The 8 Least Intimidating Gangs in Movie History

To upper middle-class white suburbanites, few things are more terrifying than a roving gang of hooligans, with the notable exceptions of poor fuel economy and the maid stealing decorative soaps.

But even those people would be hard pressed to find too many reasons to fear the following gangs, most of whom would probably be mistaken for dance troupes and second-rate children's entertainers in real life.

The entire Batman franchise is responsible for some seriously awful gang activity. None so heinously combined our fear of gang violence with our terror of carneys as the Red Triangle Circus Gang as portrayed in the second Batman film.

Answering to the Penguin, this gang was a random bunch of freaks who apparently were so moved by a deformed Danny DeVito that a life in the sewers spent strapping cartoony explosives to aquatic, flightless birds seemed all too beautiful a dream for them.

So with clown makeup, fire eaters and a tiny poodle that catches Batarangs, they left their big-top roots behind and went to work trying to fulfill their vision of whatever the fuck it is a group of malevolent circus freaks thought they'd accomplish by making their dumpy leader mayor of Gotham.

Grr!

Nothing epitomizes badass street cred like rolling with Patrick Swayze, Tom Cruise and C. Thomas Howell. Unless C. Thomas Howell is playing a character named Ponyboy, in what apparently isn't meant to be anything overtly homoerotic.

Following the same gang format that has existed since Shakespeare made it popular, The Greasers fall in love with some chicks from the other side of the tracks and that means someone really wants to drown Ponyboy, which is understandable. Instead the Karate Kid does some stabbing and the foolish gang violence is soon replaced with two skinny boys on the run, both of whom look like they'd lose a boxing match to Hannah Montana.

Then it degrades into burning school house heroics and poetry, along with deeply profound deaths and other assorted girly aspects of gang life that make it seem like semi-organized crime really isn't all it's cracked up to be.

While not prominently featured in the film, this gang has a memorable turn as the bad asses that turn Johnny 5 into a streetwise thug. Which, in a talking-robot movie targeted towards middle-class white people meant the gang was a group of singing minorities who live on the streets and commit no actual crimes beyond some graffiti and using the word "balls."

Undoubtedly conceived as cool by some people in a studio somewhere desperate to make teenage girls of the '80s want to watch a western, Young Guns was a veritable Calvin Klein underwear ad of a movie featuring men who were at the time considered young and popular.

Little did anyone suspect that only Kiefer Sutherland would ever salvage something close to a respectable career while both Lou Diamond Phillips and Emilio Estevez would live out their days having cashiers at the 7-11 ask them if they used to be famous while they try to trade food stamps for porno (only Charlie Sheen suffered a worse fate, dying and getting sent to Two and a Half Men).

While we don't want to question their pistol-handling abilities, the fact remains that if these four came up behind us in a dark alley, we'd probably fear they were just going to steal our Chapstick.