To beat the boss, you gotta go through them. Today we're talking mini-bosses.
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Action movie villains tend to fall into two camps. We have the big bad and we have the henchman. The big bad is the one guiding this evil ship to whatever nefarious goal they have in mind, and the henchman are the ones that carry out said plans or do all the dirty work that our baddie wants done. But somewhere in between we have the "lead henchman" or as video game players know them the "mini-boss" who stands out amongst the rest of the henchman and is often just as much of an obstacle and sometimes more so than their boss. So today we're going to break down what makes a character a "mini-boss" and all of the fun variations that make this trope so useful in action movies.
Definition
In video games, a mini-boss is a stronger opponent a player faces before facing the big boss of a level or a game. They're stronger than your average opponent, often have a special move set, and challenge the player more than the a room full of average enemies. They may even feature hints about the big boss' capabilities.
In action movies, they have a very similar function. In action movies the "mini-boss" is usually the bad guy's right hand man who handles any problem that gets out of hand, directs the boots on the ground in the big bad's stead, and is more than likely going to end up fighting the hero or someone on team hero before they get to the boss.
How they function changes from movie to movie, but that's the general outline. So why do you want a character like this in your action movie? A lot of reasons actually.
Reason #1: Hyping Up the Big Bad
If you want to hype up your movie's villain, having an imposing mini-boss is a great place to start. This tends to work in one of two ways. The first way applies regardless of how imposing our villain is as a fighter which is...they control this guy.
Because a quality mini-boss is a good to great fighter, the notion that our villain can sic this person on anyone they choose immediately escalates their threat. Especially if we've seen said mini-boss make quick work of other fighters or watched how callously they'll do awful things.
Done right the mini-boss is a threat that the villain will dangle over innocent people like a chained dog whose lease they really don't want to let loose, but they will if they have to.
But the second reason a mini-boss is terrifying is if said mini-boss is scared of the villain. This is usually the most effective in my book, because every time the villain sends the mini-boss out they're basically saying that whatever problem or warrior that's come calling doesn't require their personal attention or isn't worth their time. Put another way, if this was a serious issue, I would handle it personally.
So if our hero or the team of heroes has a ton of trouble with the mini-boss, the odds for team hero against the main villain take a nose dive. This is something anime is really really good at. In the Dark Tournament arc of Yu Yu Hakusho the audience is already aware that the muscle-bound Younger Togoro barely flexed his strength when he beat a combination of Yusuke and Kuwabara, so when we see other members of his team take on entire teams by themselves or blow through gigantic opponents with ease while Team Urameshi is barely getting through each round without dying, it makes Yusuke's ultimate battle with Togoro feel impossible.
Even if the mini-boss gets beaten by our hero early on, the fear that the big bad invokes in that character by either forcing them to go back into the fray despite having their ass handed to them or nipping their immediate revenge plan in the bud for a longer play highlights the baddie's strengths.
Reason #2: Revealing the Big Bad's Character
Another reason mini-boss' are so great is because they often reveal aspects of our villain's character. If our villain has a tragic backstory for instance, they need someone they kind of trust to reveal that to and a regular henchman isn't going to cut it so cue the head minion/mini-boss.
But in action movies, this character usually reveals the villain's character by providing a contrast to the villain's outlook or values.
But in action movies, this character usually reveals the villain's character by providing a contrast to the villain's outlook or values.
In Hard Boiled, our gun smuggling bad guy's go-to guy is a guy called Mad Dog who seems to be the only one of the lackeys that can go toe to toe with the heroes Tequila and Alan in a gunfight. But unlike his boss, Mad Dog has a code. Because even though he'll kill any cop he comes across, he doesn't feel the same way about civilians and does his best to avoid collateral damage. So when Alan and MadDog begin having a ludricous one on one gun battle and pull their sights up to see a group of hospital wokrers and paitents MadDog and Alan let them...only for Mad Dog's boss to gun them down trying to kill Alan. Makes the boss look way worse and even leads to the Mad Dog's death when he protests too much.
There's similar vibes with Hans Gruber's main henchman Karl. While Hans is methodical at every turn Karl is incensed that John McClane killed his brother and openy defies a number of Hans' orders for the chance to kill McClane, so much so that he frequently allows an avenue to escape. So when Hans eventually does lose his cool, it has more weight because it's taken a ton of John's meddling to get there.
All of which can and often does reinforce the first reason you have a mini-boss which is to make our big bad seem even badder.
Reason #3: Time for the Supporting Cast to Shine
Heroic teams usually feature the main hero and then a bunch of supporting heroes with very specific roles, both in abilities and character, that provide a contrast to our hero. They're basically the heroic version of the mini-boss'. Which means our supporting characters are perfectly suited to take these guys out and show off what they're capable of, since the primary villain is probably out of their reach or it makes more story and emotional sense for the main hero to take them out.
This is a great opportunity for our supporting hero to show some unexpected mettle or prove their worth by handling a character that's been a gigantic problem. The Fast & Furious movies love doing this either with Brian Connor or Letty while Dom is off in a viscious one on one bout against the big bad or about to do some vehicular insanity much like the Mission Impossible movies will have Benji and the day's femme fatale take down one of the main villains while Ethan chases the bomb that's about to end the world.
It might also make more emotional sense for a supporting character to take out the mini-boss too.
