Which actor do we need right now? I’ll tell you. It’s Michael Douglas. In a time of such political uproar and social devestatation, we need someone on our movie screens emulating the darkness of man, aswell as the charm of man. We need an everyman and yet many are under the illusion that the perfect Hollywood everyman is Tom Hanks, but it is of course not the case. Because Tom Hanks isn’t every man. Michael Douglas is. His characters cheat, have addictions, charm us and deal with real human issues of darkness. In short... Michael Douglas is the actor we need most right now, and god, he’s just superb. To prove my point, and quite frankly just to talk about some of my favourite films, I returned to the most pivitol films in his career. 

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Romancing the Stone (1984, Dir. Robert Zemeckis)

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We begin very aptly with a film whose first frame reads “A Michael Douglas film”.  Romancing the Stone is an awful lot more, but at the core of this 1984 wildly entertaining adventure romp is Douglas’s performance and ingenuity as a producer. For many years as I’ll illuminate after this film, Douglas produced projects with himself in mind for the lead only to realise that others would be better. That was finally not the case with Stone, with Douglas giving us his original leading man breakthrough as Jack Colton, a charming, roughian adventurer who we can’t help root for and follow, no matter where he takes us. The film comes from the only script of Diane Thomas, who died tragically in a car accident in the car that Douglas gifted her for her work on the script. Despite the script then being perfected by three separate script doctors, the core concept and structure is ingenious. Kathleen Turner stars as Joan Wilder, a romance novelist who dreams of the sorts of adventures that she’s about to embark upon unknowingly as she is swept in by a web of baddies all in search of a precious stone. Leading her through this treacherous journey that she has landed herself in is Douglas’s Colton, an Indiana Jones type who releases all of her inhibitions and helps her along as this soppy writer becomes our true hero. Turner is excellent in the film and her journey is perhaps the true highlight, but the film is genuinely full of highlights. Whether it be Danny De Vito’s terrific supporting turn as Ralph, a bumbling, fumbling sidekick to his similarly funny cousin Ira played by Zack Norman. Or whether it be the brilliant direction of Robert Zemeckis, highlighting his supreme talent in constructing set pieces and balancing high octane thrills with interesting characters and very funny comedy beats. Or whether it be (chiefly important for this article) Douglas, who is so deviously rugged and devilish that we love to grimace at him, before falling in love with him just as easily as Turner does.

We must also not forget about Douglas incredible work as a producer in the world of film, starting off when he was passed over the reins from his father to the rights to Ken Kessey’s classic book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, ultimately leading to the 1975 film of the same name and same acclaim. But Douglas has also led to other interesting films being produced in every decade after this. With films such as; Starman (1984), Flatliners (1990), Face/Off (1997), just to name a few. Alongside this also producing films that he would go on to star in, again across multiple decades, such as; The China Syndrome (1979), Romancing the Stone (1984), The Ghost and the Darkness (1996). However Douglas is perhaps best known for his acting work in late 80’s and early 90’s, primarily the year of 1987, which saw him win his best actor Oscar for his work in Wall Street, aswell as starring before that in one of his most revered and well-known films in his oeuvre. Adrian Lyne’s psycho-sexual classic Fatal Attraction.

Fatal Attraction (1987, Dir. Adrian Lyne)

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I simply do believe that this film has no legs if not for Douglas driving home the intensity of the situation – we would still have an incredible script exemplifying a perfect slow build structure, we would still have vital and specific direction from Adrian Lyne, and we still have one of the greatest performances of all time from Glen Close. But without Douglas this film would fail to key into what made it the huge success that it undoubtedly was. We know Dan Gallagher, Douglas’s character, is a bastard and even he knows it, which makes all of this all the more intriguing and stellar to watch. Douglas is the ultimate everyman, not Tom Hanks, because every man isn’t as perfect as Tom Hanks in his films. But every man makes mistakes and every man has to deal with those mistakes. Hence, Douglas is your man and always will be. The exact point I’m trying to make with this essay (albeit a superfluous and superficial one to allow me to explore the career of one of my favourite actors) can be noted with this film alone. It’s not even nessecerilly that we are rooting for Dan, it’s simply that we can’t help but wonder whether or not we would act any different in the situations that arise for him. Douglas drives it all home for us and parks the car perfectly come the final frame, if we want to extended the driving metaphor.

