| Fake Nathan White | |
|---|---|
 "I told you. I warned you I'd kill her." | |
|
Gender |
Male |
|
Born |
1936 |
|
Died |
1987 (aged: 51) |
|
Titles |
Drug gang leader |
|
First Appearance |
|
|
Portrayed By |
John P. Ryan |
The Fake Nathan White is a drug gang leader and main antagonist in Death Wish 4: The Crackdown. He uses Paul Kersey to get rid of the competition for him, tricking him into thinking he wants to stop drug production. He is portrayed by actor John P. Ryan.
History[]
Early life[]
His real name is never revealed and practically nothing is known about his early life. The Fake Nathan White has presumably been a drug dealer in Los Angeles for a long time and has since then tried to build up his own empire to rival against other two drug empires in Los Angeles area. Considering the sheer size of their operations, he could never compete with them and he was forced to control his small share of the Los Angeles drug trade with no chance of taking over the concorrence. His operation was so small that neither Ed Zacharias nor Romero brothers Jack and Tony could suspect he is behind any of the attacks on their operations. He pretended to be newspaper owner Nathan White by breaking into his house while the real Nathan White was in Europe on vacation. He made up a story about his daughter being killed by drugs, which convinced Paul Kersey to help him get rid of the competition by thinking he was taking out all drug operations in Los Angeles.
Against Paul Kersey[]
In a plan to take over the entire Los Angeles drug market for himself, the Fake Nathan White broke into the real Nathan White's house at some point in the movie. He then contacted Paul Kersey after he kills Jojo Ross and pretended to be the owner of a newspaper company. He gave Paul a fake story that his daughter died from massive drug overdose, very similar to what happened to Erica Sheldon, and then offered to supply Paul with weapons, information and other resources to battle the drug lords. Throughout the film he gives Paul information on locations to sneak into and people to be killed. The Fake Nathan White gets Ed Zacharias's former right-hand man Nick Franco to join him as well as Jesse, one of Ed's drug pushers.
Nathan White fires his Uzi at Jesse as he tries to flee from the scene.
After Paul kills the Romero brothers and Zacharias and destroys their cartels, White betrays Paul. He tells Paul to meet him at a golf course water tower. When Paul arrives there, he finds White's limousine and driver, but White himself is not in the car. Paul gets locked in the limo as the driver gets picked up in another car and leaves him to be killed by a bomb in the limo. Paul quickly escapes before the limo explodes, then goes back to White's manor and meets the real Nathan White, who has returned from his 3-month vacation in Europe. Later, fake White sends two of his henchmen, disguised as policemen, to arrest and subsequently kill Paul, but the vigilante recognizes them as impostors and manages to escape again. In a final attempt to get rid of Paul, the fake White orders Jesse and his men to kidnap Paul's girlfriend, Karen Sheldon, and tells him to meet him inside an underground commercial parking lot at a roller rink. At the mentioned place, the fake White has many of his henchmen, including Nick and Jesse, stationed throughout to kill Paul. Having his ambush foiled, fake White follows upwards into a roller rink, where his entire gang - last of them being Nick Franco - is cleverly decimated by Kersey. In the end, the fake White escapes through a back door holding Karen Sheldon hostage. The drug lord kills Karen cowardly by shooting from her back as she attempts to escape, causing an enraged Paul Kersey to blow him up with his grenade launcher.
Personality[]
The fake Nathan White was a drug leader. It is assumed that his organization only controlled about 10% of the drug trade in the Los Angeles area. Since he could not compete with Ed Zacharias or the Romero brothers, he decided to get rid of them. He was a sly, treacherous and cruel mastermind, tricking Paul into believing that he wanted to get rid of drugs in Los Angeles for the good of the youth, when he actually just wanted to be the uncontested main drug supplier. While pretending to be a good man, he wore only elegant suits and neckties, and had a very polite, silent and discrete behaviour, but after showing his true nature he revealed himself as an arrogant, foul-mouthed drug mobster with a brutal, ruthless leadership, wearing expensive casual clothing and ostentating luxurious gold jewelry. Fake White had a short temper and constantly grew angrier each time things went wrong for him. He didn't care if his drugs killed children and had no remorse for killing Erica and Karen. His malevolent, deceiving and awful personality led to his death at the hands of Paul Kersey. Fake White was arguably the smartest villain in the entire series and his plans would have succeeded had he had not attempt to kill Paul Kersey.