Heists are one of the few types of stories that have conflict baked in. Whether it’s robbers looking to make a getaway, Bonnie and Clyde style, or a team of thieves stealing art from the rich, they want something they aren’t supposed to have. To make a heist story great, it has to have more than just a compelling plot. The story needs to have an antagonist who reveals the protagonist’s weaknesses.
One such antagonist can be found in Netflix’s Money Heist. In this show, a man only known as the Professor has brought together a team of criminals to break into the Royal Mint of Spain. As part of this heist, they hold tourists visiting the Mint hostage. The police bring in Raquel Murillo, a hostage negotiator, to resolve the situation.
The story needs to have an antagonist who reveals the protagonist’s weaknesses.
One such antagonist can be found in Netflix’s Money Heist. In this show, a man only known as the Professor has brought together a team of criminals to break into the Royal Mint of Spain. As part of this heist, they hold tourists visiting the Mint hostage. The police bring in Raquel Murillo, a hostage negotiator, to resolve the situation.
At first, the conflict seems topical: Murillo needs to successfully convince the Professor to release all the hostages. The conflict comes from their respective positions, not the characters themselves. The Professor has something that Murillo wants – but we don’t learn anything about either one of them.
But then the Professor introduces an unexpected option. He offers the negotiator two choices: She can choose to release eight hostages. Or, she can only release one, the UK ambassador’s daughter.
The Professor pushes Murillo to make a difficult, telling decision. She wants to save as many people as possible. But the police commissioner is more interested in avoiding an international scandal. Save the ambassador’s daughter, he tells her. In that moment of conflict, the Professor has revealed one of the key weaknesses of the police. They’re more interested in power and status than helping as many people as they can. Murillo, who is supposed to have negotiating power, has to acquiesce to her superiors. As the show continues, the Professor uses this information to push the police into making tougher and tougher decisions.
Lessons from the Screenplay, which breaks down key lessons from popular movies, highlights another important point when building a strong antagonist. The antagonist has to challenge the protagonist to grow in some way. LFTS uses the example of The Dark Knight and the rivalry between Batman and the Joker. At the beginning of the movie, Batman wants to save Gotham all on his own. He refuses to ask for help or to admit defeat. The Joker turns this into a weakness, wreaking havoc on the city until Batman gives in. As a result of their conflict, Batman learns he needs to ask for help in order to keep the city safe.
That type of character growth can make viewers root for a thief. In The Thomas Crown Affair, Thomas Crown starts as a seemingly stiff finance man, overseeing mergers and acquisitions. He’s set in his ways, going to the Met to look at paintings every morning before going into the office. When several thieves break into the museum, he stops them… only to sneak into one of the galleries and rip a $100 million painting off the wall, slip it into his briefcase, and slip out the front door. It turns out that he orchestrated the entire robbery. He toyed with the museum and the cops by having the robbers sneak into the museum through a Trojan horse statue.
And then, like a cat batting at a ball of yarn, he offers to help the police identify the men who attempted to commit the robbery. The same robbery he set up. At first, the police are grateful; all of the cameras were disabled during the robbery. They don’t have any evidence without his help. Crown smirks to himself, pleased with his little game. In many ways, he’s the smartest man in the room.
That is, until Catherine Banning shows up. Banning, an insurance investigator, matches him wit for wit. She’s not fooled by his suits or his money or his influence; she knows he stole that painting. “Acquisitions and mergers looking a little stodgy? Was it more fun getting [the painting] than keeping it?” She asks while they are out to dinner. Crown watches her, looking uncertain for the first time. He’s used to being the one who plays with others. It’s the first time the situation has reversed itself. And he’s delighted.
Being in a relationship with Catherine introduces something with real stakes that he can’t afford to lose. What he doesn’t account for is Catherine not being sure if she can take the risk. “Oh dear,” his therapist says. “Peter Pan decides to grow up and finds there’s no place to land!” Catherine Banning as a challenging antagonist forces Crown to consider a new future. He orchestrates one last heist – this time, returning the painting back to the museum – giving him the freedom to leave with Catherine.
When the protagonist-antagonist pairing works, it brings the conflict to a new level and has viewers hooked until the end.
Each of these stories shows the importance of creating a unique antagonist for each protagonist. Though that’s not to say that these antagonists don’t have common traits. The Professor and Thomas Crown, for instance, like toying with power structures. But the Professor wouldn’t fit into the high-powered world that Crown inhabits. And Crown couldn’t appear as the Underdog to the hostage negotiator. When the protagonist-antagonist pairing works, it brings the conflict to a new level and has viewers hooked until the end.
