline just doesn’t have a chance here. It’s the end of the road for her with no way to dodge these attacks. Marshmallow Man wins.
Suggested by Destroyer The Marshmallow Man is one of those villains that you never forget. His design is just so creative after al and he can throw a mean punch. A Stegosaurus is a strong beast as well but it really has no attack options that would be helpful in this fight. He can only get in close which will put him at great risk of getting hit with a counter strike. It’s just hard to last in a battle when you can barely manage to get in close like that. Marshmallow Man wins.
Suggested by Destroyer Carl may be one of those guys who always knows how to turn a profit but that’s not going to help him against an opponent like Madoka. Madoka has incredible magical powers that can let her blast away at enemies from any distance. Carl has no way to dodge her attacks and doesn’t have the durability to endure any of them. Madoka Kaname wins.
The term “Fraud” is thrown around quite a lot nowadays. I would say it’s temporarily become a bigger term than “Mid” and of course these terms always come and go as the years go by. Right now is a particularly fun time in manga world though with Sukuna, All For One, and Code constantly getting dunked on in every chapter by people online. So I thought, why not take a quick deep dive into some of the bigger cases of “Fraud Watch” and rank them all? I’ll be listing each character from least to most fraudulent. In each villain’s case I’ll quickly give a summary of the character, the series of origin, and the “Fraud” reasons I’ve seen posted online. I’ll then counter with how valid he reasons are.
I’m limiting this to one series so in each case it’s the one I saw listed the most and also factoring how big the character is. The one series this was tough to decide on was One Piece. Big Meme and Useless Captain Mid were the two runner ups from the fan terms but I would say I’ve still been seeing this the most for Kaido and it’s a bit bizarre. So no spoilers but we’re starting off with him because I don’t think you can make any kind of case for him being fraudulent. Not a valid one at least. Now without further adieu lets talk about the 9 characters with the most allegations here! (Really wish I could have thought of one more to make this a top 10 but I feel like there’s no obvious pick for that last spot.
Note that this list will have spoilers for One Piece, Jujutsu Kaisen, My Hero Academia, Boruto, Naruto, Fairy Tail, Black Clover, Attack on Titan, and Seven Deadly Sins
9. Kaido
Kaido is a huge villain from One Piece. The guy was hyped up as the most powerful One Piece villain for a long while. “Land, Sea, or Air, always bet on Kaido!” was his official slogan and even Oda had an interview where he wasn’t sure how Luffy would deal with this guy. His arc is currently the longest one in all of One Piece and he went through a complete gauntlet of fighters. He fought back to back the following fighters: Strawhat Luffy Gears 1-4, Zoro, Kid, Law, Killer, The Akaza 8, Yamato, Awakened Momo, Awakened Yamato, and of course Luffy in G5 mode. He was fighting for an incredible amount of time and basically took on the all of the relevant main characters. So yeah you can see why I don’t find him fraudulent in the slightest. Just look at how many hits the guy tanked!?
Fraud Watch!:
1. Wasn’t able to kill a single character during the fight on the roof
2. In particular could not finish off Orochi, the CP0 agent, or Kinemon despite attacking with the intent to kill
3. Possibly lost before using his hybrid mode
4. Started to get humiliated by Toon Force towards the end
5. Went out without a complete backstory
6. His cause of potential death was underwhelming
All right so I’d say off the bat we can throw out number 5. It’s a valid reason for not liking Kaido but I’d argue it doesn’t make him a fraud. For #1 and #2, yeah he probably should have murdered some of those characters. Most shouldn’t have been surviving those hits but I would lessen that a bit to plot armor. For the most part he wasn’t actively making choices that made no sense. He was intending to murder the characters and should have for all intents and purposes. So I wouldn’t place the burden of that on him.
#3 is still debated to this day but the anime used the hybrid color palette for him so most fans would agree he actually was in hybrid mode and so this should be thrown out. For #4, I would argue he wasn’t humiliated. Sure he got beat up a whole lot but Luffy was the one scared at times in a comedy sort of way. Kaido mainly kept a straight face and at the end of the day he just got beat up. So definitely not a fraud and he shouldn’t be on the list. The fact that he’s been getting mentioned a lot was part of my inspiration for this.
