The real Bobby Kent was buff, Middle Eastern and Persian, so I don't understand why not put a similar actor to play him?
shareIt would look racist.....
shareStahl was not intimidating. Kent was a 6'4 juicer. Nevertheless, Stahl did OK in the role.
shareThat's always kind of bothered me, as well. Not the race thing, because I didn't know about it (if I had, that would have bothered me too, though, to some extent) but Stahl's small size. It actually bothered me before I even saw the real Bobby Kent or knew anything about the true life story behind all of this. I remember watching this even as a kid (yes, I was watching this as a kid lol) and being so confused about why anyone would be afraid of this guy or sit back as he hurt them. It looked like every other guy in this movie could take this guy, for Pete's sake.
I mean, I still loved the movie and thought Stahl, in particular, was great in it. But that aspect of the movie always did seem very weird to me. And when I finally saw the actual person and how big he was it made the events in the movie make a lot more sense to me. But it made the casting choice make even less sense.
Likewise, although to a much lesser extent, when I saw the real Lisa, and that she was kind of fat and unattractive, it made more sense to me than how she was shown in the movie. I remember one scene, in particular, where Bobby makes fun of her weight and just thinking, "Wtf is this guy talking about?" because she didn't appear even slightly heavy.
The rest of the casting, while they didn't look like the characters, doesn't bother me so much. But these two do due to the sheer fact that their appearance actually factors into the plot.
Nick Stahl is 5'10". Brad Renfro was 5'8". Lol. I think this thread got off on a silly tangent. There is no reason why a guy like Stahl couldn't be a bully. And he intimidated verbally, not physically anyway.
Of course they're going to cast more attractive actors for roles in any drama based on real life. A fat dumpy Lisa? A big ugly Persian Bobby? Please. That could have been the difference between a successful film and a flop.
It is kind of odd, and they chose to ignore his heavy steroid use which could explain his aggressive behaviour.
The most hilarious thing though is the casting of the girls who were all babes when their real life counterparts were absolute hounds.
The director apparently was afraid the make a movie stereotyping middle Eastern males so he changed the race to white. Which is ridiculous because it was a true story and the guy murdered was an Arab. The director did not want any backlash.
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