There’s No Such Thing as a Bad Gene Hackman Movie
The Mighty Gene Hackman was found dead in his home in New Mexico Wednesday night, along with his wife and dog. The former U.S. Marine and two-time Oscar winner’s cause of death is not yet known, though the local authorities have so far ruled out foul play. He was 95.
Hackman’s movie career began 61 years ago with Lilith (1964) and ended exactly 40 years later with Welcome to Mooseport (2004). In-between he racked up over 70 credits, which made him one of our busiest actors. Most years, he appeared in more than one movie. In 2001, he starred in five. Still, we never tired of him. He was too talented and too relatable to ever become over-exposed. He was also smart enough to keep his private life private and to stay off of television. If you wanted to see Gene Hackman, you had to go to the movies.
Everything Gene Hackman did he elevated. His presence reassured us that no matter how bad the movie, you knew he’d turn it around, make it worth your time, and own the screen.
And when I say own the screen, I mean own it. Watch Unforgiven (1992) again. Hackman’s up against three titans — Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, and Richard Harris. Gene Hackman, the guy who looks like your uncle the electrician, commands every scene.
There was no one like him.
File/The cast of the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde posing with guns. From left to right: actor Gene Hackman as Buck Barrow, actress Estelle Parsons as Blanche Barrow, actor Warren Beatty as Clyde Barrow, actress Faye Dunaway as Bonnie Parker, and actor Michael J. Pollard as C.W. Moss.
Just a few weeks ago, my wife and I watched Lilith (1964), Hackman’s first credited screen role. He has one scene as an everyday husband named Norman, a small town man full of insecurities over his station in life and the fact he married way above his physical pay grade (to a young Jessica Walter). Norman knows he was his wife’s second choice, and when her first choice shows up in the form of Warren Beatty… Wow. It’s just one scene and it’s already all there — the depth, the subtext, that glorious Hackman chuckle — a lived-in character who’s allowed his insecurities to turn him into a bully, and yet we still empathize with him, relate to him, pity him.
Last week, we watched what are widely regarded as two of Hackman’s worst movies: Power (1986) and The Chamber (1996). Both are beyond flawed, but so what…? The Mighty Gene Hackman is in them. And the two roles could not be more different.
In Power, he breaks your heart as Wilfred, an aging campaign manager betrayed by his protégé Pete St. John (Richard Gere). Pete is young, rich, and on top. Wilfred is middle-aged and was once on top. Now he’s a man without a place in the world, a man suffering the endless indignities that come with the slow and inevitable slide to obsolescence. Seventy-five percent of what Hackman delivers in Power is not in the script. It’s unspoken and heartbreaking and pathetic and just plain great.
In The Chamber Hackman is Sam Cayhall, a vicious racist and former Klansman on Death Row in Mississippi for murdering two Jewish boys in a bombing. Cayhall not only ruined that Jewish family, his hatred annihilated his own family.
File/Original 1972 Caption/ Hollywood, California: Academy Award winners celebrating after the awards are Ben Johnson, Gene Hackman, Cloris Leachman and Charlie Chaplin.
For most of the story, Cayhall is one of the most vile characters you’ll ever see on screen — an arrogant and unrepentant racist, something pure in his evil. Nevertheless, and again without a word or actorly trick, Hackman communicates this man’s humanity . You don’t see it. Instead, you sense it and you empathize with him. Something tells you Cayhall’s trapped in all that arrogance and hate because no one taught him to be anything else.
You might argue that the only reason we empathize with him is because he’s Gene Hackman. Nope. And to believe such a thing would be an insult to Hackman’s ability as an actor. There was nothing empathetic about his characters in The Quick and the Dead (1995), Absolute Power (1997), or Crimson Tide (1995).
Hackman gives Cayhall that unspoken humanity to make sense of what’s coming. You see, that’s what great actors do: they lay the track that tells you we’re headed somewhere unknown, which compels you to keep watching.
The Chamber is saddled with a dreadful script based on a John Grisham story. Hackman alone makes it watchable and, at least in my case, rewatchable. Same with Superman IV (1987), Target (1985), Loose Cannons (1990), and Company Business (1991).
Hackman also made a pile of good-to-great movies that too many people have not seen. These are treasures well worth your time…
Prime Cut (1971) – A crime thriller starring Lee Marvin as Devlin and Hackman as Mary Ann (not a typo). White slavery, meat, tough guys, more meat, vengeance, still more meat. A total original and frequently disturbing pulper that could’ve only come out of the seventies.
Twice in a Lifetime (1985) – Hackman plays Harry Mackanzie a factory worker with grown children in a marriage so comfortable it’s gone cold. On his 50th birthday, Harry wants to go out. His wife Kate (Ellen Burstyn) tells him to go ahead. He does and meets Ann-Margaret. What follows is the gut-wrenching destruction of a family where you sympathize with everyone.
Full Moon in Blue Water (1988) – Hackman is Floyd, the middle-aged owner of a bar located on a small island off the coast of Texas. His wife just up and disappeared last year. He’s been adrift ever since. His taxes are unpaid. Sharks in the form of developers are circling. He has to take care of his crippled father-in-law (Burgess Meredith) and the local school bus driver, Louise (the always enchanting Teri Garr), is kind of in love with him. A wonderful, funny, touching, slice-of-life movie that never fails.
File/Gene Hackman pointing a handgun in a publicity still issued for the film, ‘The French Connection’, 1971. The crime thriller, directed by William Friedkin, starred Hackman as ‘Detective Jimmy ‘Popeye’ Doyle’.
The Package (1989) – Hackman is nothing short of great playing a Green Beret Master Sergeant matching wits with an equally great Tommy Lee Jones, who is determined to assassinate the U.S. President. On paper, this is a B-movie, but a superb cast (Joanna Cassidy, John Heard, Dennis Franz, Reni Santoni, Pam Grier) coupled with superb direction from Andrew Davis works magic.
Narrow Margin (1990) – Top-shelf remake of the classic 1952 noir thriller about a deputy district attorney (Hackman) and his witness (Anne Archer) trapped on a train with professional assassins. On top of M. Emmet Walsh, James Sikking, and J.T. Walsh, you have the sure hand of Peter Hyams, a director who has never received his due.
Class Action (1991) – Courtroom thriller that pits a Ralph Nader-type attorney (Hackman) against his estranged daughter and corporate attorney (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). A master class in acting starring two masters.
Gene Hackman had everything and so much more. He was a leading man and character actor. He was as believable as an action hero as he was a despicable villain or Everyman. He conquered every imaginable genre from farce to tragedy to blockbuster. He made us howl with laughter. He filled our eyes with tears. We applauded his heroism and applauded just as hard when the hero defeated him.
And like John Garfield, Barbara Stanwyck, Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, John Wayne, Charles Bronson, Robert Duvall, and Michael Caine, Gene Hackman could not appear in a bad movie because his appearance always made it something special.
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2025/02/27/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-gene-hackman-movie/
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