In a movie like DC’s upcoming ‘Suicide Squad‘ there’s a question of who to root for. The Squad consists of hard criminals like Deadshot (Will Smith) who is traditionally depicted as an assassin and gun for hire and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) who is a psychopath in the comics. To empathize with this cast of characters enough to view them as any sort of protagonists, we would need a relatively worse antagonist for contrast. Enter Jared Leto’s Joker, right? Maybe, but director David Ayer implies that the real villain is someone else.

Talking to Empire magazine, the director said that the team’s greatest threat is the one who brings them together.

“Fuck good versus bad…Bad versus evil is a lot more interesting. And Amanda Waller is the worst there is.”

In other media, Amanda Waller is the person who comes up with the idea of using criminals as a task force in excessively dangerous situations. She takes those who would likely be on death row anyway and gives them a chance to live by doing her dirty work. It’s not a very good chance, hence the name ‘Suicide Squad.’ If you think this sounds like a plan that the public would disapprove of, you are probably right. This is all top secret and nefarious. Waller is depending on untrustworthy people to carry out her missions so she needs a way to protect herself against double-cross. Her way is to inject the Squad with a means to terminate them on command. Empire Magazine refers to them a “nanobombs.” It’s essentially an under-the-skin bomb vest and Waller has the remote.

The Squad’s most immediate danger will always be Waller and they know it. This alone is enough to make her the villain of the film from the perspective of the team the audience will follow. In the comics, almost everyone outside of Waller’s organization disapproves of Waller’s plan. Batman almost certainly will if there is any confrontation between he and her in ‘Suicide Squad.’ Viola Davis, the actress playing Waller, sums up her character:

“She’s relentless in her villainy. When you look at her, there’s nothing that seems dangerous. Her only power is her intelligence and her complete lack of guilt.”

Government-type officials and shadow-ops leaders are often depicted as the bad guys in movies, but is seems Amanda Waller will take it to the next level.

‘Suicide Squad’ stars Will Smith, Jared Leto, Cara Delevingne, Jai Courtney, Joel Kinnaman, Margot Robbie and Viola Davis and will be in theaters on August 5th, 2016.