Article: Why the best film baddies are Brits; Ralph Fiennes is the latest in a line of English movie villains that stretches back to Basil Rathbone.

Byline: PHILIP KERR

VILLAINS, as John Mortimer has observed, have always been the great entertainers, and an entertaining villain is always a better role for an actor than a dull hero. But the sight of Ralph Fiennes as a serial killer named Red Dragon in this week's movie of the same name, starring Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter, confirms what a lot of us have long suspected: when you want an actor to play someone really nasty in a Hollywood movie, the villain of the piece, so to speak, has to be British.

In recent years we have seen Rufus Sewell (A Knight's Tale), Kenneth Branagh (Wild, Wild West), Rupert Everett ( Inspector Gadget), Christopher ...

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