In the 2016 remake of The Magnificent Seven our bad guy Bogue has an indigenous warrior as a one of his big bads, something that the audience can clearly see as a betrayal of indigenous ideas since Bogue has no problem killing innocent people on their lands and would have no problem killing any native people's in his way. So when it looks like this guy's about to off our female lead, it's time for the Seven's Commanche Warrior Red Harvest to fly in, save our pretty red-head, and kill this guy while calling him a hypocrite. There's thematic satisfaction that you wouldn't have in another fight.
There's also the rarity where the supporting character is actually stronger than our hero, or better suited to taking out the mini-boss. In Guardians of the Galaxy, our main hero Peter Quill is a solid fighter but he's not suited to take out Nebula or Korath, Ronan's main mini-boss. Instead those fights fall to Gamora, who has a personal connection to Nebula and Drax who is so strong compared to Peter that he basically one shots Korath like he's nothing.
If your supporting character needs a chance to flex or one-shot somebody, the mini-boss is a great time to do it. Speaking of one shots.
Reason #4: The Big Bad Isn't A Physical Threat
There's a lot of action movie bad guys that are the equivalent of an Arkham Asylum boss, where their power is really the wave of goons they can throw at the hero vs. their own abilities. This ties into reason #1, with the wrinkle that the mini-boss fight is actually the movie's climactic action moment with the conflict's resoution being a quick standoff between the hero and the villain that the hero wins handily because they're the hero.
A great example is in the 2001's Jet Li vehicle Kiss of the Dragon. In the movie's final action beats, Li fight tears through a police office and then a bunch of gi donning trainees before he enters a floor full of cubicles and comes across two mini-bosses. This is easily the movie's best and most intense fight that requires an incredible effort from Li's Liu Jian before he can save his friend played by Bridget Fonda. But once he gets up there, it's a hostage like standoff and Li out maneuvers our corrupt policeman for a single strike killing blow.
Same goes for movies where the lead villain is actually a weenie or a wimp like The Beekeeper.
Done right, these mini-boss fights prevent the final payoff from feeling like a letdown and might just wear down our hero enough where a fight between them and an inferior opponents feels more like a fight between equals.
Reason #5: Comedy
Another reason to include a mini-boss is that it's a great opportunity for a killer joke. The gold standard is Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indy has spent the lion's share of a giant chase fending off a bunch of Nazi-paid goons only for the crowd to reveal a tall swordsman in black who flips his blade back and forth to show off his process. Only to be unceremoniously shot by Indy who starts looking for Marion.
While that exists because Harrison Ford had the shits and couldn't do the originally planned fight scene, it's a great joke that can highlight just how intidating the hero is and how dangerous it is to under-estimate them.
In the original Ip Man movie we don't really see Ip Man fight and watch a ruffian go through all of the local dojo's masters like a hot knife through butter. So by the time he arrives on Master Ip's door, we're expecting a drawn out battle. So when Master Ip clowns this guy for the entire fight and highlights exactly how many times he could've ended the fight, we get an idea for just how skilled Master Ip is.
But this is a joke you can only do one time right? You might think so.
My favorite use of this trope is actually from the MMA action/drama Warrior. In the first interation, Tom Hardy's Tom Conlon gets himself into a major tournament by embarassing a top-flight contender during a sparing session by taking down the shit-talking fighter in a minute or so.
So when the two meet again in the actual tournament, the audience probably assumes Hardy's lost the element of surprise and is primed for a more intense and even-handed bout.
So when the two meet again in the actual tournament, the audience probably assumes Hardy's lost the element of surprise and is primed for a more intense and even-handed bout.
Nope.
Instead Hardy bull-rushes the guy and finishes him in seconds in what is dubbed by the announcer as "the fastest knockout I've ever seen." So hilarious. So satisfying.
Reason #6: A New Ally
As much as mini-boss' are a great chance to show off aspects of our hero, their friends or our villain, sometimes they become an to our hero, usually on the heels of their defeat or after the main villain has finally crossed the mini-boss' moral line.
This usually plays out with the hero doing something for the mini-boss that their big bad boss, wouldn't, like saving the mini-boss' life when the main villain would've let them die.
Admittedly this is much more common in long-running series where our hero is good-natured morality incarnate that wins over all of their former enemies by either beating them in a one on one fight, or teaming up to take on an even bigger threat (which matches their personal goals).
My go-to example of this is Dragonball since almost every villain from the main series has come back around to be a hero or temporary ally, so much so that you might've forgotten that they introduced themselves as a threat to Earth like Piccolo. So much so that by the time Dragonball Super rolls around, we've got a major villain from all of Dragonball Z's major arcs contributing to Team Goku's eventual triumph.
This can also be a temporary alignment if our mini-boss is about to die and wants to do one nice thing before they pass on or is so motivated by self-interest that they decide now's a great time to switch sides to the winning team. One of my favorite examples of this is the erstwhile villain The Ultrahumanite from the Justice League cartoon who changes course on villain plans multiple times because he either gets a bigger money offer from Batman or is so overwhelmed with The Flash's kindness towards a local orphanage that he wants to help out too.
It's a great way to reinforce why your heroes are so heroic and why your bad guy's entire worldview is so flawed.
Conclusion: Mini-Bosses Are Enhancers
The purpose of a mini-bossi in an action movie boils down to one thing: enhancing someone else. They can make the villain seem even worse (either in skill or in morals) or pump up our hero, or provide another incredible obstacle for our team to overcome.
Their presence adds another layer to the story and the action that makes the victory more complete and more satisfying. Beating a baddie is great. Beating a bunch of baddies and even turning one of the baddies to your righteous cause, is even better.
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