Wall Street (1987, Dir. Oliver Stone)

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And now we get to Douglas’s more than deserved first and currently only Oscar for any of his performances. With Gordon Gecko Douglas not only made Oliver Stone’s Wall Street a film that will be worthy of rewatch for many, many multiple years to come, but also made an already excellently conceived character, one of the greatest of all time. The formidable and criminal stock broker that is the complete and absolute idol of Charlie Sheen’s corruptible Bud Fox and the most complete and certainly heightened personification of 80’s greed and consumerism ever put to screen. Douglas a Gecko makes this film that flits between serious drama and purely joyous celebration of what made the 80’s on screen so enjoyable and indelible. Stone constructs in his script and direction a fury of intense and constantly dynamic scenes that plot out the rise and fall of a budding broker completely enamoured by Douglas shining meteoric ranking in the world of the economy of this movie. Sheen perhaps could be seen to have the tougher role with the shifting nature of Fox’s character and his many genuinely brilliant scenes that he shares with his real life father Martin Sheen, as his fictional father Carl Fox. There’s something about the relentlessness of this film in its plot and pace and intense characters that I think undoubtedly coloured all of the rise and fall brand of movies that we would get as the decade continued and into the 90’s. Of all the brilliant visual flourishes that Stone brings to this film, the power of its still undoubtedly lies in the power of Douglas’s Gecko. A character and a performance for the ages, that led to a more than deserving Oscar win. Bravo Douglas. And Indeed Bravo Stone.

Black Rain (1989, Dir. Ridley Scott)

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A cop on the edge, a conspiracy on the rise, a killer on the loose: Now that is a tagline. Our cop is Douglas as his first role as a detective named Nick, this one is similarly corrupt and bouncing back, not unlike the Nick we will find in Basic Instinct. This is perhaps Douglas’s best action role, with Romancing the Stone offering us a more adventurous and fantastical action hero, here in Ridley Scott’s beautiful and dynamic Osaka set action thriller we are given instead a more realistic figure and more brutal action to suit it. Douglas is paired with a young Andy Garcia highlighting the charisma and power that would guide his career, here as Charlie he fits the role of younger compadre perfectly and features in the films central and most memorable scene. The film is set in Osaka and Scott brings us into the world perfectly, with neon and steam in the air and a realism to the sets and characters, despite some heightened villains. In Osaka Nick is paired with a Japanese detective, played by Ken Takakura, whose stillness is deafening and brings a real stoicism to the events in the film. Our villain of Sato, the final role of Yusaku Matsuda, is a true beastly foe to be taken down and we really can’t wait until he is dealt with, as any good villain should be. In regards to the films possible datedness, it does follow in the odd tradition built from the Best Picture winning In the Heat of the Night where a racist hardened cop is paired with a minority and comes to learn that they’re not bad. A grand tradition perfected in this and the comedy 48 Hours, that does nothing in actuality but make our leads repugnant in their racial attitudes and tough to like. This of course does fade and Douglas’s Nick and his relationship with Takatura’s Massahiro does grow to become a core of the film. But in actuality the true core is the brutal action and the gorgeous and gritty setting, with Jan De Pont shooting Osaka like a Blade Runner deleted scene instilling it with realism rather than science-fiction, and with Scott directing some of the best action of his career – with the final hand to hand mud fight being not just one of his best, but one of the best of the decade. What started as a spec script for Beverly Hills Cop 2 eventually became Black Rain, and fans of crime films, Japanese action and gritty cinema alike were very thankful for it.

The War of the Roses (1989, Dir. Danny De Vito)

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In my opinion, frankly one of the most underrated comedies of all time, dark or otherwise. De Vito’s incredible direction of Michael Leeson’s adaptation of Warren Adler’s book packs as much as hilariously dark subversive comedy as one can into a single script and never fails to deliver to the visual kicks that this film needs to propel us through the tale of the romance, marriage and ultimate divorce of Oliver and Barbara Rose. Reuniting our Romancing the Stone trio of Douglas, Turner and De Vito (with De Vito this time in front and behind the camera), a horrifically dark re-imagining of ‘after’ Stone puts Douglas and Turner against each other in a brilliantly devised and delivered battle of the sexes and crucially of the wits. Here Douglas once again shows off his comedic chops, playing a deeply disturbed and affected heightening of his regular everyman character. His chemistry with Turner in the first half of the film truly knows no bounds and Turner is similarly sensational as his firstly doting, and then hating wife. The film has such a key finger on the pulse of what makes a film like this work so well; a reliance on interesting characters, told in a visually dynamic and propellant manner, culminating in one of the finest comedic sequences I’ve ever seen. This is definitely a film I will be talking about more on this blog and the podcast, and I frankly can’t wait to return to it.

