It's not exactly clear whether Tom Stall is just a very good liar, if he's simply Becoming the Mask so well that he's suppressed the memory of his past life, or if he and Joey Cusack are two separate personalities, as Edie speculates at one point. Considering how crazy Joey and his brother Richie behave, the latter option is not out of the realm of possibility.
Why did Joey become violent in the first place, and why did he escape his violent past? Did his terrible upbringing with his mentally unstable older brother mean that he had to resort to violence at a very young age for the sake of survival? And did he escape when the first opportunity arose? Or did he genuinely enjoy violence and only "learned his way out of it"?
As inadvisable as it is in real life, and causing tension with his father as well as potential criminal charges, Jack beating the shit out of the asshole bully Bobby was extremely satisfying to watch.
Leland and Billy meeting their richly-deserved deaths when they try to rob the wrong diner and get brutally dispatched by Tom.
Comic: "Little" Lou Manzi from the original comic is a ravenously psychotic mob boss and Torture Technician who makes Cold-Blooded Torture his hobby. Since becoming the head of the boss twenty years before the story, Manzi keeps a man as a toy, torturing him in every conceivable way he can think of day in and day out till the man is nothing more than an armless, legless chunk of meat — barely alive and conscious. In the present, he tries to get the man's partner back to be his victim as well by threatening his family and his young children.
Film: Leland Jones and Billy Orser are a pair of thieving serial killers who are introduced casually murdering the staff of the motel they're departing at the start of the movie, with Billy gunning down a scared little girl without a hint of emotion. Later, when they try to rob Tom Stall's diner, Leland orders Billy to rape a waitress to "show this asshole we mean business;" Billy is all too happy to oblige. It's heavily implied they are on a cross-country murder spree and would have continued indiscriminately robbing and killing everyone they encountered had Tom not stopped them.
Jerkass Woobie: Tom Stall aka Joey Cusack. Sure, he turns out to be an insanely violent killer, but he did try very hard to snuff out that part of himself and it's still terrible to watch the peaceful life he built for his new family disintegrate when his past finally catches up to him. In the end, he's forced to kill his own brother to put a stop to the madness. Even then, it's left unclear whether the Stalls will ever be able to move past all of this.
Carl Fogarty, to an extent. A ruthless gangster, to be sure. But horrifically losing an eye to a maniac armed with barbed wire could not have been a pleasant experience. He's, understandably, still very raw about it.
Magnificent Bastard: Tom Stall, a mild-mannered family man, was previously "Crazy Fuckin’ Joey" Cusack, a psychotic member of the Irish mob known for his brutality. Creating the personality of Tom to hide from the mob, Tom grows to care for his wife and kids, while willing to take down several killers who threaten his friends and family. Reuniting with his brother Richie to end the feud or, failing in that, to shut his organization down, Tom is able to escape Richie’s trap and wipe him and his whole gang out using stealth and deception, ending the story being tearily welcomed back into the family lifestyle that he’s grown attached to.
Misaimed Fandom: The film was meant to be a meditation on the ugliness of violence and how it negatively affects the people involved, even when it's justified. However, a good number of viewers genuinely enjoyed the violent scenes, which were supposed to be the most off-putting parts of the story. This is possibly because the victims of the violence in this movie tend to be really rotten people. For example, Todd in the Shadows put the Groin Attack from this film in his list of his favorite movie nut shots, saying it was the most satisfying ballbuster he'd ever seen in a film.
Nightmare Fuel: Tom resorting to violence just gets more disturbing every time he does it. Also, Carl Fogarty's eye and the story behind it.
One-Scene Wonder: William Hurt as Richie. He shows up in the third act of the film for about ten or fifteen minutes, but damn if he doesn't make an impression. Hurt was even nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
Signature Scene: The robbery scene where the two serial killing thieves attempt to rob Tom's diner and kill everyone there, only for the seemingly mild-mannered Tom to turn the tables on the robbers and kill them efficiently.
Squick: Tom has a startling penchant for inflicting Facial Horror on his enemies. What's left of Leland's face after Tom puts a bullet in his head is not pretty. Or Carl Fogarty's henchman after the guy's nose is smashed in. Hell, Fogarty himself is an example before the film even begins due to the gnarly Eye Scream he received from Tom — or rather, "Crazy Fuckin' Joey" — nearly ripping Fogarty's eye out with barbed wire.
