Laws are made to be broken, and real life would be so much sweeter if cops stopped playing by the rules. Let's face it: no exciting cop or federal agent goes by the book anymore, and that's why Hollywood has made a killing by having your favorite fictional feds commit everything from abduction to kidnapping to straight-up murder. Sure, these fictional agents, cops and blue-collar government guys get the job done, but you can bet that they flipped off their bosses or blew up an entire city block in the process.
8- Fox Mulder 
Rules Broken: Disregarding Orders, Obstruction of Justice, UFO Obsession Generally Gets in the Way of Actual Work.
When it comes to UFOs and aliens, it's no surprise that the FBI just wanted to cover it the Hell up, and that made definitely made Fox Mulder a pain in everyone's ass. While other agents were tracking down crime rings, weapons dealers and terrorists, Mulder was more often than not dragging that sexy Scully off to Nowhere, Pennsylvania to go investigate a crop circle or a werewolf sighting. Every episode now and then, the FBI would tell Mulder to go do some real detective work, which basically boiled down to this:
"Seriously, we're going to shut down the X-Files if you don't solve a real case."
"The truth is out there, Skinner, and I'm going to find it."
"Dammit, Mulder, you're such a maverick agent, I'm too pissed off to fire your ass."
Oh, and we're pretty sure it's against the FBI Rulebook to fraternize with your partner, but everyone knows that Mulder and Scully were definitely doing "undercover" work. On each other. In bed.
7- Ethan Hunt 
Rules Broken: Kidnapping, Stealing Classified Information, Generally Saving the Day Without CIA Consent
Now, the first time Ethan Hunt had to go rogue in Mission Impossible, rules definitely needed to be broken: he was framed for a ton of murders, the CIA were out for blood, and dammit, Tom Cruise is too pretty to turn himself in. So, Ethan Hunt spends roughly every single MI movie both ducking the CIA, stealing information while doing so, and flipping off the entire agency by quitting when he DOES manage to clear his name.
And don't forget the third movie, where instead of turning over key evidence to his CIA superiors, Ethan Hunt instead takes his revenge mission off the books and harasses Phillip Seymour Hoffman for the better part of an hour and a half. Of course, this involves invading the Holy F***ing Vatican and once again going rogue, but by this time, the CIA probably got used to it: "Is Ethan Hunt on the Wanted List again? What a maverick agent. He's probably on his way to solving some big case while we're at our desks."
6- Martin Riggs 
Rules Broken: Defying Superiors, Collateral Damage, Taunting an Arrested Suspect Into a Fist Fight
Martin Riggs is undeniably the badass of the Lethal Weapon series, but his crowning moment definitely comes near the climax of the first (and best) Lethal Weapon movie. Having already arrested and subdued the film's Big Bad, Riggs decides that he'd rather spend the extra film time just beating the guy up. Even though it was an important lesson in the mythical art of the curbstomp, you can bet that's a blatant disregard of police procedure. Oh, and he dropped a cargo container on a guy in the next movie, just after stabbing him with his own freaking knife. The moral of Lethal Weapon: Hope that Detective Riggs is satisfied with just shooting you.
5- John McClane 
Rules Broken: Collateral Damage. Tons of It. Also, Never Actually Arrests Anybody.
With terrorists trying to extract some ridiculous ransom out of the U.S. Government, John McClane generally has two preferred methods of saving the day. One, find wherever the enemy hideout is and kill every single suspect without making an actual arrest attempt, or Two, kill someone with any large vehicle that happens to be on hand: helicopter, airplane, airborne car, whatever works. Watching the Die Hard films makes it hard to believe that any one of McClane's cases ever saw an end to the paperwork, what with the millions and millions of dollars in damage, but it's all good: as long as the bad guys die and we get that trademark catchphrase, Bruce Willis can surf on a fighter jet as much as he wants to.
4- Axel Foley 
Rules Broken: Impersonating False Identities, General Collateral Damage, Getting His Chief in Trouble with Everyone Other Precinct.
