In general, movie psychos are pretty savory creatures. They're usually more memorable than heroes. Jack Nicholson's Joker stole the show from Batman. Robert De Niro's Capone upstaged all the Untouchables. Their lines are almost always funnier -- who can forget "The Silence of the Lambs" for Hannibal Lecter, his fava beans and his admiration of Senator Martin's suit? And actors playing meanies get spectacular freedom to act -- think Dennis Hopper hyperventilating into a gas mask in "Blue Velvet."

You could say all these things about Don Logan. Yet even in the overstretched territory of gangster flicks, Logan is a standout. Glenn Kenny of Premiere called him "a giant phallus." Logan is less violent than he is menacing; he's at his most threatening when he's talking. He lives on the surface of his consciousness. He's almost childlike. With no filter in his brain, he's a living, pulsing Id, full of quotable insults and puerile word choices. "Bigmouth Don," he taunts himself in the mirror. Gal's allegations are "insinuendos." To Gal's wife, whom he hates, he says, "You've got nice eyes, Deedee, I never noticed them before. Are they real?"

But as far as movie villains go, Logan defies categorization. He doesn't love mayhem for its own sake, like Robert Carlyle's Begbie, who in "Trainspotting" tosses his pint glass over the balcony just to start a pub fight. He's not impulsive and incompetent, like Joe Pesci's Tommy DeVito in "Goodfellas." He's mean and corrupt, but not pure evil, like Gary Oldman as the mesmerizing scar-faced pimp in "True Romance." And he's not a calculating revenge killer like Max Cady in either the original "Cape Fear" or its De Niro update, or Michael Caine in the original "Get Carter."

Unlike all these men, Logan is first and foremost an attaché. Basically, he wants to do his job, and doing it means winning. In fact, Logan isn't really even a killer -- he only wreaks necessary havoc. At one point, clearly provoked and getting ready to lose it, Logan lights a cigarette on an airplane. He refuses to put it out for either the flight attendant or the passenger sitting behind him. As an audience, we expect him to go after the passenger, maybe with a weapon, a blow to the head or at least over-the-seat grappling.

Instead, Logan's violence is verbal. He offers to use the man's hands, then his eyeball, as an ashtray. And he says it with enough menace that you know he'll follow through. Then, at the moment you think he's going to bring his point home with a well-placed fist, he does nothing. He simply turns away.

In reality, Logan is more a victim than an instigator, more a reactor than proactive. Consider his first significant scene, when Logan sits in Gal's living room with Gal and his wife, Deedee (Amanda Redman), and their friends Aitch (Cavan Kendall) and Jackie (Julianne White). Logan doesn't say a word, and the others, too scared of him to open their mouths, don't say anything either. For 20 seconds, the five sit in silence.

On a superficial level, this is the first of Logan's intimidation tactics. But look deeper, and small talk actually seems to elude him the way it eludes well-meaning people who just don't have the social skills. Later, Logan is left in the same room alone with Jackie, an old flame he's still in love with. Ever so subtly, Kingsley allows a look to pass across his face -- his second moment of happiness. He's trying to come up with something to say, and it's painful to watch him. He fails and Jackie silently slips away.

In Logan's world, a predominantly "professional" one, pleasantry is irrelevant. When Logan dies, no one will mourn him, not even those who valued his work. Yet he still knows the vocabulary of civility. "Why are you swearing?" he asks Gal. "I'm not swearing." He's all work and no play. Professional associates are friends for life. He chides Gal for not keeping in closer touch: "It makes me wonder -- have I done something to upset you?" For Logan, happiness and love are elusive concepts. He uses the language of both with all the fluency of a native, but he's an impostor. When Gal explains to him that Jackie's husband, Aitch, is with her because he loves her, Logan looks at him with the same blank expression that was on his face when he asked Gal earlier whether he was happy in Spain.

Logan is not psychotic, but he teeters on the edge of psychosis; he's caught between worlds. He's inhuman enough to be scary, but human enough to be sympathetic. He's adult enough to make you hate him, but childlike enough to be clueless about improving his lot in life. You wouldn't want to be in a room alone with him, but if you were you would try to get him talking. Logan's not a psycho, so there is potential for redemption. It's enough to endear him to your inner optimist. He's always there to pull you back. When Logan says, "I love you, Gal," he means it, but it wouldn't stop him from obliterating his friend in a split second. He's got his priorities straight.

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