Movie

Fair Game (1995)

This is the second movie adaptation of Paula Gosling’s novel to make my list. Cobra (1986) has a lower-ranked entry at #97 – and a different plot, though both feature women in peril. Best known for starring Cindy Crawford as the lead and being a box office flop, this is a routine actioner. But 1990s movies are a reliable source of female villains, and Fair Game doesn’t disappoint.

Crawford plays Kate McQuean, a civil case lawyer who stumbles across a plot by ex-KGB operatives to pull off an electronic bank heist. Obviously they’re not keen on nosy women poking around, so they blow up Kate’s luxury apartment. Except she escapes unscathed (imagine that!).

Then a cop (William Baldwin) gets involved and becomes a one-man protection team. Of course, there’s an ex-girlfriend he’s fallen out with, which leaves him free to romance Kate, so it’s no surprise we’re treated to a sex scene before the climax.

Hollywood loves to use Russian bad guys, and Steven Berkoff hams it up as the main villain with his usual thick accent. His henchmen are technically savvy, which maintains tension in the deadly cat-and-mouse game. Not a great movie, but serviceable enough as light entertainment and better than its reputation suggests.

Villainess

Rosa (Jenette Goldstein)

Better known as the tough cookie Private Vasquez from Aliens, Goldstein plays a villainous brute in this one. She spends most of her screen time either looking menacing in the background (which she does well) or in a hi-tech van while the Russian technical whiz does his thing.

Rosa gets some early action after the Russians track Kate and her bodyguard to a “safe” house. The police make the mistake of ordering pizzas with her credit card, giving Rosa the chance to impersonate a delivery woman and murder a detective with a silenced pistol. Naturally, the hero proves more difficult to take out, so there’s a lengthy shootout with Rosa and her goons. The villainess shows her toughness by kicking in a door and surviving while her team is wiped out.

It’s a while before Rosa returns to the fray, but she beats up a nerdy sales guy who assisted Kate. Hardly a worthy opponent for a woman of her prowess. Thankfully, Rosa offers Baldwin his hardest fight of the film in the final act. When she and a mook attempt to eliminate the pesky annoyance while wearing all-black commando gear, the hero guns them down after surprising them.

If he thought it would be that easy, Rosa had the foresight to wear a bulletproof vest. This leads into a moderately lengthy fight, with Rosa proving more than a match for her male opponent. She gives him quite a beating before he responds in kind. They made villainesses tough in the 1990s, so Rosa shrugs off these attacks and turns the tables. Despite her having a gun and knife, the cop defeats her, leaving one wishing for a slightly better demise – though I’ve seen far worse.

Honourable Mentions: Tough Assassins and Mercenaries

Killer Wave (2007) – Woman Assassin (Valérie Wiseman)

This two-part sci-fi miniseries was later released as a three-hour movie on DVD. As is typical for this sort of film, fiction overrides science, with a “story” about some nonsensical plot to create tidal waves in the Atlantic. Cue poor special effects and an overlong potboiler that could have been told in half the runtime.

The heroes are two scientists (gender-balanced, of course), and the businessman villain hires assassins to stop their investigation. One hitter is a six-foot she-hulk (Wiseman should have got more roles like this) who shows up at a remote cabin to battle the hero. He struggles to even hurt her as the muscle woman shrugs off his timid attacks, and it takes makeshift weapons to take this foe out. Only a couple of minutes of screen time, but one of the few highlights for sure.

Patriot Games (1992) – Annette (Polly Walker)

Less of a toughie and more of a femme fatale, Annette is a member of an IRA splinter group up against Tom Clancy’s hero Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford in the first of two outings). After he stops an assassination attempt on the British royal family and kills the group leader’s brother, he and his own family become targets.

Action shifts between Britain and America (with some scenes in Africa), and Annette is mostly in the background. The villainess is a brunette but disguises herself as a redhead for spy work. Her best scene is an early hit on an IRA idealist, whom she bumps off after sex. After that, she drives vehicles and becomes the hero’s most important lead, before a showdown raid on Ryan’s home.

Like Rosa, the villainess wears commando gear, but the closest thing to a fight is getting knocked out by Ryan’s wife. Don’t expect a grand finale – she goes out tamely after the vengeful main villain turns against his own team.