Evil 007 Henchmen

by Marko Peric

A James Bond movie almost inevitably has a number of key elements that make it a Bond flick. There's usually a megalomaniacal villain, a few beautiful women, a cool car, some impressive gadgets, recurring characters like Miss Moneypenny, Q, Felix Leiter, and General Gogol. But the 007 feature we're looking at today is the evil henchman. To be a convincing evil overlord, it seems you need a heavy to do your dirty work. After all, what's a villain without good help?

Donald "Red" Grant: You're asking yourself right now "who was Red Grant?" He was the big blond killer in From Russia With Love. The fact that he was big, blond, kinda German-looking and the first memorable 'heavy' started the whole trend of big Germanic type heavies in any number of 007 movies. For that alone he deserves a Good.

Oddjob: Not the first of the Bond henchmen, but one of the most memorable. He doesn't say, well, anything. And he's a minority. Can you name one other Korean villain (offer not valid for people that watch Korean films)? Oddjob doesn't fit the typical mold of a henchman at all. That doesn't mean he wasn't a good henchman. Far from it. He was ruthless, strong, utterly loyal, and he never mouthed off. He'd be great in middle management. And how cool is a hat that can decapitate a statue? Good.

Nick Nack: Most people associate Hervé Villechaize with Fantasy Island, but his role as Nick Nack in The Man With the Golden Gun came earlier and is probably the main reason he got a major role on FI. He might be enjoyable to watch, but henchman who stands less than four feet tall can't be called a heavy. He might have been a loyal servant to Christopher Lee's Mr. Scaramanga, but anyone that can be stuffed into a trunk really isn't all that much of a threat. Bad.

Jaws: Richard Kiel is seven foot two. That alone makes for an impressive henchman. Why anyone felt that he needed steel teeth to make him scary and dangerous is beyond me. That aside, Jaws is one heck of a heavy. He's also just about the only henchman I can think of who not only showed up in two movies, he also survived both movies. Considering the lifespan of most of 007's foes, that is a remarkable feat. Good.

Dario: Who was Dario, you ask? Dario was Sanchez's nasty young thug in Licence to Kill, and incidentally, the second role played by this year's Academy Awards' man of the hour, Benicio Del Toro (amusingly, Del Toro's first role was as Duke the Dog-Faced Boy in Big-Top Pee Wee, something I'll bet he hopes we've all forgotten). Dario is set up as a suitably nasty henchman in this perhaps most violent film in the franchise, but he really doesn't do very much. And then there's his death, which like his role, can only be described as Ugly.