Christian and Bruce In: The Advancing Case of Butthurt

“Advancing” having the disease-related meaning. See, I think Bruce Willis and Christian Bale both suffer from a similar career ailment.

I was dicking around on Youtube and happened upon the entire pilot of “Moonlighting”. Not to narc (WACHUN THINGS FO FREE IS WRANG), but for those of you who are unfamiliar, “Moonlighting” was the big break of Bruce Willis. What's shocking is that he doesn't play a beleaguered lone wolf cop, he doesn't play a cop who plays by his own rules, he doesn't even play a police officer who routinely disregards the procedures of his department. He plays a smarmy, charming private detective, who will mug at any opportunity and sounds like he walked out of His Girl Friday. And he's a god-damned revelation. He's hilarious, and you wonder what the hell happened to that side of him. I'll tell you: Hudson Hawk happened.

Hudson Hawk was produced after Die Hard 2: Hard Dierest. Opinions on it range from “pretty good” to “war crime”; the only quality-related thing people agree on was that Japan loved it. Personally? I enjoyed it. But it was a huge flop back in its day, huge enough that it almost crippled Bruce's career. That's (almost certainly) because it was marketed as a Die Hard-esque action movie, when in reality it's a screwball deconstructive caper a la Lupin III. It is literally the opposite of Die Hard, and I contend that the massive gap between its advertised tone and its actual tone contributed to its failure and its continued bad reputation.

And Bruce Willis has never done another straight comedy. He's done comedic action roles, but most often he plays the Straight Man, as in The Fifth Element. And it's a damned crime, because Bruce has massive comedic chops. Huge, leathery, spankable chops. Nowadays, he stretches himself just often enough to madden us. He does things like Looper, and then does 20 awful action movies, and it's a damned waste of everything about him.

Christian Bale, the other person in this blog post's title, is much better at picking projects. But he does similarly dark and gloomy projects. Christian Bale got his start in movies like Empire of the Sun and Henry V, which happens to be one of my favorite movies AND my favorite Shakespeare play. Then, he did Newsies. It was fun, it was jaunty, and it was a light, charming role for him. He played Jack Kelly, a devil-may-care orphan from the wrong side of the tracks. And while you can debate the quality of Newsies (I personally love it), you can't argue that it's full of life and energy, and Jack Kelly is probably the lightest and most carefree role Christian Bale has ever played. But...it flopped. Like, hard. It's built up a cult following recently, but at the time it could have (and probably did) kill careers.

Here's what I think happened. See, Christian Bale never played another character as fun or uncomplicated as Jack Kelly. I can see him, as a young actor, taking the flop of Newsies personally. Just as I'm sure Bruce Willis took his pet project Hudson Hawk's flop personally. I can see Christian saying to himself, “No more fun, no more joy, I'm going to fucking act the fuck out of every other role I get” and I can see him never taking another role (beside his turn in Shaft) that wasn't meaty and weighty. I can see him being driven and obsessed with serious shit. And he's done so. Even as Batman, he's brought a weight and seriousness to it. Even as John Connor, he took it seriously enough to flip the fuck out at a guy adjusting lights.

He and Bruce Willis seem to have forgotten how to have fun at acting. Bruce Willis is arguably much better at comedy, and much better at portraying fun characters. But Christian Bale at least showed promise as a gleeful, carefree character in Newsies. And his turn in American Psycho shows that he can do comedy. It's true that Christian Bale has pushed himself very well throughout his career, taking roles that are physically and emotionally demanding and challenging. And he has excelled at them. But he rarely seems to enjoy them. And Bruce Willis' natural talent for comedy makes his recent career choices more depressing. When I look at Bruce Willis in interviews, particularly for A Good Day to Die Hard, his manner and demeanor seem like that of Jeff Goldblum at the end of The Fly; lost, resigned, and begging to be put out of his misery.

They both seem to have decided, because of a poorly performing lighthearted project, to devote themselves to things that people think they should devote themselves to. Bruce Willis has been doing Die Hard-esque movies since the early 90's, reliving the same plots and characters like he's starring in Groundhog Day 2: Squander Your Career. Christian Bale, though excelling in his chosen projects, has been “Super Serious Stop Having Fun While Acting” guy since Newsies. And that's sad. Probably not as sad as Bruce Willis. But sad.




Bruce Willis is getting up there. It's possible that the event horizon of age has captured him, and he feels that he can only do projects where he is an aging action hero who professes to be “too old for this shit”. But god, he could make you laugh back in the day. Christian Bale can do light-hearted stuff as well. Every movie doesn't have to be The Fighter The Machinist, The Dark Knight, and Rescue Dawn. Caveat: I can't begin to comprehend how much pressure these two men are under. I can't begin to understand the various celebrity psychoforces tugging and pulling at their emotions. But god, I can dream. And I have eyes and a heart. And I hope they both find it in themselves to fucking relax a bit, find themselves again (as it seems in Bruce Willis' case, find their souls again) and have some fun. I do hope so. And I'm hoping for Hudson Hawk II: Hawk Hudsoner. A man can dream, can't he?