Retired Badass / Film

Examples of Retired Badass in films.

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Films — Animated

• Wylie Burp in An American Tail: Fievel Goes West was formerly a legendary sheriff but when Fievel meets him he's a drunken shell of his former self, that is until he is given the task of training Tiger to be his successor.
• Mighty Eagle as depicted in The Angry Birds Movie; While he might have been might once, that was clearly a long time ago. His Heroic Build has given away to a large gut, and when Red goes to see him, he admits, "I am retired. Mostly tired."
• Cars
  • Cars gives us Doc Hudson, a former racing legend (under the name of the Fabulous Hudson Hornet) who won three Piston Cups. After suffering a crash in '54, he was forced to give up racing completely after being replaced by a rookie. Despite this, he still has a lot of racing left in him and uses his skills to tutor the protagonist Lightning McQueen, acting as his crew chief.
  • In Cars 3:
    • Lightning meets a quartet of very old race cars in Thomasville, three of which were old opponents to Doc, and one of them in particular being his crew chief Smokey.
    • Zig-zagged with Lightning himself near the end — since he shared the victory with Cruz Ramirez, he chooses to continue racing, but decides to spend the rest of the current season as her crew chief first, making him sort of semi-retired.
• Elastigirl, Mr. Incredible and Frozone from The Incredibles, for 15 years. She and Frozone adapt pretty well; Mr. Incredible is not so happy about it. Possibly also Edna, who is apparently doing ordinary fashion design with shows in Milan when Bob comes to see her. She leaps at the chance to design for "gods" again.
• Trusty from Lady and the Tramp is an old bloodhound who hunted criminals in his youth. He supposedly lost his sense of smell, which was why he had to retire. The climax of the movie proves that his sense of smell is still perfectly good when he uses it to track the dogcatcher that's taking Tramp to the pound.
• Little Angels: The Brightest Christmas: Both the children's father and Zeke fought in "the war", where the father had managed to save Zeke's life.