8. Acnologia
This is another case where people need to calm down. Acnologia is the final boss of Fairy Tail. A dragon of such immense power that he is said to be able to end the world. Nobody dares oppose him and he ends up taking on all of the Dragon Slayers at once. This guy got a lot of hype but I would say he earned it. It took a whole lot to take him out and to even beat him two different groups of heroes had to attack him on different planes of existence. The way he may have went out wasn’t great but I’d attribute it more to power of friendship than fraud. He got ringed out once which people found funny but lets face it, that’s still not an L.
Fraud Watch!
1. He got taken out in one punch
2. Retroactively he is no longer the strongest as Fairy Tail 100 introduces at least 5 dragons who are on his level and possibly stronger
3. Couldn’t destroy the ships attacking him in the real world
4. Couldn’t destroy any of the fighters
You’re going to notice a lot of similarities on the Fraud Watch reasons which makes sense but you’ll also see me debunking them in mainly the same ways. For the first reason I’d say it’s fairly disingenuous. Acnologia did get taken out with a punch but that was after a whole lot of other fighting. Whenever someone says a villain got rolled in one hit I usually shake my head because unless that was the start of the fight it’s really not valid.
#2 is also fairly irrelevant, it happened later on so that’s fine. It’s like how Super had fighters more powerful than Buu or everyone in Boruto being able to dunk on Naruto villains, it doesn’t retroactively make them worse. #3 is the most valid point because it was plot hax that he didn’t stop Lucy and crew but hey he was distracted by Natsu and friends attacking him in the dragon world. I think it’s a fairly decent reason why he didn’t stop them and to #4, he did beat everyone up, destroying them just gets rather tricky. I’d say it would for basically any villain.
7. Lucifero
Lucifero, otherwise known as Bullyfero among the fanbase. Well this guy started out strong as the ultimate demon lord who was crushing everyone in his path. The guy got a whole lot of hype particularly as he was slaughtering the main cast at just 50% power. So why did everyone turn on him? Well things got dicey in the second half as he basically got beat up in a few seconds once Asta got his final super form (Asta was only able to keep it active for 5 seconds and blitzed the life out of this guy), then Lucifero got crushed by the other demon with his other 50% so badly that he looked pretty whiny. The guy ended up being treated like a minion in the end.
Fraud Watch!
1. Ultimately being toyed with by Lucius and not knowing it
2. Not being able to finish any of the heroes
3. Not being able to survive Asta’s 5 second barrage
4. Not having a backup plan and going out like a chump
5. Threatening to murder all of Asta’s friends as the cliffhanger and not taking any of them out
Lucifero’s a bit lower on the list mainly because the reasons hit a bit harder for him and are tougher to defend. The first point is pretty rough for the guy. It does invalidate a whole lot of his tough talk. Instead of being a grand mastermind he ended up being played for the fool here. For #2 and #5, they particularly hurt him on the re read. When you marathon the climax now, he looks pretty bad since he talks really tough for the first half but then starts to get spanked. The other demon doesn’t respect him at all and of course he gets humiliated at the end.
#3 is also pretty tough for him because losing in 5 seconds is tough. Yes, he was fighting before that so there is extra context here but even then it’s tough just because of how exaggeratedly short that timer is. No backup plan is also pretty bad for him since he had that other 50% everyone was waiting for. I still like Lucifero quite a lot but I get the allegations. I would just say he pushes through past them and is still a serious threat.
6. Kaguya
Kaguya was the final boss of Naruto and a super controversial figure. Most people preferred Madara to be the final boss and if he wasn’t going to be then people would have wanted that title to go to Obito. Instead Kaguya assumed the throne right away and unfortunately got crushed fairly quick. It’s always the tough part about showing up at the end. She was very powerful and it took the powers of Team 7 to beat her but she didn’t get many lines and also seemed to be very unintelligent.
Fraud Watch!
1. Having no control of her own abilities and putting herself in a bad spot
2. Getting momentarily stunned by Naruto’s sexy jutsu
3. Unable to react to Sakura’s attack from the top
4. Not having any real personality
5. Feeling underwhelming power-wise considering her title
The first one is very valid. She basically created ninjutsu and has powers and experience well above the main fighters. It should be very easy for her to teleport to a realm where the heroes have the disadvantage and finish them off or just leave them there as a ring out. It feels like we didn’t get to see most of her arsenal at all so her losing wasn’t very satisfying.
