As stock characters go, it's hard to beat abusive asshole drill sergeants for Oscar bait. Yeah, they're rarely the protagonist, so they have to go for supporting Oscars, but being that they allow you to go broad instead of deep, rattle off shtick at a shouting level nose-to-nose with recruits who are usually the stars of the film, putting emphasis in weird places, they usually get to steal virtually every scene they're in. With luck, there will be an ambiguity of whether Sarge is just molding men, is an actual sadistic asshole, or even perhaps has an underlying personality disorder that only becomes fully clear later when he gets his drink on. Which one is it? Will we find out before basic training is over and we ship out? Oscar gold. Some sergeants aren't sergeants at all, but higher-ups. Officers. But they still have to play the sergeant's role in the film, abusing recruits during training, trying to turn some sad sack of shit into a soldier. Or a sailor. Or a marine. Some sergeants aren't sergeants simply because the film is set in a different military branch where the ranks have different names. Although several of these guys come from comedies, I tried with the choices to stay out of outright burlesques — like abusive boy scout leaders who act like drill sergeants, and shit like that. On the other hand, nothing is better than Andy Griffith Show episodes where Gomer and/or Floyd and/or Goober or some other Mayberrians get deputized and Barney tries to drill them into shape. Pure comedy gold. Also, these films should be set in large part, or en toto, in training. In movies that are mostly combat, sergeants are usually cool dudes. They still scream, but they suck on stale cigars and wear dogface shaves and charge in bravely under fire and their men would follow them to the mouth of Hell. It takes three or four wounds (or more) to kill them and they usually die saving the day. But training sergeants are mostly colorful assholes. I should probably take The Dirty Dozen out based on that distinctions, but it's already in there. Vote three times. Also, even though the voting mechanism will only allow three votes per customer, I feel like MFS62 should get a few more. [FIMG=500]https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/fortleetraveller.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/a/15/a1542676-f01e-11e9-8f99-bbe01b4eb765/5da724b3c16d0.image.jpg?resize=1200%2C977[/FIMG]