July 16, 2007

Kevin Costner - Duds and Diamonds

I was watching “Open Range” the other night on television and that got me pondering about the career of Kevin Costner as actor, producer and director. He gave quite a mature performance as Charley Waite the free grazer but he still couldn’t hold a candle to that old scene stealer Robert Duvall. Of course, Costner was also directing and producing this film and made a reasonable job of it. It does seem to be trying to emulate Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven” in its striving for authenticity but is old Hollywood through and through. Still it’s a very watchable film.

But there is a problem with Costner the actor. He’s basicly a lightweight. An agreeable enough Hollywood leading man and action hero but nevertheless a lightweight. He has an annoying nasal tone to his voice and has a range of emotions from A to B. But this is not so different from many Hollywood leading men. His character usually struggles when acting alongside more heavyweight actors such as Duvall, Sean Connery, Alan Rickman. But, in the 1980’s and early 1990s he had a purple patch when he could do no wrong - as actor, producer or director.

Costner seems to be a very clever guy though and keeps on working between the duds and the diamonds. Just look at his track record.

First major appearance in a starring role was in Brian dePalma’s “The Untouchables” in 1987. Playing the boring, decent but driven Elliot Ness opposite Sean Connery’s streetwise Irish Cop (complete with hideous accent) and a powerhouse cameo by Robert de Niro as Al Capone seemed to work and opened up a lot of doors in Hollywood for Costner. His next three films, the pentagon thriller “No Way Out”, the baseball movie “Bull Durham” and the well-loved but schmaltzy “Field of Dreams” all fared well both critically and at the box office. This provided him with a lot of leverage and in 1990 he was allowed to not only star in but produce and direct his film “Dances With Wolves” a tale of the expansion of the western frontier through the eyes of a disaffected soldier who meets and lives with the Plains Indians. This is really Costner’s zenith, his career high point where he produced a truly memorable film which was acknowledged by the industry with Oscars. His standing as a Hollywood player was cemented by this film.

Over the next five years he performed in the likeable “Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves” but was outperformed by Alan Rickman. He also got the production credits. The interminably long conspiracy theory film “JFK” seemed to bring back a little gravitas or weight to his reputation. “The BodyGuard” did well at the box office but was not exactly one of his finest moments. He tried to kick the leading man/ hero image a little in “A Perfect World” but he was shortly to enter into a slump which was difficult to get out of.

His next three major films “Wyatt Earp”, “Waterworld” and “The Postman” showed that power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely. Hollywood gave him such artistic freedom at this point in his career which can be a blessing or a curse. “Wyatt Earp” is a ponderous western that people stayed away from. That should have been a warning sign.

For his next effort, Costner acquired the rights to the greatest unfilmable script in Hollywood - “The Mariner”. He turned it into “Waterworld” in 1995. This was nearly Costner’s “Heaven’s Gate”. There were production problems with filming mostly on water; the budget spiralled out of control; and the film-going public didn’t particularly like it. Costner had no chemistry with the love interest, Jeanne Tripplehorn (known from Basic Instinct) and Dennis Hopper’s pantomime villain didn’t help matters. In hindsight and with the passage of time,”Waterworld” is actually a superior action movie with some tremendous set pieces on the water but its weaknesses weigh it down.

The buck had to stop with Costner who as the leading actor, producer and director had total control over the finished product. His career started to nosedive. This downward plunge was helpd along by “The Postman” in 1997 ,a post apocalyptic tale that did not hit any buttons with the film-going public.

Since that time he has had a checkered career. Whilst he has continued producing several moderately successful films, critically and at the box office, including the romantic “Message in a Bottle” and “Thirteen Days” a political thriller about the Cuban missile crisis, his directing career appeared to have finished until “Open Range” in 2003.

He clearly has an instinct for survival in Hollywood and maybe he will mature as director later as did Clint Eastwood. Until then I am sure he will continue to produce successful movies and maybe act in them.

Kevin Costner Robin Hood film prop arrow