| “ | (Evan Baxter: You are destroying our national parks for profit!) You have a problem with somebody taking a little profit? It's called business, son. So, if I need to get a message out there or get a congressman elected, there are people who pay for it, and yes, those people want this bill to happen. And by God, it's gonna happen. Now, you look down there. (gestures to the police below) Those are the wolves, son. I'm gonna give you one last chance. Take down this boat. (Evan Baxter: I'm giving you one last chance. Repent.) Such a shame. You had possibilities. But if you wanna stop progress to save the Earth, go for it. Good luck getting a tree to come with the polls. | „ |
| ~ Long revealing his true colors to Evan and threatening him to take the ark down. |
Chuck Long is the main antagonist of the 2007 religious comedy film Evan Almighty, the standalone sequel and spin-off to Bruce Almighty.
He is a pompous, corrupt Congressional Chairman of the Natural Resources Committee who gets his money from illegal integrated bills. When Evan Baxter's strange Noah like events get in the way, Long is determined to do whatever it takes to put him into place and out of his corrupt plans.
He was portrayed by John Goodman, who also played Ocious P. Potter in The Borrowers, Big Dan Teague in O Brother Where Art Thou, Layton T. Montgomery in Bee Movie, George Wolfsbottom in Clifford's Really Big Movie, Bones Darley in Death Sentence, Marshall in The Hangover franchise, Howard Stambler in 10 Cloverfield Lane, and Karl "Madman" Mundt in Barton Fink.
Biography[]
Long is a very prominent Virginia senior congressman, he is the Congressional Chairman of the Natural Resources Committee and the developer of the Citizens' Integration of Public Lands Act (CINPLAN) bill, which he plans to integrate through illegal means. He is shown to be an evil and corrupt businessman that will do anything to make profit, including destroying the environment, putting people's lives at risk through allowing substandard construction projects, and ruining Evan Baxter's life for potentially getting in the way of his plans.
He regularly took kickbacks from various corporations to sponsor bills that would profit them in various ways such as granting them land- use contracts, with the corporations' freedoms then often leading them to cut corners on their work and greatly damage local ecosystems. Long dismissed all of this as "Just business."
This corruption and profiteering ended up causing a major flood, as Long managed to get the approval to build a dam of a nearby water source and then passed out the surrounding lands of Prestige Crest, formally federal property, to a group of private investors (And allowed other companies to raze the land surrounding the dam and build houses and businesses on it), which Long then had the dam built but through substandard materials, violating building codes and cutting corners in order to save money. Long was well aware of all this, but believed the company's people when they assured him that the dam would never break, and figured that was good enough for him.
The dam ultimately does break, flooding a small town, though its residents are saved from drowning by boarding Evan's ark (This turns out to be the main reason why God told Evan to build the ark, to save the lives of everyone in town when the dam broke). The ark eventually comes to a halt right in front of the congress building, and Evan publicly reveals Long's crooked involvement in the dam project. Thinking he was set up, Long blames Evan for letting the flood happen and ends up getting spit by a llama. As two wolves growl at Long, Evan states that the wolves are here and that he'd worry about the other types of wolves as the other congresspeople give Long negative looks.
As the animals leave the ark two by two with Evan's predictions having come true, the news reports state that that a proposed bill that Long had been supporting which would enable developers to gain access to lands that were a part of national parks (a continuation of Long's policy of secretly turning a profit from letting companies damage pristine ecosystems) has been suspended pending the investigation on Long for profiteering. It was also mentioned that Evan will be reinstated the next day.
It can be assumed that this indictment will lead to Long being removed from office and arrested for his crimes.
Trivia[]
- Evan Almighty and Bee Movie, both of which John Goodman starred in, came out in 2007. He also played an antagonist in both films.