Generally, not a single one of the men on this list would listen to their superior officers, but Axel Foley made such a science out of it, the guy could've been a PhD. How bad does it make the Beverly Hills Police Department look when a wise-cracking detective from Detroit strolls in once a year to uncover a crime ring, kill about a hundred henchmen, and generally do three years of police work in one week? Not only that, but Detective Foley also had a great habit for openly lying about his identity straight to the police's (and everyone else's) face whenever he could, impersonating (among others) a Rolling Stone columnist, a Federal Customs agent and a psychic.
Not to mention, of course, after less than five minutes in the first Beverly Hills movie, Axel immediately gets in the face of the guys responsible for killing his buddy, and promptly gets beaten up and arrested without cause, which is probably really offensive to a black guy who's an actual police officer.
3- James Bond 
Rules Broken: Having Sex With Everything That Moves, Thinking With Penis, Mouthing Off to British Superiors.
Yep, Mister Bond is arguably the original badass agent who should probably just as well be his own agency for how much he pays attention to the M16 rulebook. If you counted how many times Bond stopped doing his job to have sex with the nearest pair of walking breasts, you could probably tie all the used condoms together end-to-tip and reach the Moon with rubber to spare. Of course, you can't deny that he gets the job done, despite the number of wrecked cars, exploded helicopters and blown-up buildings Bond's caused in his long career.
2- Jack Bauer 
Rules Broken: (Just to name a few.) Illegal Use of Torture Techniques, Illegal Heroin Use, Insubordination, Obstruction of Justice, Pointing a F***ing Gun at the President of the United States of America.
Despite being a federal agent, 24's Jack Bauer has definitely broken more laws than he's upheld, all in the name of killing anything that threatens America. Whether it's gunshots, hand-to-hand combat, car chases, explosive barrels or simply biting out someone's jugular vein, if you're a threat to America, Bauer will kill you with relish. In fact, hearing his name probably has a "brown noise" effect on terrorists, who crap their pants at the thought of being alone in a room with this possibly insane man-with-a-badge.
Of course, this isn't helped by the fact that the Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) is run by high school kids in business suits with emotional problems that would make Eminem look well-adjusted. Yes, thanks to the fact that most non-main characters are idiots, Jack Bauer has had to torture innocent people for information, blatantly ignore orders from his superiors, and on at least one occasion, pretend to be a terrorist in order to catch other terrorists. How's that for a Catch 22?
In fact, the last season of 24 pretty much tried to address the number of laws Jack's broken by putting him on a grand jury trail in the very first episode. Predictably, that lasted about three episodes before he had to torture somebody under the FBI's nose. God, I love America.
1- Dirty Harry 
Rules Broken: Shooting Suspects in Gunfights Just to Piss Off the Court System
When it comes right down to it, Inspector Harry Callahan probably just liked killing crooks. It was a lucky coincidence that he happened to find a job where people would not only give him a badge to go hunting for those people, but they'd even reward him with a paycheck at the end of the month. You can bet your ass that his superiors eventually got too terrified of Dirty Harry to actually follow through on threats to fire him, which is the only logical reason that a San Francisco cop would be allowed to carry a freaking .44 Magnum revolver. Oh, and Dirty Harry also carried a switchblade too. Just in case he wanted to give the other guy a sporting chance.
It's no wonder that most of his partners could barely get out of the squad car before getting shot: most crooks likely just panicked when seeing Dirty Harry and fired their bullets randomly, praying for God to spare their lives (which never actually worked).
Man, fictional characters get to do all sorts of cool stuff. Let's use lists to live vicariously through them!
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McKinley Noble is one of GamePro's two Editorial Assistants, and he totally doesn't suck at every fighting game ever made. When he's not playing Kingdom Hearts, watching Millionaire Matchmaker on Bravo with his girlfriend or looking at softcore Internet porn doing research for SlobsofGaming, he's losing to Tae Kim or Chris Parisi at NHL. Go make fun of him on his Twitter account at http://twitter.com/KenTheGreat1.
