I hear you, which is why I don't pretend the Academy awards their Oscars for merit, but rather politicking. The fact that he doesn't have an Oscar at the time of my writing this post should be enough proof that not enough people take notice of him. I'm not sure that can be argued.
As with your litany of roles, there are superior characters to the one's you cited. Sure.
Frank Booth is a better Norman Stansfield than Norman Stansfield, although honestly I prefer Stansfield because I don't really like BLUE VELVET. CHINATOWN's Noah Cross was the better corrupt powerlord with an obsession, better than the one in BOOK OF ELI. If you want a White guy in charge of Black guys? Frank White is superior to Drexel. If Frank White has too much screentime, I can narrow the "ethnic" cameo field down to Michael Parks as Esteban in KILL BILL 2 or Cliff Curtis as Smiley in TRAINING DAY or the list goes on. I'm sure you could come up with some better character of a similar vein if you thought about it enough. Or at least comparable.
I'm not saying Gary Oldman is not a good actor -- quite the opposite. But if this is a thread about why we can't believe some actors don't have Oscars yet? You can believe it with Gary Oldman.