#2 is just plain embarrassing. There’s no real defending that one. I will defend her from #3 though, it was the middle of a fight and contrary to the memes Sakura is very powerful. Not a top tier sure but it was a combination move so I’m fine with the attack landing. #4 is valid, I wouldn’t say it’s something to put her on fraud watch but it does add to why a lot of people don’t like her much.
#5 is the most valid and why I would say she deserves to be on Fraud Watch. She was the final boss but I would argue most would still put Madara above her in terms of ability. I think some would even say Obito should be above her and I would agree with that. Kaguya’s taijutsu skills seemed to only be decent and while she had a lot of power and speed, it felt like she didn’t have a ton of skill. So it was easier for Naruto and Sasuke to outmanuever her the whole time. The fraud allegations feel real because she did not live up to the hype as the strongest opponent even though that definitely seemed to be the intention.
5. Sukuna
All right we’ve made it to the King of Spirits! The ultimate fighter in Jujutsu Kaisen and some would argue the most powerful character in the series. At least that’s his rep and he’s been hyped since day 1. Well the allegations are coming in fast and hard due to his having a lot of difficulty against Satoru Gojo, the man with the powers of infinity. Mainly the allegations have arrived because Sukuna is not fighting Gojo one on one. He’s currently possessing the body of Gojo’s pseudo son Megumi (Not really related but Gojo got Megumi out of a toxic family and helped raise him), using Megumi’s powers, and is using Megumi himself as a shield to redirect half of the damage from each of Gojo’s attacks. Is this him being a fraud or him being smart?
Fraud Watch!
1. Sukuna got knocked out mid fight
2. Sukuna keeps mocking Gojo and talking smack about being the strongest while using all of this extra help
3. Sukuna’s basically using a hostage throughout the fight
4. All of Sukuna’s own abilities have been completely negated so far with his only damage coming thanks to Megumi
All right so the first one is pretty tough because yeah he was fully knocked out. So without backup that’d be it, it would have been curtains for the guy. #2 is also rough because the guy keeps knocking Gojo and acting like he’s been clobbering the fight when at best you could say he’s close to going even. Now the fight is still going and lots can still happen, we can find out Sukuna was only using 1% of his power or something. As with any ongoing series this can all be moot pretty fast but at the moment it’s not looking good for him.
With #3, it’s a smart villain move of course but it’s also valid as a fraud component in the sense of him not living up to the hype for now. Basically Sukuna absolutely needs to win this fight desperately so he can admit that he wasn’t even trying yet. Because tying in with #4, his Domain Expansion just didn’t work. He actually got to use it and Gojo straight up tanked the attack. That’s the kind of thing that doesn’t reflect well on Sukuna since so far it’s the only true ability of his that we’ve seen. Definitely one of the more hype battles going on right now but the pressure is absolutely on. And if Sukuna were to actually lose this fight (Which is super doubtful) that would really be game over.
4. All For One
All For One is one of the most important villains in all of My Hero Academia. He was the counterpart to All Might and ruled the world through fear for years before the hero came into town. He has virtually an unlimited amount of quirks as he has been stealing them through the years and has a lifetime of battle experience. The allegations came when he returned in the final arc and has been defeating all of his opponents but not without incurring a lot of damage and getting outmaneuvered the whole time. Is that enough to call him a fraud?
Fraud Watch!
1. Allowing All Might to goad him into battle
2. Not stealing the powers of the heroes he was fighting
3. Having trouble dealing with the heroes when he has all these incredible abilities
4. Monologuing a ton when his body is literally dying with every minute he wastes
5. Starting to seem delusional
Okay so All For One’s hecklers really started coming along during #3 and #2. He’s been flying around the battlefield defeating his opponents but having a surprisingly hard time doing it. He couldn’t take out Jirou and the others with his energy attack, she actually tanked it straight up. Then they’ve been making fun of him the whole time and of course he doesn’t really care but the fact that he couldn’t shut them up was dicey. Also, taking powers is apparently as easy as grabbing the person and draining the power as we’ve seen before so why not just grab each of them with super speed and take the abilities? He decided not to take Hawks or Dark Shadow when he was in a position to and it’s odd since he was thinking about it earlier. Even if he doesn’t need it, it would help a whole lot right?
