| “ | I really wish you wouldn't threaten to kill my scientists right to their faces. It just might make my job a little easier. | „ |
| ~ Paul Shannon criticizing Lyman Earl Collier for his sheer ruthlessness. |
Well, this was another candidate I was planning to do back last year but now that I've seen it: I found quite a solid qualifier.
What’s The Work?[]
Chain Reaction is a 1996 action-thriller work directed by Andrew Davis and starring Keanu Reeves, Morgan Freeman, Rachel Weisz, Fred Ward, Kevin Dunn, and Brian Cox. It focuses on two young scientists named Eddie Kasavilich and Lily Sinclair, a machinist and physicist who are forced to go across Chicago and avoid prosecution due to a wrongful set up by a secret and malicious organization…
Who is Lyman Earl Collier and What Has He Done?[]
Lyman Earl Collier is the seemingly calm and polite CEO of C-Systems Research, who is also a nasty and egotistical prick wanting to invest and cash in on a useful tool that can transform hydrogen to a much less costly renewable energy. Collier is approached by Paul Shannon to take care of business, so Lyman orders Yusef Reed and Clancy Butler to head off to a laboratory and strangle Dr. Alistair Barkley by placing a plastic bag on his head before leaving his corpse behind and also kidnapping his fellow associate, Dr. Lu Chen. They then set up the machine to malfunction and press a trigger on a remote which wrecks the entire laboratory and eight city blocks nearby: killing everyone living there but Eddie who had managed to barely avoid being incinerated via his motorcycle and hiding in a ditch. Collier then sets up Eddie and his best friend/colleague Lily for the horrific act which leads to the police having arrest warrants for them, forcing them to avoid them in every way they can. We first see Collier himself in a courtroom before going back to his company C-Systems Research and expresses disgruntled frustration with Shannon for not capturing Eddie from the beginning and that if this scheme fails he won’t be the one suffering the consequences.
Collier has one of his goons gun down a kindly Wisconsin officer and thus by proxy is hunting relentlessly for them. Shannon confronts him on this and of course Collier shows zero remorse for it, with Shannon getting tired of “cleaning up” Collier’s messes. Collier’s motives for framing Eddie is also revealed to be merely because it was easy and Collier fully intends to kill Eddie against Shannon’s orders after he finishes the project. When Lily is brought to C-Systems, Collier reveals he and Shannon had been holding Chen as a hostage the entire time and forces them both to work on the hydrogen machine. Eddie infiltrates the facility while Collier threatens to dispose of Lily if the test doesn’t succeed. The next morning, Collier celebrates the success of the test but it turns out Eddie had made it work in the first place. Collier meets up with Shannon and they both face Eddie. Collier won’t let Eddie go so Eddie exposes the operations and sets the reactor to self-destruct. A furious Collier ends Chen and warns to shoot Lily next and then Shannon if he doesn’t back off. Collier nevertheless itches to fire the bullet but backs down when he’s told it’ll trigger the reactor faster and murder everyone inside. Collier then forces Shannon to have Eddie and Lily remain within the headquarters to be blown up. Shannon then mortally wounds Collier after he collects the money and go to a elevator, expressing that he was waiting to revoke him. A dying Collier is then sent back down to be burned alive by the flames of the reactor when it goes off. Shannon then manages to bypass the security so that Eddie and Lily make it out in time, thus putting a end to Collier’s plot for good.
Heinous Standards?[]
Now what he does may not seem like much at first glance but it’s still bad: he blames two innocents for the death of their main scientist which he caused, he has a state trooper sniped to further convict them, and pettily kills their best friend before having them abandoned while making it clear he was not going to spare them from the start and also is trigger happy to threaten his partners’ life too alongside the dozens or so people inside the company headquarters. But at the beginning of the movie, he has his goons demolish a reactor which explicitly destroys eight city blocks in Chicago on-screen which claims hundreds of lives. That alone is just enough to push him pass the baseline. And as for competition? He has zero because his minions just follow his orders.
Mitigating Factors?[]
HAHAHAHA- NO. He’s very clearly a sadistic psychopath under the guise of a chummy CEO who has a love for bloodshed and cash, to the point where his partner Paul Shannon expresses visible anger and disgust for his crimes, so much that he ultimately resolves to end him so that he won’t harm anyone else ever again. He does acts nice to Eddie and Lily when they finally meet but it’s quickly proven to be temporary as he has no hesitation or concern with attempting to dispose of them the moment things go off course.
Final Verdict?[]
Solid yes to yet another Brian Cox bad guy.