Films — Live-Action

• The title character in Alexander Nevsky.
• Hank Pym is this in Ant-Man, having been the original Ant-Man before retiring due to the long-term damage shrinking with the Pym Particles has done to his body even with the suit's protection. He then set up his own technology and scientific research company, before being forced in to retirement by Darren Cross. The Film has him putting a team together to prevent Cross from selling Nanotechnology to HYDRA.
• In Army of the Dead, Scott Ward is a military veteran who now works at a burger joint. One day, he gets hired for a team the mission of which is to pull off a high risk heist within Las Vegas, which has been overrun by zombies and walled off.
• In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Wonder Woman starts out like this, having been an active superhero during WWI, but having retired after the horrors of war made her lose her faith in humanity. Bruce reaching out to her in friendship and trust begins to restore her faith, and when Lex Luthor unleashes the unstoppable monster Doomsday, Diana becomes Wonder Woman again to help save the day.
• Downplayed with Iraq War veteran Ssgt Michael Nantz from Battle: Los Angeles before aliens' world invasion, who is two days from retirement; however, he is called to defend Los Angeles when they do so and destroy one of their command centers later on.
• Bend of the River: Glyn was a fearsome "border raider" back in the day, along the Missouri-Kansas border in the violent days before The American Civil War. Now all he wants now is a quiet life farming or ranching, which is why he's leading a wagon train to Oregon.
• Big Game: Fred Herbert, before becoming the head of Terrorist Intel, was a long-serving CIA operative. This pot-bellied, middle-aged and laid-back man shows he's still got it when he suddenly and brutally kills the Vice President faster than the man can scream.
• Big Jake has been retired so long that everyone thinks he is dead.
• The Waco Kid in Blazing Saddles, until befriending the main character/new sheriff.
• In the 1978 kung-fu movie Born Invincible, elderly Liu Chin swore an oath to Buddha never to use a sword again. But after the Chin Yin chiefs kill the Lei Ping school's teachers in retaliation for protecting him, Liu breaks his oath — and proves so skilled that he toys with the chiefs one-on-one. He ends up being the only fighter the main villains have to work together to beat. In contrast, it takes several training montages, an exploitable pressure point, and straight up dirty tricks for the Lei Ping students to beat the Chin Yin chiefs separately.
• In Bubba Ho-Tep, the two heroes claim to be Elvis and JFK, having retired into anonymity.
• Briggs of The Colony (2013) may be a Reasonable Authority Figure to his people, but anyone who attacks him learns that he hasn't forgotten his military days.
• The Commuter: Michael used to be a detective with the NYPD, and uses his old skills well in the film. It turns out he was chosen for them specifically. Later he comes out of retirement and tracks down Joanna, arresting her on another train.
• In The Dark Knight, Alfred reveals that he did some soldiering in Burma when he was a younger man. It's implied that he was special forces, probably the Regiment. 22 SAS. The original badass squad(ron).
• The Dark Knight Rises takes place 8 years after the events of The Dark Knight when Bruce Wayne gave up his Batman-persona since than and living lonely in his mansion. However, the appearance of Bane forces him to come out of his retirement. In the end of this movie Bruce fakes his own death to retire for good this time.
• In Dracula Untold, Vlad wants nothing to do with his past as the "Lord Impaler." He doesn't succeed in ignoring that part of himself.
• In Draw!, Sam Starret used to be the most feared lawman in the Wild West. Now he is past his prime, is a hopeless drunk and lives in Mexico.
• The Equalizer features Robert McCall, a retired U.S. intelligence operative played by Denzel Washington, who is reluctantly drawn into conflict with the Russian Mafia in order to protect a young prostitute whom he's recently befriended. Loosely based on the 80s live-action TV series with a similar premise.
• Richard Brown, the protagonist of Final Score (1986), used to be a Vietnam veteran, before deciding to settle down in Jakarta with his wife and leave his killing days behind. But when a corrupt business rival tried to have Richard killed but succeeding in only eliminating Richard's family, Richard then goes back to ass-kicking, and took nearly 90 names for the remainder of the film.
• Carroll Shelby in Ford v Ferrari was forced to retire due to a heart condition. Even though his Le Mans-winning days are over, he is instrumental in Ford's success at '66 and subsequent Le Mans. Oh, and his own company is also doing very well.
• In The Foreigner (2017), Mr. Quan is your typical mild-mannered, semi-elderly Chinese restaurant owner until his daughter is killed in a terrorist attack. Then we find out why he's played by Jackie Chan. Another major character, Liam Hennessy, is a former IRA leader turned British politician.
• Joe Colton from G.I. Joe: Retaliation. The last scene of the initial trailer features Colton kicking ass by shooting at Cobra mooks with an assault rifle while in the bed of a fishtailing El Camino. Considering he's played by Bruce Willis, this comes at no surprise.
• Walt Kowalski, Clint Eastwood's character in Gran Torino.
• Dr. Loomis in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.
• In Happy Gilmore, Chubbs Peterson was a legend of pro golf before he lost his hand to an alligator. Even McGavin seems noticeably upset when he dies in an accident.
• The title character in Harry Brown is an ex-Royal Marine who has become a quiet, rather meek old man until his wife and best friend die. With nothing to lose and a group of thugs plaguing his council estate, he goes back to his old ways.
• A History of Violence has some scary people who suspect Viggo Mortensen's character is this (with more than a helping of Retired Monster) rather than the Heroic Bystander he claims to be after he defends his cafe from serial killers.
• Topper Harley from Hot Shots! Part Deux.
• The title character of John Wick is definitely this, being a legendarily badass assassin who had been retired for five years prior to the first film's beginning. However, now, he's thinkin' he's back, and is fully prepared to carve through several hundred people.
• Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid is one, though still quite a badass more so in Part 2.
• Hattori Hanzo from the Kill Bill movies.
