Trouble With a Cause: The Top 10 Movie Rebels

Now what would the movies be like if everybody on the big screen was a conformist and blandly played by the rules? Every now and then it can be quite therapeutic to have a bad apple shape our rigid outlook with a dosage of cynicism in cinema. Whether intentionally unruly or merely questioning the status quo movie rebels can be compellingly entertaining for various reasons.

So who are your choice big screen rabble-rousers that like to stir the pot and cause dissension in the name of justice or just plain anti-establishment? In Trouble With a Cause: The Top 10 Movie Rebels let us take a look at some of the on-screen troublemakers with a taste for colorful turmoil, shall we?

The selections for Trouble With a Cause: The Top 10 Movie Rebels are (in alphabetical order according to the film titles):

1.) Brad Whitewood, Jr. from At Close Range (1986)

In director James Foley’s crime drama At Close Range the apple does not fall far from the tree in terms of a deranged daddy and his misguided teen sons that find fitting time for committing some arbitrary crime. Based on a true story we are introduced to rural Pennsylvania crime lord papa Brad Whitewood Sr. (Christopher Walken) who returns to the lives of his offspring Brad Jr. and Tommy (Sean and the late Christopher Penn) and introduces them into the world of professional criminal activities.

When Brad Jr. becomes “soft” in the eyes of his law-breaking father and starts a sweet romance with local girl Terry (Mary Stuart Masterson) all hell breaks loose. Needing complete control of his son Brad Jr. and fearing that Terry is a bad influence to his criminal enterprise Brad Sr. decides to do the unthinkable to split the lovebirds apart. After Brad Sr. rapes Terry in a motel room and puts out a hit on her and Brad Jr. (resulting in Terry’s death although Brad Jr. manages to barely survive) all bets are off as the rebellious Brad Jr. wants revenge and rebels against his twisted old man whose misplaced actions resulted in the tragic ending of his brother Tommy and now sweetheart Terry. Penn’s Brad Whitewood Jr. is an effective badass and perhaps one of the actor’s most underrated solid performances that graced his early movie career back in the mid eighties.

2.) Billy Jack from Billy Jack (1971)

The crusading Billy Jack (Tom Laughlin) is an ex-Green Beret who detests violence and struggles with his cultural make-up (he is half Native American Indian/half white) but is enthusiastically discovering the spiritual side of his heritage (Indian) that promotes harmony and self-discovery while the conservative side of his white bloodline demonstrates subversive chaos and alienation.

Billy Jack is schooled in the martial arts and fights for the underdog causes that ranges from protecting innocent creatures from slaughter to empowering his students that take lessons from the hapkido master fighter in the middle of the barren desert. Billy Jack is clearly a counter-cultural icon that stands up to the injustices of societal and environmental recklessness and the inhumanity of the majority exploiting the minority. Billy Jack’s Billy Jack is not afraid to use his disillusioned backbone to stand up to the anti-establishment sentiment that runs through his rebellious consciousness in the pursuit for peace and propriety.

3.) Wyatt and Billy from Easy Rider (1969)

If there was ever a film that captured the essence of counter-culture alienation and the strife-ridden judgmental America in the late 60’s then it has to be director/co-star Dennis Hopper’s biker road trip feature Easy Rider. Los Angeles-based motorcycle hippies Wyatt and Billy (Peter Fonda and Hopper) wanted to experience the scenic country on their treasured bikes en route to the Mardis Gras in New Orleans. They were free-spirited rebels for the mere fact that they were just being themselves–a couple of colorful cads who are not what one would label the “corporate type” as they simply marched to their own drum beat. Getting high off of an acid trip or frequenting brothels was just the norm for the easy riding methods of Wyatt and Billy whose only expectation was to live in their own bubble of tranquil self-indulgence.

The tragic demise of the traveling twosome at the hands of bias shotgun-toting detractors defiantly laid out the out-of-control intolerance and senseless attitudes that made the free-love youth movement that Wyatt and Billy represented in a conflicting and turbulent late 60’s America more outraged and skeptical.

4.) Jett Rink from Giant (1956)

One can make the sound argument that the late and great method actor James Dean is the very embodiment of a movie rebel whose slow-burning moody antics of angst-ridden proportions is what solidified him as the voice of youthful America in the conservative Eisenhower-era America where early rock n’ roll tunes and Dean-oriented despair echoed the dissatisfaction of a young generation.

As everyone is aware Dean’s life was cut short in that horrific car crash that ended a promising film career that was destined for the cinematic stratosphere. In George Stevens’s melodramatic epic Giant Dean’s rebellious Jett Rink is a cocky cowboy-turned-oil tycoon who is a constant thorn-in-the-side of the slightly older cattle rancher Jordan “Bick” Benedict, Jr. (Rock Hudson) with his privileged pretty wife Leslie (Elizabeth Taylor) in tow.

Dean’s Jett Rink is roguish and raw but has the resilient chops to play around with the established Bick Benedicts of the world and let them know that sometimes a bow-legged pony can proudly race with the masterful mavericks in the lap of luxury.

5.) Hud Bannon from Hud (1963)

Western anti-heroes, some may argue, are a dime a dozen. But who cares when one of the most amoral of this breed is one Hud Bannon (Paul Newman). You see Hud is prone to his structured self-destruction as he dabbles in booze, broads, back talk, bad temper and brawls in the dusty atmosphere of West Texas.

