 ✓
| ||
|
This Villain was proposed and approved by Villains Wiki's Pure Evil Proposals Thread. Any act of removing this villain from the category without a Removal Proposal shall be considered vandalism (or a futile "heroic" attempt of redemption) and the user will have high chances of being | ||
  |
This article's content is marked as Mature The page contains mature content that may include coarse language, sexual references, and/or graphic violent images which may be disturbing to some. Mature pages are recommended for those who are 18 years of age and older. If you are 18 years or older or are comfortable with graphic material, you are free to view this page. Otherwise, you should close this page and view another page. |
| “ | Diplomatic immunity! | „ |
| ~ Arjen Rudd to Roger Murtaugh, which turned out to be his last words. |
| “ | Just get out of here, k-ffir lover. | „ |
| ~ Rudd to Riggs. |
Arjen Rudd is the main antagonist of the 1989 action-comedy film Lethal Weapon 2, the second installment of the Lethal Weapon film series.
He is the corrupt and nefarious Minister of Affairs for the South African Consulate, who uses his diplomatic immunity to prevent the law from disbanding his smuggling operations, which ship gold krugerrands to make profit. He is the boss of Pieter Vorstedt.
He was portrayed by the late Joss Ackland, who also played Chuck De Nomolos in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey and Andrei Lysenko in The Hunt For Red October.
Biography[]
Rudd is a minister of affairs for the South African Consulate as well as a top South African smuggler. He warns Detectives Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh to call off their investigation after they discover he is attempting to illegally smuggle a large shipment of gold krugerrands. Rudd explains to them that he and his men are under diplomatic immunity, meaning the law can't touch them. When they continue to interfere with his affairs, Rudd sends his head of security Pieter Vorstedt to kill their cop friends one by one. He also has his accomplice Rika Van Den Haas, who had become Riggs' new love interest, killed later on for her betrayal. It was also later revealed that he also ordered the murder attempt on Riggs a few years back because he was getting close to their drug smuggling operation, which Vorstedt handled, though it went bad because the one killed, rather than Riggs himself, was his wife Victoria Lynn Riggs, and covered it up to make it seem the whole thing was a car crash.
Riggs and Murtaugh confront Rudd, Vorstedt and the rest of the South Africans at a shipping dock, bound for Cape Town. After Riggs kills Vorstedt by dropping a cargo container on top of him, Rudd shoots him repeatedly and nearly kills him, but runs out of ammunition. When Murtaugh aims his gun at Rudd, he holds up his ID, boasting of his diplomatic immunity. Murtaugh ignores this and shoots Rudd in the head, claiming that "It's just been revoked.". With Rudd, Vorstedt, and the rest of their henchmen dead, Riggs and Murtaugh have stopped their crime-wave and have avenged the deaths of both Rika and Victoria, thus allowing Riggs to put his demons to rest and he could get on with life again.
Even after being killed, the consequences that Rudd's actions caused were still responsible for Riggs' reckless behavior in Lethal Weapon 3, thus making him in some way an overarching antagonist.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Originally, Arjen Rudd was actually going to kill Riggs in the film's ending as in Shawn Black's script. However, as the studio wanted Riggs alive for further sequels, Richard Donner ultimately opted to shoot two endings for the film: one in which Riggs died and the one in which he lived. As the latter one received the audience's liking, it was used in the finished film (yet the final shot of the film originates from the alternative ending in which Rudd kills Riggs). Had Black's planned ending been kept in the film, Rudd would have been a successful antagonist at some sort.
- In real life, Rudd likely would not have been able to use his diplomatic status to get away with crimes to the extent he did. A diplomat committing crimes and trying to use his or her status to avoid the consequences would have very negative effects on relations between the host and sending countries. In this case it would have likely had a very negative effect on relations between the US and South Africa - which was not exactly the most popular country on Earth at the time - and the South Africans would have likely taken care of Rudd themselves to keep the US happy.
External Links[]
- Arjen Rudd on the Pure Evil Wiki
[]
 Villains
| ||
|
Movies Television | ||