“ | Payne: You think I wouldn't have been prepared? Two years I spent setting up that elevator job. Two years I invested in it. You couldn't understand the kind of commitment that I have. You ruined a man's life's work, and you think you can walk away? You got blinders on to the world. But I got your attention now, didn't I, Jack? Jack: Why didn't you just come after me? Payne: No, this is about me. This is about my money, this is about money due me, which I will collect. 3.7 million dollars. It's my nest egg, Jack. At my age, you gotta think ahead. Jack: When I find you- Payne: Pop quiz, hotshot. There's a bomb on a bus. Once the bus goes 50 miles an hour, the bomb is armed. If it drops below 50, it blows up. What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO? |
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~ Howard Payne to Jack Traven, and his most famous quote. |
Howard Payne is the main antagonist of the 1994 sleeper hit action thriller Speed. He was a retired Atlanta police officer from their bomb and arson squad unit until 1989, and because of this, he became an extortionist and an extremely calculating, manipulative, temperamental, and psychopathic terrorist.
He was portrayed by the late Dennis Hopper, who also played Frank Booth in Blue Velvet.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
- He stabbed a security guard in the ear with a screwdriver on a Los Angeles skyscraper, where he rigged one of the express elevators.
- He detonated one a elevator, intending to kill all those present there, who were miraculously rescued by Officers Jack Traven and Harry Temple.
- He threatened to blow himself up with a pressure release detonator while taking Harry as a hostage.
- He detonated a Santa Monica Municipal Bus Lines bus, killing its driver.
- He planned to detonate another bus full of passengers unless he was paid $3.7 million in ransom money.
- He also set up that bomb so it would be armed when the bus reached 50 miles per hour and explode if the bus dropped below that speed, threatening to detonate it if someone triesd to leave or if the ransom wasn't delivered by his established deadline a.
- He made it clear he would blow up all of Los Angeles to get his money.
- While he agreed to allow Sam, the bus driver who was wounded by an unrelated criminal there who thought Jack had come to arrest him, to be evacuated from the bus, he only did so because Jack promised him to pay more ransom money if he accepted to allow Sam to leave.
- He detonated a small bomb when Helen, an elderly nervous passenger, tried to leave the bus, causing Helen to fall under the wheels and get fatally crushed.
- He rigged his residence with a bomb that was armed when Harry and his SWAT team arrived, killing them all, informing Jack about Harry's death with glee.
- When he realized that the passengers had been evacuated without his knowing, he opted to pose as a police officer and kidnapped Annie, strapping a pressure release detonator on her chest and threatening to blow her up if Jack followed him into a subway train.
- He shot the subway train's driver dead when he tried to answer the radio.
- He tried to murder Jack by shooting at the subway train's rooftop and later with his own hands after the ransom money was tainted with a bursting dye pack, rendering it useless.
- Although he is motivated by getting a paltry severance check after being dismissed from the Atlanta Police Department after he lost his thumb while heroically defusing a bomb, it doesn't justify his actions, as he kills dozens who had nothing to do with it, and is mainly focused on his greed.
External Link[]
- Howard Payne on the Villains Wiki.