Disclosure (1994, Dir. Barry Levinson)

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This truly bonkers and painfully dated sexual thriller from the mind of Jurassic Park scribe Michael Crichton is a true 90’s delight, featuring such insane plot concepts and dialogue that it’s truly disastrously watchable. The film follows Douglas as Tom Sanders over a week in his life, as previous lover Meredith Johnson, played sensually by Demi Moore, makes advances upon him, only for him to reject her and for her to accuse him of sexual harassment. The plot is remarkably outlandish and is most likely what the kids today would call ‘problematic’. The insane plot leads us to find that the planned false accusation was all just a piece of a larger shafting to get Douglas out of the company, run by Donald Sutherland on a rather villainous turn. One of the most hilarious parts of the film is a truly crazy nightmare sequence where Douglas imagines Sutherland hitting on him in a elevator, only to cut to a snap zoom of Douglas screaming out load in the middle of the night. Paul Attanasio’s adaptation of Chricton’s novel has some absolute screamers when it comes to dialogue and features some very funny attempts to highlight both sides of the debate being shown. Anytime a woman speaks, you never really forget that it’s a old guy writing for them. Moore is naturally sexy and powerful in her role and Douglas is great as the frazzled male that he is so great at giving us, but the film just is simply too absurd to be enjoyable un-ironically. There is even a truly laughable extended plotline regarding a new computer system called ‘the corridor’ with dated special effects to no end and a performance from Douglas that makes you think he has suddenly turned to hate the film that he is in. It’s the last gasp of the sub-genre of ‘Douglas erotic thrillers’ and in many ways the last gasp of the ‘erotic thriller’ genre itself. A very enjoyable and very bad film.

The American President (1995, Dir. Rob Reiner)

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Although many could categorise the film as another Reiner rom-com to be discussed in the same breath as When Harry Met Sally, I consider this a pure true Hollywood romance movie. There is comedy and the comedy is great, with another Reiner pairing with an Aaron Sorkin script you’d expect no less. But the romance between a flawless Annette Benning and Michael Douglas as one of the best movie presidents of the era, is painfully underrated in the cannon of the genre, to the point that this is often my go to recommendation when it comes to romance films. Soorkin’s script is superb and Reiner’s simple but effective direction of it is similarly stellar, however Douglas is the biggest winner here for me. His turn as fictional president Andrew Sheppard is filled with so many different layers, maximising all of Douglas’s greatest attributes as a an actor. His vulnerability and placidness when reflecting upon his losses in life and the current turbulent nature of his relationship and election fills us with a great sense of empathy for a man in love thwarted by his position on the global stage. Douglas is also very believable as a president, a key aspect that I feel many political movies fail to attempt. Douglas’s Sheppard is mannered and charming and ultimately comes off as a great man and an effective leader. The film culminates in an ungodly rousing speech from Sheppard, where Douglas brings to life some of the most beautiful and stirring words that Soorkin has ever scribed in his career. The political stances of Sheppard may seem borderline far-fetched and dangerously naive in regards to their opportunism, but on Douglas’s tongue they raise above their blindly hopeful nature and become incredibly effecting pieces of ammunition in a war for peace and hope in the world that we are regretfully still fighting today, and will I feel fight every day. Frank Capra gets name dropped earlier in the film and I see this as no great mistake. Capra is the biggest influence here and his great films of optimism and political hope (It’s a Wonderful Life and Mr Smith Goes to Washington to name but a few) spur this film on and Reiner and Sorrkin’s modern take on such a type of film is an immense success.  I just long for more and more people to see this glorious film.  

