Dwayne LaFontant

**Dwayne LaFontant** (also known as the **Verminator**) is the tertiary antagonist of the 2006 Dreamworks animated film Over the Hedge (which is based off the comic strip of the same name). He is an exterminator hired by Gladys Sharp as her henchman in order to get rid of RJ and his friends who are trying to find food.

He is voiced by Thomas Haden Church who also played Sandman from the Sam Rami Spider-Man films trilogy.

## Over the Hedge

In the film, Dwayne is hired by Gladys as her henchman to exterminate RJ and his friends.

He is first seen when he arrives to get rid of Ozzie (who fake dying in order for RJ and his friends to steal the food), but the possum got away and fled the hedge. Dwayne then smells the other animals and also bends over to catch Verne, but Verne already escape back to the hedge.

Dwayne then gave traps for Gladys which prevents animals from going into her house including the Depelter Turbo despite that is illegal in every state expect Texas.

Later in the morning, Gladys notices the animals are in her house and calls Dwayne about it. Dwayne arrives with his gas mask to avoid odors and capture all of the animals expect RJ. After that, Gladys gets angry at him and also blames him for the animals sneaking into her house. Dwayne then put the animals in his van.

But when RJ sees Dwayne driving away with his caged friends. the raccoon decides to save his friends by having the wagon with a bunch of food he already collects. Meanwhile during that, Vincent chases RJ during the van chase. Verne tried to tell everyone that RJ came back, and he is just trying to help which the animals let RJ in and defend him from Vincent. When they arrived at their house, the animals crashed into Gladys's house and went back into the hedge, but the three villains tried to kill the animals as revenge but however Hammy drinks an energy drink which freeze the world and cause him to turn on the Depelter Turbo which defeated the villains.

Dwayne is then arrested along Gladys by the police and during that, Dwayne sneaky escapes and climbs over a fence, only to be bitten by Nugent after stepping one of the dog toys. It's unknown what happened to Dwayne after this but is possible that he was found by the police.

## Personality

Dwayne is mean, greedy, over-zealous and nasty man who appears to be doing his job which is killing and get rid of animals. He also seems to love Gladys despite Gladys not loving him back.

He is also shown to be smart since he can smell animals due to smelling RJ and his friends as well as even calling Verne a reptile instead of amphibian (although he mistakes Verne for an amphibian at first). He also can clearly tell that Ozzie is pretending to be dead due to smelling him, noticing what he is doing, and even asking Debbie if she has an associate degree from Verm-Tech after the latter's statement of thinking that Ozzie is dead.

Despite this, Dwayne can have some dimwit moments such as can't tell the difference between real animals and plastic animals such as accidentally shotting his net at a plastic flamingo and later at Gladys' bunny slippers and of course the scene where he mistakes Vincent for the small animals after getting slapped by the latter.

Dwayne also has some redeeming qualities which is being nice to Gladys and the other neighborhood people as well as having standards which is killing Verne and the other animals in a humane way (despite Gladys ordering Dwayne to kill the animals in an inhumane way).

## Trivia

* Dwayne is sometimes thought to be the main and secondary antagonist of the film. This is not true as he was simply following Gladys's orders and is less unscrupulous than Gladys and Vincent.
* Throughout the film, Dwayne appears to have a crush on Gladys despite her doesn't seem to love him as she finds him annoying.
* For some reason, Dwayne calls Gladys as "Sister" and "Nancy.
* Gladys and Dwayne are the only human characters in the film not to be minor characters.
	+ Speaking of that, both Dwayne and Gladys' name were mentioned by once in the film.

* On his van, there is a logo of a man that is trimmed, has long hair and smooth a pair of shades.
	+ It's possible this is either his early design or that's what he looks like when he's younger.

* Dwayne's original passion may have been Jazz dance. He alludes to this when his van crashed into Gladys' house. He sees RJ and his friends trying to escape. He then reaches out of them and receives a sharp pain in his back, to which he exclaims "Oh, the old Jazz dance injury!".
* Dwayne is the only character in the film not to mistake Verne for an amphibian (even through at one point, he briefly mistook Verne to be an amphibian).
* According to Dwayne himself, he received an associate degree from Verm-Tech.
	+ Coincidentally, Dwayne's line about this wasn't actually in the original script as according to Karey Kirkpatrick in the Meet the Cast feature on the Over the Hedge DVD, when they had a line in the script where Debbie is looking at Ozzie and says, "I think he's dead.", only for Thomas Haden Church to spit out of nowhere saying " Oh, really? Do you, in fact, have an associate degree from Verm-Tech? (The original line was "Are you a professional?")