#1 and #4 escalated the issue since he is rapidly de-aging right now. If he doesn’t get to Shigaraki to complete the merge quickly he will literally fade out of existence. Knowing that, he is still making a lot of very long speeches and allowing All Might to get the best of him. You can’t do that and he’s been justifying this. He knows that it’s a trap but equates it to taking out the trash and seems to think this will be easy. Well it hasn’t been easy yet as he’s having a very hard time right now while getting younger and younger. He can absolutely make a comeback but it has been a real rough period for the guy particularly just since with his power level he should have no diff’d pretty much the whole cast that he was fighting. You’d need big shots like Deku to really take him out.
3. Eren Yeager
Eren is one of the most controversial villains of all time and for good reason. He’s the greatest character in Attack on Titan and carried the post timeskip arcs hard but then the author fumbled the bag at the end and turned him into one of the biggest jokes in all of media history. The guy cried about wanting a girlfriend and it turns out that he had no idea what he wanted to do. All of his convictions and inner thoughts turned out to be lies and the ending was filled with more holes than a bowl of swiss cheese. Yeah I absolutely think he has to be on fraud watch.
Fraud Watch!
1. Literally asleep during the climax
2. Turned his back on all his dreams and ideals
3. Suddenly had no self respect or dignity
4. Had powers over time and reality yet couldn’t defend himself
5. Wasted everyone’s time including his own
6. Left his people in the worst shape possible
I’m not going to defend Eren unfortunately. His whole thing was about taking out the Titans and never relenting. We had a whole scene where Reiner told him to go to sleep back in the day and that just made Eren more upset. Now? Well he does fall asleep because he decides to just let destiny play out and have the friends take him down. This doesn’t work though because he had seen the future so he knows very well what will happen. It just makes him look bad and he turned back on everything.
All of his lines up til now? Meaningless. His drive was all fake and his goals were never something he was serious about. This all happens because of #4. Eren gained the ability to transcend time. He exists in the past, present, and future which is the worst thing you can do as a writer because it makes the character completely unstoppable. When you have that level of control and can control the actions of all titans, you can’t lose. It’s why we had to get this whole retcon about Eren not really wanting to win and ditching everybody. Nah that was a really bad way to go and I will always remember the ending as the worst one in Shonen history. Eren is one of the biggest frauds out there.
2. Code
Now we’re getting to the biggest frauds out there. Code is a villain from Boruto and fortunately for him the series is still going so he can change things. This guy has lost almost every single fight that he has been in and his fans aren’t hearing the end of it. The guy was supposed to be so strong that he could wipe the floor with Naruto and Sasuke yet he was dominated by Boruto, humiliated by Kawaki, embarrassed by Eida, and then crushed by Daemon. Finally he just got stepped on by Boruto in his first appearance post timeskip. Is there any saving him?
Fraud Watch!
1. Always getting humiliated
2. Talking tough but can’t control the room
3. Has no good comebacks for when the characters humiliate him
4. Couldn’t control his feelings for Eida
Boruto should still have a lot of years left in the tank so Code could pull off a comeback but it does look like it would have to be a miracle. The problem for the guy is the power creep passed him before he could look good. He’s lost to virtually every heavyweight in the series, cementing him as the weakest out of the top tiers. Part of the problem is that he’s always used to make other characters look good, meaning that he himself never actually gets to shine. I think this was actually an accident, but either way it doesn’t reflect well on him as a character. He can’t talk this tough when he’s always being humiliated. Getting stepped on was probably the last straw there.
Eida’s power is also hard to resist but it’s still embarrassing for him to fall in love with her and get rejected so harshly. Then losing to her little brother? From a power level perspective it makes sense but nobody takes him seriously in the series and the disrespect he gets is completely unreal. The characters never give him even the slightest break and you end up feeling bad for him. That’s not the kind of thing you want to feel for the villain. When you feel pity like that then it’s all over!