The rough-and-tumble Hud lives on a struggling ranch and shares a volatile existence with his elderly father Homer (Melvyn Douglas), nephew Lohnie (Brandon De Wilde) and their housekeeper Alma Brown (Patricia Neal). Basically Hud answers to no one and does what he pleases to suit his personalized vices. No one is spared from his cheating ways as the carefree cowboy finds various avenues to vent out his youth-oriented indiscretions.

Sure, Hud Bannon is a bad boy bronco whose rowdy rebel routine is stuck within his own defiant value system. He feels defeated and detached courtesy of his obvious lashing out and constant clashing with his frustrated old man that signifies a certain standard of expectation from another generation. Martin Ritt’s Hud is a smoldering western with an impishly devil performance by Newman.

6.) Norman Rae from Norma Rae (1979)

Sally Field scored her first Academy Award for best actress portraying the determined North Carolina textile factory worker Norman Rae whose insistence to unionize the mill as a workplace for progression of workers’ rights help establish her as a productive rebel.

Norma was a working mother and risked putting her job (and life) on the line in order to challenge the indignities of the glorified sweatshop that she and her fellow co-workers toiled at without any consideration from the management that wanted to exploit their blood, sweat and tears.

Collaborating with a visiting labor union organizer would galvanize Norma and give her the guidance and growth to uplift the spirits of her textile mill cohorts to stand strong and have a voice in the workplace that tries their wounded patience at every turn. Field’s feisty turn and convincing conviction in Norman Rae makes her a spunky rebel and unlikely enforcer for the ages. Gidget who? The Flying Nun who? The Girl with Something Extra who?

7.) Terry Malloy from On the Waterfront (1954)

Marlon Brando, much like his big screen contemporary rebel James Dean in the 1950’s, was the prototype for youth-oriented distrust and disconnection. Brando’s Terry Malloy was not necessarily catering to teen disorientation in Elia Kazan’s glossy black-and-white drama On the Waterfront but nevertheless was a conflicted young man trying to stand up to his work superiors regarding questionable practices of his corrosive union head honchos. Twenty-five years before Sally Field’s Norma Rae fought for the union representation there was ex-prizefighter and current longshoreman sparring with union corruption.

Brando’s rebellious Terry Malloy “coulda been a contender” in the ring but from where we were sitting at ringside in the movie theaters back in the mid 50’s he definitely is a contender in the form of a working-class rebel.

8.) Randall “R.P.” McMurphy from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

To label Jack Nicholson’s Oscar-winning turn as the rebellious pot stirrer and leader/motivator R.P. McMurphy as wildly inspired would indeed be an understatement of the century. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’s McMurphy was a proud cynic of authority and what made his case for such a staunch stance even more profound stood in the person of the white stocking-wearing witch known as the stern Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher).

McMurphy pushed buttons and played by his own against-the-grain rules as he tried to humanize his fellow mental patients and show them how to live outside of their controlled and restrictive environment where the flexibility of hope and freedom was nothing more than a foreign expectation at best. Nicholson’s McMurphy was not a choirboy in the least and he took being exasperating to the limit on occasion. Still, McMurphy (and Nicholson for that matter) reminds us that the craziest route to take is sometimes one of the wisest chances being explored. And there is nothing a self-serving sourpuss such as a Nurse Ratched can do to dampen that kind of off-kilter spirit.

9.) Jim Stark from Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

Some would say that James Dean was the all-time rebel on and off the big screen and that his iconic turn as Rebel Without a Cause’s Jim Stark certainly put the icing on the cake as far as teen torment was concerned.

Jim is the new kid on the block as he must start over after leaving his troubled existences elsewhere. When he is not budding heads with this father Frank (Jim Backus) Jim must find an angle where he can prove his worth to his equally alienated peers. Fitting in with his peer group at school and other social scenes will take a toll as the risk-taking Jim will put everything on the line to go above and beyond his duty to make his presence known. Jim has his supporters in galpal Judy (Natalie Wood) and crony Plato Crawford (Sal Mineo) but it will take a series of switchblade showdowns and drag-racing challenges to let the community know that Jim Stark is here to stay.

10.) Thelma Dickinson and Louise Sawyer from Thelma and Louise (1991)

Look, there is nothing wrong with being pretty, sassy and curvaceous renegades with killer smiles. After all, who could resist the charming spell of Thelma Dickinson and Louise Sawyer (Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon)?

In Ridley Scott’s bouncing babe adventure flick Thelma and Louise we find a pair of lip gloss-wearing ladies bored with their mundane lives. Thus, Thelma and Louise decide to escape their misery and hit the road. Thelma certainly won’t miss her uneventful married life and Louise can use a break from serving her unappreciative customers at the diner where she toils for low wages.

However, the wayward women and their on-the-road exploits will take a turn for the worse when they have to conduct the killing of a rapist which makes them an automatic target for law enforcement officials. The bonding beauties are Mexico-bound but have to outlast the chase of the police that hunt them down without hesitation. The feminine fugitives refuse to go down without a fight. Of course the climax sees our rebellious heroines face their sudden fate in female-enhanced “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” kind of conclusion. Ah, the essence of fatal sisterhood!

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