Quick story… I was working with a young producer for A&Es BIOGRAPHY a few years back and she wanted to hear some suggestions for potential show topics. “How about Mickey Rourke?” I said. She laughed at me. To her Rourke was a joke, a bad ‘80s relic. To me, he was one of the most fascinating rise-and-fall stories in the history of Hollywood. And now, with Rourke getting an Oscar Nomination for The Wrestler, the story gets a third act. Biography is, of course, doing a show on him and they may even acknowledge Mickey Rourke as one of the top leading men of the ‘80s.
For me, as a kid growing up in the ‘80s, just beginning to appreciate film as an art-form, Mickey Rourke was special. With his unorthodox looks, soft melodic voice, and greasy charisma, Rourke stood a head above even his most talented contemporaries. At a time when the likes of Andrew McCarthy and Emilio Estevez were being pushed as ‘stars’, the only real “actor to watch” was a former boxer from Schenectady, N.Y, who in a period of 8 years delivered some of the most interesting lead performances of the decade.
His early success, instantly brought the inevitable Brando comparisons, but for me Rourke was much more in the ‘old Hollywood’ vein of guys like Bogart, Mitchum, and Marvin; actors with both chops and star wattage. Here was an actor both modern and classic, strong and weak; an Actor’s Studio guy who was capable of incredible violence and incredible vulnerability at the same time. Mickey Rourke’s approach was different from most actors in his age group: he was dark, lovable, quirky, subtle, very open emotionally, manly yet somehow effeminate. Mickey Rourke was a paradox… and this made all his film characters fascinating.
Things fell apart for Mickey in the ‘90s in a series of – let’s face it – some of the weirdest career moves in Hollywood history. Rourke spent most of the decade boxing professionally, getting bad plastic surgery, making crap movies, and getting into trouble with his wife and drugs. The Wrestler puts Rourke back in contention, but I can’t help feeling a sense of ‘freakshow’ to the whole thing. I see the wheel of the American Roulette spinning its usual cycle without acknowledging how good Mickey Rourke was all along. So, on the eve of his well-deserved comeback, I wanted to take another look at some of Rourke’s best and most interesting work.
So, as Mickey would say, let’s roll the potato.
DINER (’82) – The acting in Barry Levinson’s classic is superb across the board. But in a film full of great performances, there’s only one ‘star turn’ and that’s Mickey Rourke. If you’re only going to see one early Rourke role, this is the one to see. Rourke plays Boogie, a womanizing hairdresser with major gambling debts and too much pride to ask his friends for help. Boogie is the kind of guy who’s trying to compete with his smarter, more successful friends by turning himself into a legend; and it’ll probably kill him. Rourke is firing on all cylinders here; utterly convincing as a kid who knows he’s not as tough or smooth as he lets on. There’s a lot of façade to this character; the clothes the hair the eye-liner, and Rourke gradually and very subtly peals back the layers to reveal a guy who’s allowing the bullshit in his life to prevent him from accomplishing something. Like all quintessential Rourke characters, Boogie is doomed.
THE POPE OF GREENWICH VILLAGE (‘84) – Diner put Rourke on the map, but he avoids leading man parts and tries to work with good directors. In Coppola’s Rumble Fish Rourke plays a living legend; it’s his 4th film. As the wistful Motorcycle Boy, Rourke easily steals the show (not too tough when acting with the then-awful Matt Dillon). Next, he’s paired up with Eric Roberts in Stuart Rosenberg’s The Pope of Greenwich Village. As Charlie, an Italian ‘street guy’ down on his luck, Rourke is convincing and continually surprising. His accent and demeanor are solid, but the nuanced performance he gives is overshadowed by the horror of Eric Roberts. This film should be required viewing in all acting schools due to the extreme gap between its stars’ acting approaches. Rourke is fairly naturalistic; Roberts is GIGANTIC. This clash of the young thespians sabotages the film, ensuring that there’s never any real connection between the main characters. It’s clearly Roberts’ fault: he does way too much, and everything he does, is almost stunningly wrong. In a role that reeks of actorly desperation, Roberts hits every note badly, kills every joke, and drains every scene of any believability. This is such a bad performance that it HAS to be seen, and – at the end of the day – it minimizes everything around it.
YEAR OF THE DRAGON (‘85) – I guess Mickey Rourke’s first film was actually HEAVEN’S GATE, Michael Cimino’s ambitious Western famous mainly for its crash at the box office, though I have no recollection of him in it. It seems fitting that Rourke’s first leading role would be with Cimino as well. Playing a man twice his age (if you believe the birth date in his official bio), Rourke is a burned out racist cop, Stanley White, who gets involved in a gang war brewing in New York’s Chinatown. Though this role is not the best fit for Rourke’s youthful energy, he does well with it (despite his age makeup being uneven scene to scene) and he proves that he could carry a film comfortably enough. Year Of The Dragon deserves more respect than it gets. It’s a solid crime thriller with a good Oliver Stone script and an interesting (for its time) setting. The film also boasts a great villain in the always-under-rated John Lone, whose cool Asian elegance makes a great counterpoint to Rourke’s greasy working class angst. Year Of The Dragon is one of Cimino’s best films too. As for Mickey Rourke, he was now on the A-List.