1. Demon King
Now we’re at the villain I would say is the biggest fraud in all of anime/manga. Yes, it’s the Demon King! Cool name right? Well it’s not enough but this guy is from the Seven Deadly Sins series. He’s the most powerful villain around (Until he was surpassed real hard in the Apocalypse series) and the whole series you were waiting for him to show up. The problem is that by the time he appeared, Meliodas was already stronger than him. Yet the guy went up against the Seven Deadly Sins. One of the biggest inditements against him is the fact that the heroes were grinning while he was trying to threaten him.
Fraud Watch!
1. The heroes within the series couldn’t take him seriously
2. He spent multiple chapters getting dunked on by everyone
3. Meliodas didn’t even bother using his final form to fight him
4. Demon King didn’t notice and kept gloating even as he was being crushed
Yeah all of the reasons are completely valid here so I can’t debunk any of them. The first point is probably the worst for the guy because when the heroes are kicking back and grinning you really can’t take this guy seriously. How could you when they don’t? You almost felt bad for him the whole time. It ties into the second point where everyone was just using their super attacks on him. It reminds me of the average Shonen Jump movie where everyone appears to do their super attack and leaves. Imagine that but to a canon villain who is supposed to be the most powerful of all. Trust me it’s extremely brutal.
To the third point, yeah Meliodas was casually crushing the guy and wasn’t even using his purified max power mode. The fact was that he seriously didn’t need to. He temporarily uses it at the very end to mitigate damage to the area but he was dunking on the guy even without it. That has to be one of the most embarrassing moments for a villain out there. How do you recover from this? The 4th point is also just bad because he’s still talking so tough. The only thing worse than having the heroes disrespect you the whole time is not noticing and continuing to talk big anyway. Yeah that’s not something you ever want to happen.
So there you have it, from least to most fraudulent that’s how I’d rank the 9 characters I hear about the most. For the most part it’s rare for a big villain to actually be a fraud the way that people say but I still enjoy the memes regardless. Keep em coming, I’ll be grinning every time! Even if a villain ends up being fraudulent you can still be a big fan though because those intro scene aren’t going anywhere even if the final ones aren’t particularly hype. Not every villain can go out a winner of course. Well I mean one can…but he’s the greatest!
Bass EXE
It’s time for the next Bill & Ted movie to jump in. That being said, I would have to say that it is the weakest one in the series. The main mistake if you ask me is that it doesn’t focus on Bill & Ted enough and they are still the best characters in the film. The subplot of their daughters running around assembling a team feels a lot weaker in comparison. The film will still have a good amount of funny moments to keep you going but you do feel like it is just missing something that the first two had.
The movie starts with Bill and Ted in a bit of a jam. They have not been able to create the legendary song that will stop the universe from blowing up and now they only have a few hours left. They figure their only chance is to travel to the future where their future selves have already created the song and then steal it from them. It’s a pretty clever plan that might just work. While they’re gone, Billie and Thea decide to help out as well. So they go across time to grab the best musicians from across the multiverse so when Bill and Ted find the song, they will have the best people playing it. The only thing standing in their way is Dennis, a Terminator type robot from the future who is doing his best to try and destroy them. A single blast is all it would take so they need to try and stay one step ahead of him or it’s all over.
Now the films have always been more on the comedic side and lean on being as absurd as possible but the first two films did still have more of a sense of danger about them. For example we already had evil doppelganger androids on the prowl. They were actually kind of serious and did effectively take out the main duo. Dennis is a major step down because the guy has big confidence issues and always doubts himself. Sure he can fight and use the lasers but he’s not proud about that. He would rather not be in the limelight and so he spends the whole film doing a lot of whining. He’s got to be the most annoying character here.
Then I would say Kelly isn’t a great replacement for Rufus. She tries to help the heroes out and spends most of the film using the “I told you so!” approach but she doesn’t have his charisma. In general she just doesn’t feel quite as on top of things. She is younger so that makes sense to an extent but you’re already seeing how all of the angles are just a bit weaker than the first two films. This continues with Billie and Thea.
So in theory these two characters exist to futureproof the series. They could take over the reigns if Bill and Ted get too old or the movies have a hard time getting the actors back. The problem is that they are so heavily introduced as being just like Bill and Ted that they don’t have much going for them. Their banter and dynamic certainly doesn’t match the original’s and right now I don’t see them being able to do much fighting when necessary. They are overshadowed in all of their scenes and so far just aren’t all that funny.
