In Praise of Guy Pearce (Let's Have A Toast For The Assholes)

Did you realize that Guy Pearce is in THE KING'S SPEECH?


I certainly didn't. When I finally got around to seeing The Best Movie of the Year last week, the veteran English actor's presence was the most surprising thing in it. I had heard all about noble "king Colin", expected Geoffrey Rush to kill it as he always does, and was eagerly looking forward to seeing Ms. Bonham Carter trying to fit her crazy hair into period-authentic demure hats, but I had no advance word about Mr. Pearce.

Which is a shame, because if I had known that he was in THE KING'S SPEECH, I would have been far more excited to see it. I think he's one of the most interesting character actors we've had in recent years, from his star-making turn in L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, to his Count Mondego in THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, to his most-recognized work, MEMENTO. All of these roles, even his protagonists, have a similarity: they're all assholes.

But not straight-up assholes. Pearce brings an interesting quality to these dicks; they're all principled dicks. His character in L.A. CONFIDENTIAL might be an overly ambitious, sexually loathsome little prick, but he's an overly ambitious, sexually loathsome little prick that genuinely wants to solve the case and find out the truth. MEMENTO's Leonard is as convoluted and twisted a character as the film's narrative; you're constantly judging what you believe about what he believes, but at the root, his quest for vengeance is entirely sympathetic (at least if we believe what he believes). Vengeance and justice are at the heart of THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, where his Mondego simply takes what he thinks should rightly be his, but comes out on the wrong side of class struggle.

He's playing an interesting mirror to the Count in THE KING'S SPEECH, once again a man of nobility, but this time at odds with the values of his class. Inasmuch as the film has a villain, he is it, but once again his villainy is based in principle, which makes him a much more interesting antagonist. He never does anything particularly reprehensible (as long as we ignore that hint of Nazi sympathies), and in fact, his position on love could easily make him the romantic hero of a different story.

As I wrote this, and realized just how much I like Mr. Pearce as an actor, I started wondering why he isn't in more films. Taking a quick look at his IMDb page, it's clear where the break occurred: the ill-fated remake of Jules Verne's THE TIME MACHINE. I briefly considered re-watching it, but there's limits to what I'm prepared to expose myself to for the betterment of a blog entry.

So, Mr. Pearce: stick to the interesting assholes.

If I say INSOMNIA is nowhere near Robin Williams' worst film, am I actually saying anything?

Do you ever have those moments where memory plays tricks on you? Where you change the shape of a room or the color of a car? Or maybe the end of a movie?

I've done it twice now - a few years ago, I could have sworn CASABLANCA's last shot of Ingrid Bergman was of her looking tearfully out an airplane window at Humphrey Bogart, but then I saw Alfred Hitchcock's NOTORIOUS again and realized I had added a shot from that film into my memory of CASABLANCA. And I just realized I did it with INSOMNIA, too.

My recollections of INSOMNIA were very fuzzy, but I hadn't realized just how fuzzy they were until Nicky Katt showed up and started making with the awesome (as he so often does). For years, I had operated under the assumption that the conclusion of the film was a nicely tied bow that linked two separate cases together under Robin Williams' guilt.

Turns out, that completely doesn't happen. At all. There isn't even a second case. So either there was some sort of unfortunate BLOOD WORK-related crossed-wire-in-my-mind thing, or I'm a fucking idiot.

It's still not a great film, or even a good one, really, but it's nowhere near the travesty I remember it being. Hilary Swank is given a pretty thankless role and she does very little with it, but Pacino has some nice moments here that, again, I didn't remember. He plays a nicely understated guilt through most of the film that is especially effective when you compare it against his more standard scream-loudly-and-wave-my-arms approach. The examination of a cop under investigation by internal affairs feels real and well-researched, as does the actual detective work in the film.

The real problem with the film is, sadly, Williams. Now, I love HOOK as much as the next man. I do not love THE FINAL CUT or ONE HOUR PHOTO. He's just not well-suited to playing creepy. There's too much cultural baggage for him to shake. He's the goddamn Genie, for Christ's sake. But even if we purposely deprived a child of such classics as ALADDIN, JUMANJI, and MRS. DOUBTFIRE in some sort of cruel social experiment, that poor, damaged child still wouldn't believe Robin Williams as a credible foil to Pacino. From the very first moment Williams comes on screen, we know what the end game will be. Williams might weaken Pacino, chip away at him, but in the end, there is no doubt about who the winner will be. The film steadily trails off from the point his character is introduced, which is unfortunate, as his relationship to Pacino is really the film's raison d'être.

Has anyone seen the Swedish original? Is it worth checking out? If it is, there might be a better option than just trying to forget this version - or imagine a version where Jeff Daniels plays the Williams role.