Caz,You can agree or disagree with Paulie on this one but either way I've got to hand it to Paulie. I was never a big Seagal fan, in fact I've only seen a handful of his movies including Under Siege, Hard to Kill, Under Siege 2, and Executive Decision. So naturally I was skeptical about throwing Seagal into this group. Yes Seagal has achieved a cult status among movie goers but to me he was a punchline despite my tremendous fear of Seagal. If I was arrested by Seagal in Jefferson Parrish I would be absolutely terrified. I'd probably laugh as a natural knee-jerk reaction and then have my windpipe crushed by a lightning quick karate chop that I didn't see coming.
I feel like you have unintentionally fallen into the trap that so many critics stumble into. Ask any Joe Blow on the street for the best actors today, and you’ll get the same responses, to some degree – Leo, Cruise, Hanks, Denzel etc… To truly evaluate talent, on the other hand, you have to sometimes look outside of the box.
Do yourself a favor and look at the roles that Leo and Cruise have played over the last 25 years. Upon first glance, you see characters of Luxury Cruiseship Passenger/Irish Gangster/Con Man/Undercover Cop… and Pilot/Bartender/NASCAR Driver/Sports Agent, respectively. “Ohhh man! They’re such unreal actors!! Look at all of the bases they cover in those roles!!” WRONG. Take another look at all of those roles… Something look familiar amongst them? Exactly.
You may look at Leo as Frank Abagnale in Catch Me If You Can and Cruise as Lt. Daniel Kaffee in A Few Good Men and think, “These roles couldn’t be further apart.” Unfortunately, you’d be dead wrong. In the end, these actors have been playing the same role in every one of their movies over the years: Young to Middle Aged White Guy. Granted, that middle aged white guy may specialize in tracking valuable diamonds, or babysitting his savant brother, but at the end of the day, let’s call a spade a spade – They both go out and play the same role over and over again. As Kramer tells Jerry about the Bellybutton voice, “It’s played… Soooooooooo played.”
What we need to do is look for the solution of this lack of character diversification. Until you think about it, you wouldn’t even realize that there may be an actor out there who can cover multiple bases. Luckily for cinema, this actor exists, and his name is Steven Seagal. Go ahead and take a moment to scoff at that notion. To the untrained eye, it may seem a little ridiculous. However, let’s take a look through Seagal’s filmography, and you will see that I am right.
In Seagal’s less glorified career, he has played the roles of Italian, Irish, Columbian, Alaskan, Native American, Eskimo, Canadian, Russian, Buddhist, Mexican, Japanese, and Vietnamese. You read that correctly. All of those roles played by the same one man.
What makes the spectrum of characters that Seagal can cover more impressive is the fact that acting only came to him late in his career. Seagal had never been in a movie before he debuted in his first film, Above the Law (1988) at the ripe age of 37 years old. (Note: Cruise last worthwhile role in Jerry Maguire (1996) came during Cruise’s 34th year… DiCaprio is now only 35 years old.) What’s more impressive is that Seagal only got into acting as a means to exhibit his true loves: martial arts and environmental protection. For the last decade, Seagal has been writing/producing/bankrolling/acting in all of his films, enabling himself to put these issues in the forefront of the public’s eye. What Seagal really cares about is practicingand teaching Aikido, serving the last 20 years as Deputy Sheriff in Jefferson Parish, LA (a point Pasquale had touched on briefly on the ETC. in the past), making music (YouTube “Girl Its Alright” for his music video and you’ll never listen to music the same way), creating his own energy drink (Steven Seagal’s Lightning In A Bottle), and protecting nature.
My point is this: It is easy to fall into the Hollywood trap that Cruise may be the best actor of a generation, but you’d be doing acting an injustice to declare him so. With the exception of The Last Samurai (2003), Cruise has stayed in his comfort zone of middle aged white guy (and I think we can all agree it was a bit of a stretch to imagine Maverick as a Samurai. The attempt was pretty cute, but I ain’t buying it.) It’s also easy to force a child into something at an early age, disguising it as trying to “give them the best opportunity.” DiCaprio was making his first appearances on TV by the age of 16 years old. Sounds like parents forcing their own dreams onto an unknowing child to me. We’ve all seen how that works out… Jon Benet Ramsey, anyone?
Why not give some props to the guy who deserves it: The guy who isn’t afraid to go out on a limb and play someone outside of his comfort zone... The guy who doesn’t need a huge studio to back his film, because he is willing to write/direct/produce AND star in it himself, on his own dollar, while filming it on location at his personal farm.
If you don’t want to agree with me, that’s fine. Judging quality of acting is subjective. The same performance may be described as enthralling by one viewer and embarrassing by another. But there is one actor that I know Caz (and I’d hope the entire ETC Nation) respects highly, both in his Award Winning Perfomances on screen and personality off the screen: Bobby DeNiro. I’ll leave you with this. 2010 will bring us the movie Machete, starring both DeNiro and Seagal. DeNiro has NEVER signed on to act alongside Cruise. He was forced into acting alongside the young Leo in This Boy’s Dream (1993), but was able get through it by beating and abusing the pulp out of DiCaprio’s character (in which he played, surprise surprise, a young white boy.)
My opinion is voiced. Nation?
Having said that, my only problem with the Steven Seagal Lawman Corollary is the diversity of roles argument. It is amazing that one can play that many races/religions/backgrounds whatever you want to call them. However I must say that every role I've seen him in has been some kind of martial arts expert or law officer out for revenge/killing bad guys. Yeah Cruise and Leo are playing middle aged white guys, but for the most part all the problems and emotions are different in each role. Seagal is an expert at martial arts in real life so it is very easy for him to play a skilled warrior in a movie. Along those same lines, I'm pretty sure Leo doesn't know the first thing about counterfitting checks nor does Cruise know the first thing about Naval Law. It is a compelling argument and I'm very intruiged to hear some reactions to this piece because I know Pasquale is a HUGE fan of Seagal's reality show Lawman. Excellent work Paulie Walnuts.
Looking ahead, it's one of the best times of the year in terms of sports. I will give you my full March Madness prediction as well as Spring Training report from Steamin' Willie Beamen. So until next time, as always....STAY SWEET!
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