The 20 Goriest Gangster Deaths

They had it coming… usually. The secret joy of a gloriously gory gangster's death is the knowledge that they're essentially bad people doing bad things, and the blood-braised walls and brain-matter splattered carpets are a direct result of that. With the gory gang-warfare of Saints Row: The Third hitting shelves in November, we donned our surgical gloves and unzipped a few of the body bags located in the cinematic morgue's 'most bloody' section. Oh, and beware of gory spoilers ahead.

Batter up! Al Capone displays his ability for a canny metaphor by using a hood's skull for baseball practice - there might be no 'I in team', but there is in 'I will mercilessly brain anyone who fails me with a Louisville Slugger.' It's the sickening squish on the second home run here that really sells it.


Never knowingly understated, Michael Bay offs his lead baddie in typically subtle fashion: Martin "How'd he get top billing?" Lawrence gives Cuban kingpin Tapia the 'ol lead lobotomy, sending him tumbling backwards - all in Baymotion speeds - directly onto a landmine. Which blows up his head. The WTF look on Will Smith's face was duplicated in cinemas around the world.


It's meant to be down the hatch, not through it. Thatcher's child and Lahndahn underworld kingpin Harold Shand uses his right-hand man's face as a wine bottle opener, unwittingly splitting an artery in his throat that unleashes a whole different sort of claret all over Harold. Bad year, I guess.


If corrupt cop Jackie Boy weren't such a Grade A schmuck, you'd almost feel sorry for the indignities he goes through on his journey to - and then beyond - the big nowhere. His head's flushed down a toilet, his hand chopped off, a shuriken jabbed up his ass, a gun barrel backfired into his forehead and finally turned into a Pez dispenser by "deadly little Miho" and her samurai sword. Later he has his head fully lopped off and filled with explosives. It's not pretty.


"I wish you had more time." Never Mexico City's anti-kidnapping squad's most reliable member, corrupt cop Fuentes wakes up to find himself gaffered to a car with a big lump of CV wedged somewhere very uncomfortable, a five minute countdown to boom time and a pissed off John Creasy (Denzel Washington) holding the watch. As a side note: gloves have never looked more necessary.


Now that's job commitment. Having already had one hand blown off, the bouncer at Sport's brothel determinedly pursues undesirable customer Travis Bickel up the stairs - receiving a fairly limp-wristed pasting all the way - only to then have a knife stuck through his other hand and then his brains slushed all over the wall. Most employees of the month just settle for a framed picture hanging on there.


Practically invincible and seemingly impervious to pain, Riki-Oh probably isn't a guy to piss off and it's most-certainly not advisable to be indirectly responsible for his girlfriend's death. Faced with the latter, Riki indents his fist in the man's grey matter having already delivered what in soccer terms would be an 'over the ball' challenge. Red card for that man.


So what's in Gangster's bag? Some chisels. A small axe. A hammer. A rock hammer. An ice pick. Some pliers. Either he's is going to touch-up rival mobster Lennie's grouting or he's going to brutally torture him to death, having shot him in the knee cap first, finishing him off by throwing him head first into a drinks cabinet. Oh, it's the second one is it…


Dancing with the Stars should seriously think about a new dance called The Bullet Riddle Jiggle - that five-year-old-on-too-many-Skittles jerk mastered by Hong Kong's stunt men - and then John Woo must judge it. A Better Tomorrow 2 might not be his best move, but its finale is an unbeatably bloody 90-man carnagathon of "I've just been massacred" spasms, topped off by our three revenge-reaping rampagers each emptying their clips into the poor writhing sucker doubling for the boss man. Ten points!


What people could have said after seeing Eastern Promises: "David Cronenberg's ice-cold direction just enhances the grim tension of the sauna action sequence, so when Viggo Mortensen stabs the hood in the eye with the linoleum blade it's utterly brutal." What people really said after seeing Eastern Promises. "I just saw Aragon's knob. *giggle*"