The Game (1997, Dir. David Fincher)

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On a first watch this excellent Fincher thriller is a paranoid drama that takes you on an almost madcap journey through an underworld society that really stretches the depths of human trust. However on a second watch after we learn the complete truth of the titular game that Douglas’s millionaire Nicholas Van Orton is involved in, we find ourselves instead rather watching a painfully taut psychological human drama exploring the deep suffering of a man dealing with great trauma. The strength of the repeat watching’s, and first watch for that matter, lie in Douglas’s performance. There is no doubt that Fincher directs an impeccable piece, but the chaotic energy and immense confusion from Douglas leads to the films palpable dread and ultimate catharsis. The film is very much absurd and if one were to spend more than thirty seconds picking apart the plot, they may find themselves enjoying the film significantly less, however I find repeatedly that the film works more so as a feature length Twilight Zone episode with a fairy-tale sub-text working within the parameters of disbelief suspension that that offers. Ultimately the film is about a man who is driven to suicide, following the same fate as his father, before being given a second chance. The character of Nicholas Van Orton is not the morally worst of Douglas’s previous characters and yet it seems the plot of the film is almost an accumulative comeuppance for the previous bastards that he has played.  In many ways the film is not unlike a modern thriller based version of It’s a Wonderful Life or even A Christmas Carol, but it is the dark and always exceptional edge of Fincher and the deep human pathos of Douglas that lead to the film becoming so much more than that. I actually believe that it is the level of elevation that these two bring to the material that have led to the film’s speculation over the years, for I have no doubt that in the hands of lesser directors and actors, then the film would be a perfectly serviceable little thriller. What I’m trying to say is that from a standpoint of scrutiny, it is the heightened quality that Fincher and Douglas bring to the material that serves as the film’s biggest detriment, but that is purely from a cynic’s point of view. My view is instead of a great fan of the film, who thinks it ranks amongst Douglas’ best performances.

A Perfect Murder (1998, Dir. Andrew Davis)

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This loose adaptation of Dial M for Murder, sexed up and more graphic for the late 90’s crowd does in many ways marks the end of a certain type of Douglas vehicle. As I have commented repeatedly throughout this article, Douglas is at his best as the scumbag everyman that we all wish we could never be, A Perfect Murder however places Douglas in the role of a villainous manipulating husband concocting an elaborate scheme on his unwitting adulterous bride, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, after he comes into knowledge of her affair with Viggo Mortensen. The film is a pretty tense affair and has many exciting twists as scheme upon scheme falls apart and our three leads continue to outwit and manipulate one another into doing whatever they want. For as ruggedly sexy as Mortensen is in this film he just is pretty dull performance wise, which is only highlighted more so by the brilliance of Douglas’s stillness and the high quality of Paltrow’s vulnerability and longing. Plot wise and visually the film is unfortunately a rehash of a rehash, it’s certainly better than a lot of 90’s thrillers, down in small part to Douglas’s performance (which really is very enjoyable to watch), however of all the films in this article, it would certainly be further down the ranking list.

Wonder Boys (2000, Dir. Curtis Hanson)

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A late era push for a second Oscar for Douglas came somewhat unexpectedly with this Curtis Hanson directed adaptation of the Michael Chabon novel of the same name, following English professor (and successful but stagnant novelist) Grady Tripp (Douglas) as he manoeuvres a couple of days around a terribly wintery and horribly rainy weekend, which the films taglines describes as “a weekend from hell became the time of his life”. I think this tagline may very well put a little bit more levity and joy into the situation than the one we actually get, however Wonder Boys is a very underrated film in the late era Douglas cannon. The films dry and adult sensibility is very reminiscent of The Ice Storm from three years prior, not just due to the Katie Holmes and Tobey Maguire being around with us again – for me the literary sensibility and focus on human relationships is what makes the two films feel like a suitable pairing. Boys certainly does have its focus on the literary side of things, with the entire plot and every sub-plot within it relating in some way or another to a historical tradition of the like of The Catcher in the Rye or self-focussed explorative novels of that fashion. Douglas is brilliant in this film as Grady and is truly the centrepiece to all of the action. He is a wry and foreboding certainty that the rest of our wildly floating characters can cling to, despite him being just as loose in his own way. Douglas’s Tripp also narrates the film, with Hanson and screenwriter Steve Kloves frequently playing to great effect with immediate juxtaposition of what Douglas is saying and what is actually happening. It’s an interesting and very funny way to expand on the unreliable narrator trope. The key relationship in the film is Grady Tripp to Macguire’s James Leer, an almost whimsically depressed student of his and an author in his own right. Their back and forth is a frequently honest and dependant one that brings the film’s title to a close focus. The film did win an Oscar, not for Douglas, but for Bob Dylan, for his Best Original Song “Things have changed”, an ultimately very fitting and sardonic song that underscores the film perfectly. Although a small floury of critical praise was given on release, I think one can comment nowadays that the film really is underrated, and a stellar entry into the oddly stacked and similarly underrated filmography of Curtis Hanson.