9 ½ WEEKS (‘86) – Rourke’s next film would prove to be one of his biggest successes and yet, foreshadow the career slump that was right around the corner. Adrian Lyne’s 9 ½ Weeks is a hard film to pin down. On the one hand it’s a stylish, somewhat sexy, beautifully realized erotic character study. On the other hand, it’s the film that launched ‘Skin’aMax’ and the lame sub-genre of soft-core erotica. Rourke plays John, a Wall Street operator who gets involved in a kinky affair with the insecure-but-gorgeous Kim Basinger. They have lots of (acceptably) pervy sex and then, unable to find any real feeling or meaning, break up. 9 ½ Weeks is a superficial film about superficiality. It does titillate and the chemistry between Rourke and Basinger is nothing to sneeze at, but ultimately it fails to transcend the shock value. 9 ½ Weeks quickly became something of a punch line and its graphic sexuality didn’t really do any favors for the public’s perception of Mickey Rourke the actor. It was right around this time that I subconsciously began to insert the word “sleazy” before the description of every single Mickey Rourke role.
ANGEL HEART (’87) - Alan Parker’s supernatural mystery, Angel Heart is the jewel of Mickey Rourke’s career. The casting is perfect: Rourke is a sleazy ‘50s private eye, Harry Angel, hired by the frightening Robert DeNiro, to find a missing teen idol. The case leads him to New Orleans on ‘a voyage of self discovery’; the kind you don’t want. It’s Faust as Noire; clever, creepy and disturbing. And, of course, there’s the hot grinding sex with the lovely Lisa Bonet. Angel Heart is a hard film not to love, though Parker never had much love for Rourke. Watching his scenes with Robert DeNiro, it’s also hard not to be impressed by the depth of Rourke’s talent; the way he uses humor and bravado to mask his terror. It’s all there behind his eyes, and all of Harry’s affectations - affectations that may seem forced at first - make complete sense when the twist comes. There’s a reason for the unshaven face, the oral fixation, the sweat; it all works. Yet, the tawdry aspect of Angel Heart seemed to dominate all the public discourse and Mickey Rourke, again, cames out without much respect. Too bad, because he gives a great performance in an excellent film!
BARFLY (’87) – Barfly, Barbet Schroeder’s adaptation of Charles Bukawski stories, gave Mickey Rourke the best role of his career. Playing Henry (a Bukawski stand-in going back to Factotum), Rourke pulls a Method move; adapts a different look, takes on a new speech pattern, and completely embodies this unique character. Henry is sad, funny, brilliant, stupid, and, of course, sleazy. He’s also unforgettable; with his wasted smile and the kind of lust for life that comes with an existential acceptance of one’s mortality. Rourke inhabits this role like never before, giving us a character you can almost smell. It’s his best performance. And it gets completely overlooked. And this, in away, brakes Mickey’s heart.
It’s at this point things take a clear downturn for Mickey Rourke. He makes JOHNNY HANDSOME with Walter Hill, a film about a physically deformed criminal who is unable to go straight after he is made handsome thru plastic surgery. The film is OK, but it also foreshadows Rourke’s own obsession with changing his appearance. By the time WILD ORCHID - a lame 9 ½ Weeks retread - comes out, Mickey’s obviously had some work done. He’s also packed on about 30 pounds of muscle and got involved with his co-star Carre Otis. The Otis part makes sense, but why a 35 year old actor would change his appearance so drastically at such a critical juncture of his career, is a mystery on par with Stonehenge.
Narcissism may be the obvious answer and it’s a quality that seems to dominate Rourke’s career from this point on. He’s paired up with Don Johnson for the action spoof, HARLEY DAVIDSON AND THE MARLBORO MAN (’91). It’s like pairing Rodney Dangerfield with George Bush; nobody gets any respect. And though this early stab at post-modern cinema is better than most people think, Rourke’s pumped-up, barely recognizable physiognomy and lazy macho posturing define his acting style for the next decade. To overcome bad plastic surgery, Mickey – of course! – returns to the boxing ring. He wins all of his bloody bouts with low-ranked palookas and gets his face further re-arranged. By now, Mickey Rourke is a joke; finished as a leading man. Barely able to sustain his troubled and overcrowded life with lame direct-to-video fair like BULLET and DOUBLE TEAM.
By early ‘00s, Rourke decides to start taking smaller roles in more serious films. He does good work in THE PLEDGE, SPUN, and DOMINO. Of course the fact that Mickey no longer looks or sounds like he used to… makes it hard to be welcomed back. His big chance comes with Robert Rodriguez in SIN CITY. Playing the (again) doomed Marv, under tons of makeup, Rourke delivers a strong performance. He’s easily the best thing in a film that’s big on style, but small on drama. Ultimately Sin City collapses under its multi-story structure, but the Marv segment gives Rourke a chance to act without the distractions of his actual body, and he comes through. Conversely, Darren Aronofsky uses the wreck of Mickey Rourke to tell a story of a man whose life is a wreck.
It’s extremely effecting to see Rourke portray a guy who’s as sad as he is. Though I can’t help thinking that the difference between Randy “the Ram” and Mickey ‘the’ Rourke is this: Ram was a kind-hearted pro who simply got old and sick. Rourke, on the other hand, was a vain prick who (allegedly) abused his directors and acted unprofessionally, so when all the weirdness started, Hollywood just said: “Good riddance, Mick”. Now Rourke is back in full contrition mode and everybody loves him again. Hopefully Mickey, the actor makes the most of this and does some good work again. I just don’t know if Mickey, the man is capable of surviving the third act.