So once again it’s up to Bill and Ted to carry the film. To their credit they do a really good job of that. The Bill and Ted scenes are still a lot of fun as they mess everything up and are always confused. It’s always extreme but you never feel bored. For example when they are in the counseling session and trying to make things right with their wives. They suggest some solutions and do so with absolute confidence which you love to see. It’s obvious that they’re going up the wrong tree but it’s all about the confidence in their delivery.
The movie is just at its best when it’s about these two messing around and isn’t trying to get serious or emotional. The few serious scenes we do get can’t quite compete. For example the climax of finally playing the big song doesn’t work all that effectively. Perhaps it’s just played too directly without any kind of subversion but either way I’d have done a few more gags instead.
The music in general is okay but nothing all that exciting. The best piece of music in the film is likely the electric guitar that the main characters play once in a while. The actual songs got a bit too experimental this time so they weren’t all that catchy or anything like that. It’s easy to see why nobody likes their music in universe. They just don’t sound all that great or really know how to get a steady beat going. There wasn’t much for the legendary musicians to do either. They show up to help but their music doesn’t sound incredible either because they aren’t given much to play.
In the end the film should have really leaned into Bill and Ted having one last adventure. They can absolutely hold their own film and have already done so in the past. Mix in the fun time travelling and unique method to solve it and you have a lot of fun elements here. With more time for this subplot we could have seen them explore more of these alternate futures a bit more. It would be a win all the way through and likely enough to jump it up a star or two. A comedy film is only as good as the amount of humor it’s got in store after all and this one just wasn’t as consistently funny as it needed to be.
Overall, Bill and Ted may have its moments here and there but for the most part it really is just a big step down from the first two titles. Any scene you enjoy here has likely already been done but in a more impressive fashion in the first two films. This one is trying to juggle a little too much and as a result that means it has to really delegate the screen time between all of the characters. I’m not surprised that everyone turned on the main duo but you’d think the council would have been keeping in contact with them a bit sooner so this wasn’t a surprise at the end. Considering that the end of the universe is at stake you’d think they would be doing everything possible in order to help out. I guess that wasn’t to be though. In the end the film’s pretty harmless fun so it’s an easy one to recommend if you want something to check out but it could have been a whole lot better.
Overall 5/10
The tagline here is a little misleading since Joe didn’t just happen to wander into some cash. Nah he just went and stole it. The film’s basically about a guy who becomes a small time criminal but is completely in over his head against the more experienced ones. Look you’re not going to beat a career criminal when you’re jumping in as someone new to the game. It’s just not happening and so things don’t go very well for Joe throughout the movie. He’s constantly on the back foot here.
The movie starts off with giving us some context as to why Joe went down the dark path. He’s not doing very well financially and his wife Ellen is having a kid. He wants to get some extra money and fast so he went the easy route of becoming a criminal. He stole some money from a lawyer while making his rounds but what he didn’t realize is that he stole a huge sum because that guy was another crook being blackmailed by a third group of crooks. Ultimately Joe has just gotten himself into a whole conspiracy and he has absolutely no clue on what to do here. The guy is completely and utterly out of his depth.
Now the film has a narrator that does his best to make you feel bad for Joe. He tries to explain how none of this is Joe’s fault and all of that, how anyone could crack in those circumstances so you should just ignore him. Not everyone would just think to start stealing, in fact most wouldn’t. So the guy’s trying to create a bunch of excuses for Joe and it just doesn’t line up. The film can be a bit heavy handed with trying to make you feel bad for Joe. Sure it’s a rotten situation but he really caused all of this trouble for himself without a doubt.
This is a fairly old school noir with a lot going on so you should be engaged the whole time. The pacing is good so even though the film is not super long, it feels like a lot happens regardless. Since Joe is in the dark the whole time as well as the viewer you don’t get all of the details for a while. You have more context than he does though and you get to have a fun time back seat driving as he makes mistake after mistake. I’m sure everyone groaned in the theaters when Joe decided to leave his fortune with a random bartender. Really now?
