It's hard to believe Mickey Rourke was only 28 years old when this movie was filmed! You would have a tough time today trying to find any actor under 30 who could convincingly play a guy in his late thirties/early forties.
Hell, in today's Hollywood you would a tough time trying to find an actor who really IS in his late thirties/early forties to play this character convincingly!
Well, as much as I love the film, Rourke was never convincing at the age he was portraying. Hell, in his domestic arguments his wife looked more like his mother! Of course, the inconsistent coloring of his hair was problematic, too -- as a critic noted at the time, his "mood hair" keeps changing between prematurely white and prematurely gray.
shareForgot about the "mood hair" quote.
Right after Rourke is promoted to captain and shows up for work, he runs his hand through his hair, which is noticeably darker. The gesture almost suggests he's dyed it as part of his new start. Up until then it works but after that -- mood hair. No excuses, but the film was shot completely out of sequence, pretty much to the point where no two scenes connected.
[deleted]
>>> Well, as much as I love the film, Rourke was never convincing at the age he was portraying. Hell, in his domestic arguments his wife looked more like his mother!
Bingo.
Rourke looked ridiculous in this (but gorgeous). Instead of looking like an older man, he looked like exactly what he was: a 28-year-old young man who had put some white/gray streak in the sides.
Just silly. They should have either done a proper job of making him look older, or found an older actor, or dumped the charade altogether and writing out the parts of the plot that indicated an older character.
EDIT: the one other movie I can think of where they wanted to make a younger actor appear older solely on the basis of graying his hair is Collateral, and the effect fails equally there.
I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man with no sole. ~ Ancient Disco Proverb
He doesn't pull off the 50 asked for the by the original characterization, but I think he worked as a mid-to-late thirties, which is more than enough of an age span necessary for a character out of Nam with 15 years on the force.
shareI thought he'd by mid to late 30's too. Quite unbelievable he was only 28 though. But more fascinating is how much he still looked like Bruce Willis back then. Or the other way around.
shareHow is it that he was 28 and not 33? According to IMDB he was born in 1952 and this movie was released in 1985, surely this movie could not have been shot 5 years earlier when Rourke was just starting his carrier.
share[deleted]
Hard to believe people cant add! He was 33 not 28.
share[deleted]
[deleted]
I think their pairing looks funny only by today's standards where women in their early/mid thirties still look and dress like a twenty-year-olds. Today, they'd never cast such a matronly-looking woman in the same type of role.
What a waste. Oh, the humanity!
I'm in the middle of watching this film right now. I'm surprised to find out that Rourke was only 28 at the time this was filmed. I'm sure the vices and boxing (was he boxing then?), or maybe just his vices aged him. Although I was amused initially when I saw they whitened his hair to make him appear older.
Dalton and Craig! Accept NO substitutes!
[deleted]
He looked sooo much different in this movie than he does today. I honestly would not have believed they were the same person.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xlg69MJnEUA
The only other twenty-something year old that had successfully pulled off playing a character much older than themselves was James Dean in "Giant" and Heath Ledger in "Brokeback Mountain". Mickey Rourke was definitely an acting talent in his younger years without a doubt!
If you love and support Michael Jackson 100%, copy & paste this into your signature. We love MJ!