General Hummel

Sympathetic Villain

Full Name

Francis Xavier Hummel

Alias

General Hummel

Frank

Origin

The Rock

Allies

Major Tom Baxter

Captain Frye (formerly)
Captain Darrow (formerly)
Captain Hendrix
Sergeant Crisp (formerly)
Private Cox (formerly)
Private McCoy (formerly)
Private Scarpetti
Private Gamble
Sergeant Rojas

Powers/Skills

Military training

Gunmanship
Trickery
Leadership

Goals

Bluff a terroristic threat in order to force the government to acknowledge and honor the memories of the 83 soldiers that died under his command and compensate their families.

What Makes Them Sympathetic

He lost 83 soldiers leading covert missions for the government and became disillusioned when said government wouldn't even honor their memories or pay compensation money to their families. His whole plan was to change that, making him a well-intentioned extremist, and despite his plan involving the mass murder of 80,000 people, he never had any actual intention of carrying it out, only using it to bluff.

Type of Villain

Tragic Terrorist

Brigadier General Francis Xavier Hummel is the central antagonist turned anti-villain of the 1996 action thriller film The Rock.

Hummel is a rogue USMC Force Recon ranking officer who, displeased with the U.S. military's poor regard for its fallen Marines, seizes fifteen V.X. gas rockets to hold the city of San Francisco hostage unless the payment for the Marines' families is given.

What makes him sympathetic?[]

His wife died from unknown causes. He even gives a bouquet of flowers and a sympathetic statement on her grave.
Throughout his career Hummel was disgusted by the way the USA government treated its soldiers. It would send them on illegal missions around the world where they would die and the government would later refuse to compensation such as posthumous medals for the fallen Marines and military benefits for their families, and even sometimes left their bodies to rot in the foreign countries the missions took place in. Hummel was the one who was forced to deal with these lies and atrocities throughout his whole career.
Even though his actions are morally questionable, his ultimate goal is to force the USA government to compensate the families of soldiers who have died.
When he captures a group of tourists, he lets the children go home which shows that he has standards.
During the shootout between his men and the Navy SEALs, he repeatedly orders his men to "cease fire". Unfortunately, due to Captains Frye and Darrow, this doesn't stop the massacre, but afterwards he is clearly saddened by the carnage and even allows a still-alive SEAL to die in peace rather than allowing Frye to finish him off.
He threatens that he would kill the hostages and launch rockets against San Francisco but it's later revealed that this was simply a bluff to force the USA government to meet his demands.
He orders his men not to shoot at the two people sent by the FBI.
After two of his men betray and kill him, Hummel feels remorse for his actions and with his last breathe reveals to FBI chemical specialist Stanley Goodspeed the location of the last rocket.