CHARACTERS in a STORY - Hero and Antihero.

Today let's talk about the HEROS and ANTIHEROS.

Let's think about "Catch me If You Can" (2002). Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonard DiCaprio) it's a professional cheater. Is not a good guy. in fact is an Antihero. He acts against the rules and against the law.

But he is the Protagonist, but not necessarily a good one.

Frank Abagnale Jr. is a real person and "Catch me if You can" it's based on a true story.

He become famous by faking identities, documents, money checks... A superstar of faking and counterfeiting documents and stealling identity crimes.

On the other side we have Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), a not so real character, as it was created based on different FBI agents who tried to catch Frank Abagnale Jr. in the 60's.

Clearly the good guy of the story is Carl the antagonist of Frank. We followed Frank since the beggining of his frauds, and then all his journey trying to be a step forward from Carl. Eventually he is catched in France in 1969. A curiosity about it... In real life, 26 different countries asked for his extradition to be judged by his crimes. Ironically Frank was released in 1974 and become an honest consultant to banques, giving lectures about fraud and security.

Other example of an ANTIHERO is Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) in "The Talented Mr. Ripley" a novel by Patricia Highsmith, made as screenplay by Anthony Minghella in 1999.
Another expert in stealing identities, but in a more refined and nasty way as at the end Tom starts to kill to protect his secrets.

Tom Ripley starts with a small lie telling he knows Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law) the son of a millionaire. From here he starts a complexe web of lies that led him to Italy to meet Dickie. Eventually He kills him as well he kills a good friend of Dickie, Freddie Miles (Philip Seymour Hoffman).

What makes a point is that the story is about a bad guy... We don't follow the journey of a good guy that will eventually ends with a nice final.

The Antihero is something that is turning more common in the cinema. If we think in the past, the morality of the stories used to finished with an happy ending, the bad guys dead and the good ones happily married and full of kids and wealth.

Another characteristic of an antihero is that not rarely we simpatize with him. From the two exemples of today, I may say we will definetelly simpatize with Frank but not with Tom. Tom Ripley leaves us with a mix of admiration because of his intelligence but an intense anguish because of his meticulous crimes.

Just a last note. An antihero doesn't mean it is a bad guy. An antihero can be also a very low profile hero. Someone that doesn't have the common characteristics of a hero (confident, strong, charming etc...) or someone who is led to act against the rules. Just like William "D-fens" Foster (Michael Douglas) in "Falling down" (1993).

As an exercise, just try to think about other antiheros in the cinema and TV and try to think what make them to act against the rules or in a different way to the standards.

CYA