Clarence Boddicker was the secondary antagonist in RoboCop.
RoboCop (1987)[]
Boddicker was well-known to the Detroit police force and had a long criminal record. Wanted on suspicion of crimes such as drug dealing and smuggling, murder, rape and the violent killings of several police officers, Boddicker was a dangerous psychopath whose antisocial behavior seemed to know no boundaries.
Early in the story, Boddicker and his accomplices, Emile Antonowsky, Joe Cox, Steve Minh and Leon Nash are pursued in Antonowsky's van by officers Anne Lewis and Alex Murphy. Boddicker and his crew open fire on Lewis and Murphy's squad car when they realize they can't outrun them. To throw off the pursuit, Boddicker has one of his wounded men, Bobby, thrown from the back of the van. Bobby lands on the windshield, temporarily stopping Lewis and Murphy.
Lewis and Murphy track Boddicker's gang to an abandoned steel mill. With backup unavailable they decide to apprehend the gang on their own. Cox is able to incapacitate Lewis, and Murphy is captured by Boddicker and disarmed. After some gloating and taunting, the gang mercilessly shoots Murphy until he falls to his knees. Boddicker fires the final shot.
Murphy's remains are later resurrected in a cyborg body called "RoboCop" and is sent into the streets of Detroit to battle crime. Despite having his mind wiped, he is plagued by memories of his wife and son and the final moments of his murder. After accessing the Detroit police mainframe and finding the files of Boddicker and his accomplices, RoboCop tracks them all down, seeking revenge.
When Murphy finds Boddicker closing a partnership with another drug lord, he battles a factory full of thugs and apprehends Boddicker himself. Trying to spare his own life, Boddicker rolls over on his actual employer, Dick Jones, the head of OCP, the company that designed and built RoboCop and that owns the Detroit police force. Upon making bail, Boddicker meets with Jones, who supplies him with a small tracking device and enough "Cobra" assault rifles for his small gang, ordering him to hunt down RoboCop and destroy him.
Boddicker reunites with his gang and they track Murphy to the same steel mill where they killed him. A furious chase begins and all of Boddicker's gang are killed. With Murphy trapped under a load of dropped scrap metal, Boddicker pounds on him with a long spike before stabbing him in the chest. As Boddicker gloats over his supposed victory, Murphy suddenly stabs him through the neck with his concealed data spike. Boddicker dies, blood spurting from his wound.
Personality[]
Boddicker is a dangerous, violent and seemingly nihilistic sociopath with a marked disregard for human life. He is an unrepentant killer who seems to enjoy violence, especially the killing of police officers. During the shooting death of Officer Alex Murphy, Boddicker takes great delight in taunting the virtuous officer, beating him and viciously shooting off his hand, gloating as Murphy suffers horribly. Boddicker watches as the rest of the gang opens fire with the same sort of enjoyment their leader shows. Declaring that the "fun's over", Boddicker finally shoots his victim through the head, leaving him for dead on the floor.
Working in secret for Dick Jones, he is ordered to eliminate Jones' key competitor, Bob Morton. Boddicker again delights in first shooting Morton in his legs leaving him unable to walk and then planting a grenade in his living room, knowing that Morton won't be able to reach it in time to save himself. When Morton offers to double the amount Jones is paying him, Boddicker simply ignores him, savoring the terror Morton is feeling at the moment.
Prone to fits of temper that could be due to a mental imbalance or his addiction to cocaine, Boddicker often lashes out at anyone he feels has crossed or failed him. When he takes possession of a load of cash from an associate, Bobby, he flies into a rage when he sees that most of the money was burned when Bobby used explosives to open a room where the money was kept. Yelling that the money is useless, he has Bobby thrown from the back of Antonowsky's van onto a pursuing squad car.
He is also opportunistic, desiring to rise up the tiers of the illegal drug trade in Old Detroit (the region of Detroit plagued by violent crime, prostitution, illegal drugs, among many other societal ills). He is willing to let another of his competitors, Sal, and Sal's gang hold him and his own gang at gunpoint when he suggests a partnership in drug dealing and simultaneously insults Sal. Boddicker seems to enjoy the standoff, knowing the deal will go down. In his dealings with Dick Jones, Boddicker doesn't hide his utter hatred for the OCP executive and is ready to walk out on him when Jones mentions that a plan for a revitalized Detroit ("Delta City") will mean that millions of workers will be "living in trailers" and will be "virgin territory" for a crime lord like Boddicker to exploit. Delighted at the proposal, Boddicker relents and agrees to continue to be Jones' criminal adjutant.