The best of the Coen Brothers' less-is-more supporting characters.
Film: Blood Simple (1984)
Played by: M. Emmett Walsh
The Rumpus: Arguably the first of their 'satanic' figures, this slimeball gumshoe (a sublime perversion of the brother's beloved Chandler-antiheroes) is a grotesque figure both in sweaty person and sneaky motive - in typical Coen fashion he tries to play all ends against the middle, to come a cropper.
Coenism: As narrator, with a sensibility black as the inside of a goat, he is the font of the film's bleak wisdom: "The fact is, nothin' comes with a guarantee. Now I don't care if you're the pope of Rome, President of the United States or Man of the Year; somethin' can all go wrong."