Paul Kaufman is the ruler of the feudal society within the Pittsburgh-outpost. He was played by Dennis Hopper in the 2005 movie Land of the Dead.
Biography[edit | edit source]
When the undead apocalypse occurred, Kaufman turned the outpost into a safe zone from the zombie-infested outside world, and rules over the city with an iron fist. Kaufman and the other wealthy live in luxury in the Fiddler's Green, while the poor live in poverty in the streets.
One day, Kaufman is approached by Cholo DeMora, who wants to retire and demands Kaufman allow him to have his own home. However, as Cholo is not good enough for Kaufman, the latter has him removed from the building, trying to kill him, but he escapes. When Cholo steals Dead Reckoning and holds Fiddler's Green hostage, demanding a five million dollar ransom, Kaufman asks that Riley Denbo stop Cholo. Riley agrees, and in exchange, he and his friends will be allowed to leave with ammunition.
Kaufman minutes before his death
Kaufman and Sutherland prepare to evacuate should Riley fail, but due to Sutherland's concern for the poor, Kaufman kills him. Though Cholo is stopped, moments later, Kaufman watches as an army of zombies rampage in the city streets. He decides to try and flee with as much money as possible, which is a quite stupid move as money cannot help him escape through the city, only weapons. When the army finally breaks into the building, Kaufman, feeling that the city belongs to him alone, tries to shoot Big Daddy, but misses his head due to his lousy marksmanship.
Kaufman and his servant flee to Kaufman's old limo, but when Kaufman's servant abandons him, with the limo's keys, Big Daddy fills the limo's interior with gas. As Kaufman leaves the limo to get the spare keys, he is attacked by the zombified Cholo. Big Daddy then ignites the gas around the limo, killing Kaufman and the undead Cholo.
Land of the Dead (2005)[edit | edit source]
Kaufman ruled all of the Pittsburgh-outpost from a large building called "Fiddler's Green" where the wealthy stayed in the lap of luxury and protection while the poor lived in slums and were their own protection. He turned all of the city into a safe zone for the people however, payed for training for their soldiers and even got many off the streets as he puts it "By giving them games and devices"; apparently costing him a great deal of money and he compared the spending to "Responsibility". Due to the city's impregnable defense consist of electric fences and huge surrounding river, this makes Kraftman and the wealthy class seems to neglect in investing in the training of their soldiers wisely and effectively as they are shown to very inefficient in dealing with zombies as soldiers often waste tons of bullets just to kill one zombie and completely lack of melee weaponry to deal with close-quarter combat situation. Furthermore, he also shallowly has no desire or motivation to cleanse the zombie population to expand the area of the safe zone.
After a recent rounding up of supplies from a nearby town; Cholo DeMora was looking to get payed and call his tab after all his work and maybe even get a place among the wealthy; however Kaufman wanted him to remain where he was and after a disagreement; Kaufman wanted his men to kill Cholo. Cholo escaped and took the all but invincible zombie killing truck known as Dead Reckoning and held it for a $5,000,000 dollar ransom; which if not payed, Cholo planned to level Fiddler's Green.
Kaufman then sent Cholo's former superior officer Riley Denbo, as well as Riley's buddy Charlie Houk and a prostitute named Slack after the stolen vehicle. He also sent along a couple more soldiers named Motown, Manolete and Pillsbury. He wanted to preserve Fiddler's Green and in exchange for Cholo's Death, Kaufman promised Riley a car and supplies to leave the town.
Later on however after learning about the zombies being too close to entering the city; Kaufman actually decided to leave Fiddler's Green with large duffle bags of money and was being escorted when the zombies invaded Fiddler's Green. He ran to his limo where he was attacked by Dig Daddy. After Dig Daddy left; Kaufman went out to reload his weapon and protect his money. Cholo attacked him now as a zombie and they struggled until Big Daddy returned with a lit propane tank; causing the gasoline on the floor to ignite and explode; leading to Kaufman's demise.
Personality & Traits[edit | edit source]
Kaufman is known to be a very manipulative man and can get people to do what he tells them via bribing with luxury and wealth; however fails to pay. He is known to also believe in responsibility; however even after spend much of his money on essentials; Kaufman has shown his greed. He is even been capable of killing people who question his every move.
Like most of the wealthy class in Fiddle Green, he is extremely short-sighted in term of dealing with the zombies as despite sponsoring the creation of Death Reckoning, he never try to create an effective army to deal with the zombie threats as shown in his soldiers almost completely lack of the ability to aim their weapons properly to shoot the zombies effectively as they usually waste the entire magazine just to kill one zombie as well as lack any form of melee combat or weapon to deal with CQCs situation. Furthermore, living in absolute security in Fiddle Green has make him and the upper class people to delude themselves that they are not living in the apocalypse, causing none of them to learn to defense themselves as shown when he struggles to shoot a single zombie.
