Big business fiascoes have been dominating the headlines this week and accusations have been flying as to who is responsible for the economic downturn. But whatever wrongs our captains of industry are guilty of, they aren't making food out of people, breeding alien warriors, or making bio-weapons that turn corpses into zombies. Or so we hope. With that in mind, here are some of the worst corporate offenders in movies, and what everyone can do to stop them.
Photo by 20th Century Fox, Everett CollectionGEKKO & CO. - WALL STREET
Crimes: Spouting annoying tag lines like "Greed Is Good." Sporting a ridiculously large cell phone. Wrecking lives and companies for fun and profit.
Photo by Paramount/Kobal Collection, WireImageDUKE & DUKE - TRADING PLACES
Crimes: Planting evidence. Stealing insider info. Wrecking lives for fun and profit.
Response: Get a prostitute, a butler, a street hustler, and an Ivy League grad to conspire together for sweet, sweet revenge.
Photo by New Line Cinema/Kobal Collection, WireImageJ. T. MARLIN - BOILER ROOM
Crimes: Pressure selling grandma worthless stocks at inflated prices. Excessive use of hair oil.
Response: Play ball with the Feds when they come knocking. Write a screenplay about your experience.
Photo by Walt Disney, Everett CollectionBUY 'N' LARGE - WALL-E
Crimes: Turning the Earth into one giant sun-baked landfill. Condemning humanity to a 700-year intergalactic vacation cruise from hell.
Response: Have a love-sick robot inadvertently bring the human population -- now barely able to walk and completely ignorant in the basics of farming -- back to a marginally habitable Earth. Watch them starve.
Photo by Paramount PicturesSTARK INDUSTRIES - IRON MAN
Crimes: Selling fantastically destructive weapons not only to the U.S. military but also to terrorists.
Response: Have a near death experience in Afghanistan. Build a way cool suit of flying armor. Become a superhero and defeat your murderous business partner. Stop selling weapons.
Photo by Universal, Everett CollectionPACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC - ERIN BROCKOVICH
Crimes: Polluting the ground water with hexavalent chromium, which causes cancer. Lying through their teeth.
Response: Get a fast-talking single mom in a push-up bra to dig up the ugly truth. Brush up on the finer points of class action lawsuits.
Photo by Warner Bros. PicturesUNITED NORTHFIELD - MICHAEL CLAYTON
Crimes: Selling an herbicide with the inconvenient side effect of causing cancer. Murdering whistleblowers. Lying through their teeth.
Response: Get a world-weary, down-and-out attorney to dig up the ugly truth. Get a company lawyer to admit to crimes as the cops listen in.
Photo by Touchstone/Kobal Collection, WireImageBROWN AND WILLIAMSON - THE INSIDER
Crimes: Peddling a product that just plain causes cancer. Making death threats against whistleblowers. Lying through their teeth.
Response: Get a disillusioned worker to dish the ugly truth to Mike Wallace on "60 minutes."
Everett CollectionUNION BROADCASTING SYSTEM - NETWORK
Crimes: Broadcasting the angry rants of deranged lunatic and then killing the guy when his ratings tank.
Response: Sit back. Relax. Wonder how "60 Minutes" is going to retire Andy Rooney.
Everett CollectionBENDINI, LAMBERT, AND LOCKE - THE FIRM
Crimes: Conspiring with the mob. Whacking errant partners. Generally being lawyers.
Response: Photocopying. The key moments in any John Grisham thriller usually involves photocopying.
Photo by Focus Features/Kobal Collection, WireImageKDH PHARMACEUTICALS - THE CONSTANT GARDENER
Crimes: Using a poor African country as lab rats to test their drugs. Murdering whistleblowers. Really bumming out Ralph Fiennes.
Response: Shake your head. Sigh. Check out what's new with "The Hills."
Photo by Paramount, Everett CollectionRORITOR PHARMACEUTICALS - BRAIN CANDY
Crimes: Rushing to market a drug that makes you perpetually happy. Hawking rest homes for people who succumb to the drug's major side effect -- comas, but happy comas.
Response: Rushing to market a drug that really bums you out.
Photo by Orion Pictures, Everett CollectionOMNI CONSUMER PRODUCTS - ROBOCOP
Crimes: Foisting on the Detroit police department highly flawed crime-fighting robots. The ED-209 police droid tends to accidentally shoot people. The cyborg Robocop has a conscience, which proves inconvenient.
Response: Inquire about the company's severance package. If you're fired from OCP, you might be thrown from a tall building. Don't expect a golden parachute.
Photo by Screen Gems, Everett CollectionUMBRELLA CORPORATION - RESIDENT EVIL
Crimes: Making a bio-weapon that turns corpses into blood-thirsty zombies. Building the factories curiously close to major population centers.
Response: Get a genetically-enhanced looker in a slip dress to kick some zombie tail.
Photo by 20th Century Fox, Everett CollectionWEYLAND-YUTANI CORPORATION - ALIENS
Crimes: Scheming to breed a legion of double-mouthed, acid-bleeding alien warriors. Using space colonizers as bait. Decorating all of its interiors with curiously spooky lighting.
Response: Get a resourceful employee in a robot suit to kick some alien tail.
Photo by TriStar Pictures, Everett CollectionCYBERDYNE - TERMINATOR 2
Crimes: Creating a sentient satellite system that nuked the Earth, threatened to kill off humanity, and sent killer robots back in time to trash Los Angeles. It was a project that, no doubt, seemed like a good idea at the time.
Response: Invest in shotguns and canned goods. Keep an eye on your iPod.
Photo by Warner BrothersTYRELL CORPORATION - BLADE RUNNER
Crimes: Creating cyborgs that can think, feel, and love and then selling them to space colonies as commodities.
Response: Have one of those cyborgs who can think, feel, and love meet company founder Dr. Eldon Tyrell and crush his skull.
Photo by MGM/Kobal Collection, WireImageSOYLENT CORPORATION - SOYLENT GREEN
Crimes: Selling grandpa's corpse back to you as a tasty snack. Isn't there a chapter in "Das Kapital" about this?
Response: Cry to the heavens, "It's made of people!" Try not to think about what's in Soylent Yellow.
Photo by New Line Cinema, Everett CollectionVIRTUCON - AUSTIN POWERS: THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME
Crimes: Putting lasers on the moon. Charging too much for a venti cappuccino. The CEO is named Dr. Evil. What haven't they done?
Response: Virtucon may have money, power and frickin' sharks with frickin' lasers on their heads' but they will never have mojo.
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