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009, Dir. Mark Waters)

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 A perfectly serviceable rom-com with a big heart starring Matthew McConaughey as Scrooge the sex-stud, a bachelor who is haunted by the ghosts of his past love life during his brother’s wedding. Mark Waters directs a perfectly fine script with many a touching and funny moment. But the best thing the film has going for it, besides the immense charisma and charm of McConaughey, is Douglas. Douglas appears multiple times in the film as the pseudo Jacob Marley figure, a bachelor in his own right recently deceased named Uncle Wayne, who taught McConaughey’s Connor Mead everything he knows. The role is a real gem and gives the actor a lot of wonderful chances to really dig into the playful nature of an elderly bachelor type, in a role originally offered to Warren Beatty, Robert De Niro, Bill Murray and Jack Nicholson. All fine choices who would have been just as great as Douglas. Nicholson maybe even a little more. But Douglas gives the role a touch of sincerity and history that you’d miss with De Niro and Murray. Beatty’s a different story, with both men indulging in their hedonistic natures from time to time and both famous for doing so. The uncle Wayne we get with Douglas is a real treat and every time he’s not on screen, you want him there, and every time he is on screen, you simply never want him to leave. The film’s biggest problem is that it teases us with a character funnier than a lot of the other sequences that we have to watch. All the same the film is a fine joint and is one that I’d ultimately very much recommend.

Behind The Candelabra (2013, Dir. Steven Soderbergh)

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Our final film in this retrospective of a career of a true legend is his absolutely masterful portrayal of another legend; Liberace, in Steven Soderbergh’s feature length adaptation of Scott Thorson (one of Liberace’s lovers) autobiography about his time with the concert pianist. Released in cinemas over here but put on TV in America due to the film being “too gay” in the eyes of many Hollywood studios according to Soderbergh. Rather than an all encompassing biopic of the wonderfully grand life of the closeted musical extraordinaire, the film instead focuses upon the around 5 year relationship of the performer with Thorson, one of the many younger men whom he took under his wing for love, companionship and indeed... a very good time. Thorson is played by Matt Damon and the two have some incredible chemistry that the humanity, joy and pain of the affair the two had is brought to the screen with all the humour, heart and drama that it undoubtedly had in real life. Douglas’s Liberace is hilarious sparingly, afterall the figure was grandiose and at moments absurd in the frivolities of his life, but Douglas chiefly imbues all of this with an undercurrent of real life drama, culminating  in the tragic death of him. The death scene is haunting and deeply effecting but is unfortunately hindered by some average CGI, that just doesn’t compare to the brilliant makeup work that has been on show all throughout the film. Frankly this is one of Douglas best performances and I do believe that if it went to cinemas as it certainly should have, this may very well have ended up as Douglas’s second Oscar.

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Where’s Basic Instinct, you may ask? Well it’s getting its own double bill next week, with its supremely lesser sequel. So just wait a week for your hit of Sharon Stone. Douglas is now another slave in the MCU, being as wonderful as always in Ant Man, but he’s never actually given anything juicy to work on. It’s all just bland exposition and cheap comedy. But I long for the Douglas films of the late 80’s and early 90’s, all the while in the complete knowledge that the sort of mid-range medium budget adult dramas that he starred in would never make their way to the big screen as they did weekly back then. I miss Michael Douglas, the leading man, although the supporting is still fun. Douglas is the perfect everyman, because he simply is not perfect. Everyman isn’t great. Men cheat, men have affairs, men have addictions, men still try to do their best. Not everybody is Tom Hanks. Michael Douglas is the real everyman, and in short, he’s the actor we need right now. 

-        -  Thomas Carruthers