Word: niro
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...going on four decades, they've been the odd couple of Method movie stars: implosive vs. explosive, compressed energy and showboating showmanship. Robert De Niro caught our eye and kept it by being watchful, a figure of static electricity, a hoarder of his characters' motives. He did more by seeming to do nothing. Al Pacino was the total opposite: he laid it all on the table. Then he sliced it up, gobbled it down and spat it out. Before leaving the room, he'd scream at the table, smash it to pieces and use one of the splinters to pick...
...Since the early '70s the two have dominated dramatic acting in films; when Brando abdicated, they seized the crown. Just the pictures De Niro made with Martin Scorsese would constitute a dream career for any almost other performer: Mean Streets in 1973, then Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas. Same with Pacino's "S" movies: Serpico and Scarecrow in '73, followed by Scarface, Sea of Love, Scent of a Woman. De Niro and Pacino played father and son in The Godfather Part II but never shared a scene. In the 1995 Heat they spent nearly three hours in the same movie...
...serial killer? A peace officer certainly has motive, means and opportunity to knock off a dozen or so malefactors who probably deserve to die but have escaped conviction. The cop could truly believe that killing them is nothing less than righteous. He might think of himself as De Niro's Travis Bickle did in Taxi Driver, using his gun to wash the New York streets clean of their wretched refuse. And at the beginning of this film we are shown a grainy video of Turk (De Niro), who says he's been a cop for more than 30 years...
...pounds, studded his face and body with the scars of war - to play a has-been fighter hoping for a last shot at the big time. It's the kind of punishment that won kudos for Lon Chaney and Paul Muni in the old days, and helped Robert De Niro to an Oscar in Raging Bull playing Jake LaMotta. (He got himself into fighting shape, then he gained a ton of weight! Acting!) Beyond the stunt aspect, Rourke does strong, sensitive work. All praise to him, and to Darren Aronofsky for casting the actor and directing him to turn...
...Francis Coppola's Rumble Fish (Mickey was Motorcycle Boy), The Pope of Greenwich Village, Michael Cimino's Year of the Dragon, the S-M erotic drama Nine 1/2 Weeks (with Kim Basinger, who also made a comeback at Venice in The Burning Plain), the satanic thriller Angel Heart (De Niro was the Devil), as a gangster in Elephant Man makeup in Johnny Handsome and a lowlife genius in a film of Charles Bukowski's Barfly directed by Barbet Schroeder (who also had a film at Venice; the Lido was one big Rourke reunion). The guy was sexy, dangerous, adventurous...