• In Kung Fu Hustle, not only did they have five Retired Badasses living in the same slum, once they got involved with The Hero and his fight with the Axe Gang, the gang went and dug up their own Retired Badass to fight on their side. Better yet, some of these characters were played by actors who were big names in martial arts movies — in the 70s and 80s. The director called them out of retirement to be in this film, which I suppose would make them Meta Retired Badasses.
• In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Allan Quatermain is retired and living in Kenya, but is reluctantly summoned back to England to help prevent a world war. (This is a departure from the source material, in which he was located in an opium den somewhere in Asia.)
• Downplayed in Lockout, where "retired" CIA-Operative Snow is helping out a buddy who ends up dead. Snow is framed, and to regain his freedom and clear his name he gets sucked into the movie's main plotline: rescuing the president's daughter. HOWEVER, Snow takes the job in order to achieve a secondary motive, so it's all just bluster and bullshit.
• The Man from Laramie: According to Dave, Vic and Kate, Alec Waggoman was apparently quite undeniably impressive as he was building and expanding his ranch. By the time the story gets going, however, he's an old man who is rapidly losing his eyesight. He's still not necessarily a man to be tangled with though.
• Anthony Hopkins' Zorro from the 1998 The Mask of Zorro is a borderline example, as he is the original Zorro that is captured for decades until training a new Zorro, his protégé, Alejandro, years later. Straddles the line with an Older and Wiser mentor.
• The whole premise of Nobody is that seemingly cowardly and normal family man Hutch Mansell turns out to be a retired elite killer when some thugs messed with him. It turns out he comes from a family full of Retired Badasses, with his father David being a former FBI-agent getting bored in an retitement home. His adoptive brother is pretty good with arms, although the audience never learns what his job is/was.
• Pacific Rim:
  • Stacker Pentecost was previously the co-pilot for Coyote Tango, before he quit after his cancer worsened and was pulled from flight status by his doctors. And as seen in the trailers, he resumed piloting after one pilot from Striker Eureka is injured.
  • Raleigh retired after the death of his brother, only to be called back to duty by Pentecost when they are in desperate need for pilots.
• Duncan Vizla in Polar.
• In Power Rangers (2017), Zordon was not only one of the Power Rangers that stopped Rita from destroying the Earth 65 million years ago, but he was the Red Ranger of his team. In the present day, his consciousness lives on in the spaceship which brought his team to Earth.
• In Pray For Death Shô Kosugi has retired from the hectic ninja lifestyle to move to the US and open a convenience store. The local mobsters try to muscle him. This does not end well.
  (Dramatic singing voice) Back to the shadoooooows!
• The eponymous Rambo is one who is contantly dragged back into action no matter how much he tries to avoid it.
• Everyone in Red (2010). The acronym stands for "Retired and Extremely Dangerous".
  (Frank and William are fighting)
  Frank Moses: Did Kordesky train you?
  William Cooper: Yeah.
  Frank Moses: I trained Kordesky.
• Captain Freedom (Jesse Ventura) from The Running Man is a rare example of a villain who lived long enough to retire (imprisonment not being an issue in this case). His former employers try to coax him out of retirement to kill Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger), but he won't have any of it, not because he fears Richards, but because...
  Captain Freedom: I was killing guys like this ten years ago with my bare hands! I'm not going for any of these tricks!
• Secondhand Lions has three lead characters, two of whom fit this trope. Having fought in dozens of wars, they got old and tired before retiring to America. With their fortune came relatives and salesmen seeking money and one young boy who breaks them from their funk.
• Aatami Korpi of Sisu is an Old Soldier who fought in the Winter War against the USSR (it's unclear if he also fought in the 41-44 Continuation War), scoring a body count of 300+ Russians. He has since left the war behind and has become a gold digger in Lapland, but his skills haven't diminished one bit, as the retreating Nazis who try to steal his gold nuggets find out the hard way.
• Juni retires in Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams, so he is this at the start of the third movie.
• The aging James T. Kirk, during the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, was, to a limited extent, semi-retired and silently dreaming to once again captain the Enterprise. So he stole the ship in the next movie, earning him a demotion from admiral back down to captain again.
  • Klingon General Korrd in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, whose military strategies were required reading at Starfleet Academy during Kirk's time there, has been Reassigned to Antarctica in the Empire's most risible diplomatic posting.
• Yoda of the original Star Wars trilogy. And before him, Obi-Wan Kenobi. And now Luke Skywalker as well.
• Double subverted in St. Vincent (2014). Vincent mentions having been in Vietnam, but dismisses it as maybe having imagined it. Oliver later finds evidence that Vincent did fight in Vietnam and earned a Bronze Star for bravery.
• Done with hilariously campy style in Surf Nazis Must Die. A man that would be the hero in a normal action movie (the middle-aged black guy) is murdered by a group of self-styled Surf Nazis. Cue his aged mother to leave the retirement home and curb stomp the bastards.
• Bryan Mills, the protagonist of the Taken series, is a retired American government operative who's brought back into fighting by the situations he and his family are put through. The prequel TV series that aired after the film trilogy explicitly follows Bryan's time in his former job, which is never clarified.
• Transformers Film Series
  • Epps had retired from the military between the second and third films. He comes out of retirement after It's Personal the Decepticons blow up the Autobot shuttle as it's leaving Earth, presumably killing them onboard.
  • Dutch, Simmons' assistant in the third film. He can hack into any system and disarm a Russian gangster pointing a shotgun at him without looking. When Simmons orders him to stand down, he almost sobs and says "I'm sorry, that was the old me!". This doubles as Actor Allusion to Alan Tudyk's role in Dollhouse.
• In Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, Casey Ryback is a retired Navy SEAL working as the head chef for a restaurant at the start of the film.
• In X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Fred Dukes and John Wraith become a boxer and his manager respectively, after Team X disbands.

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