That was super sloppy. I don’t care if it’s your best friend, you should never leave a fortune with anyone because that’s a lot of temptation. It’s literally life changing money and Nick (The bar tender) probably should have just left town to be honest. Travel to a different country and never look back. Nothing good can come out of sticking around and he sure found that out the hard way. You literally have kids trying to make a buck in this movie and are willing to sell people out. You can’t trust anyone.
It’s all the most tragic for Ellen though just being thrown into the middle of this when she had no clue what was going on. She clearly would not have signed off on Joe’s plan which is why he had to do all of this in secret. If he had talked things over with her then the whole situation could have been avoided and everything would have been a lot cleaner. Meanwhile we have the main police captain Anderson trying to solve this case but his role is a lot smaller than I would have guessed.
From his scene at the beginning of the film you figure he will be close to one of the main characters but instead he vanishes for large portions of the film. It’s a shame since he’s such a fun character but I suppose not everyone can get to steal the show. As for the villains, they’re fairly standard here. You have the main blackmailer who is confident and knows how to play the long game. His decision to pretend he didn’t know what Joe was talking about when the guy tried to return the money was clever. He wasn’t about to fall for some kind of sting operation.
Then you had the right hand man who was a good enforcer. He was always ready to rough some people up if they started to get annoying, sort of like Joe. Joe also loses more points because he ends up cracking and getting seduced by one of the villains. She broke him real quick and I don’t want to hear any of Joe’s excuses on that. He’s just a pretty bad character all the way around but fortunately in a Noir title like this you don’t necessarily need a great main character.
It all comes down to the writing and story after all. Fortunately that was on point the whole time. I thought the story was interesting all the way through so that makes this one a winner. I would say what keeps it from moving forward though is there isn’t a specific angle that I could say stuck out. It’s a good noir film but if I was recommending a film in the genre to someone then this probably wouldn’t be one of the first 20 names that I would think of. It’s a case of it just being lost in the shuffle.
I suppose we at least do have a big car chase scene in the end. The driver of the taxi was not very smart at all though. Why would you start to run when someone has a gun and really wants to complete the mission? As the driver I think your best bet is to quickly crash into something and then run out while the passengers are stunned. It’s a high risk strategy of course but I do think it should work more often than not and what do you have to lose? You’ll definitely die if you don’t do anything.
Overall, Side Street is a good movie. There is always a lot of things going on so you will want to pay attention to every character. It’s also a cautionary tale about how committing a small crime can suddenly get you mixed up into something big. A crime’s a crime after all no matter how small. I’d like to see the police get a bigger role if we ever get a remake to this so we can see more of what’s going on though. By following Joe it feels like we miss out on a lot of the action.
Overall 6/10
Suggested by Destroyer Roger has super durability and even some regeneration which helps him put up more of a fight here but he’s still not going to come out on top. What ends up hurting him here the most is that Phoenix Wright got into the Marvel vs Capcom series which gave him a whole moveset. Sure it wasn’t high tier by any metric but it’s enough for Wright to get in there and land lots of combo blows before Roger even knows what is going on. Phoenix Wright wins.
Suggested by Destroyer Phoenix Wright is one of those guys who gives each case his 100%. The guy is a top talent at getting people to confess and he’s really intelligent in general. Pretty much the exact opposite of someone like Beavis who just messes up and gets himself into trouble all the time. Phoenix may not be used to fighting but I’d trust him in combat a lot more than Beavis. A few good punches should put that guy down. Phoenix Wright wins.
Suggested by Destroyer The Light End Dragon is a fierce opponent but I don’t think he will be a match for the Crimson Dragon here. Mainly the reason for that is the Crimson Dragon is just too powerful. These creatures are both dragons but Crimson has significantly more attack power and defense at his disposal. So when they’re trading energy blasts left and right there can only be one winner. Crimson Dragon wins.
Suggested by Destroyer Genbu is a decently strong demon with rock type abilities but this isn’t a great matchup for him. Manda II is very durable and so he can endure those attacks for quite a while. Meanwhile Genbu has nothing else up his arsenal so after getting hit by the rocks for a little while Manda II will eventually land a finishin gblow and that will be it. Genbu doesn’t really have a chance here. Manda II wins.
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