WHAT IS SPECIAL ABOUT GENE HACKMAN - CASE IN POINT: NIGHT MOVES

When journalists attempt to sum up what is special about Gene Hackman as an actor, they inevitably fall back on comparisons to laborers.  He’s a “lunch bucket’ type of actor.  He’s a tradesman.  He’s a blue collar actor.  He’s one of us.  This type of thing was parodied in TROPIC THUNDER when the Australian actor character played by Robert Downey Jr spoke of his "tools" in an interview.

These oversimplifications are meaningless and are useful only in that morons will find them easy to remember.  Yes, Hackman in his movie roles is someone a lot of American men (and women) find it easy to identify with.

But where Hackman has perhaps carved out a special niche for himself is as a “third” type of actor.  I say “third” because I basically see actors in movies falling into two groups – the first group are movie stars that play versions of themselves in most if not all of their movies – Clint Eastwood is an example of this perhaps Tom Cruise too.  The second group are actors like Dustin Hoffman and Gary Oldman who vanish into a role trying their best to be another person.  Some actors move back and forth between both groups one could say for example Robert De Niro in the first half of his career fit the second kind of actor but more recently perhaps he fits the first.

Hackman though fits neither.  He is instantly recognizable even on the rare occasions he changes his looks for a role but he never plays a caricature of himself.  His characters are film creations not part of a persona but yet he never disappears into them.  The name of Gene Hackman and the character he plays are equal when he’s in a film.

While I think THE FRENCH CONNECTION is still the greatest film Hackman has made, I think his best performance might be in NIGHT MOVES an extremely well written film.

Here Hackman plays all American middle-aged masculinity which looks good on the surface (former professional football player private eye business) but is falling apart underneath (wife cheating on him business not so good). 

NIGHT MOVES is also a damned good mystery but at its heart is Hackman.  His character is not very bright but also amazingly sensitive.  At times, you expect him to burst into violence but he doesn’t. The scenes between him and his wife and also him and his wife's lover are amazing and unexpected in their tenderness and depth.  He also doesn’t put the pieces of the case he is working on together until it is too late- In other words he’s not very good at his job.

There is no better embodiment of the befuddlement of a certain type of pre 60’s thinking (about priorities, about masculinity etc.) in the new post 60’s world and there is no better metaphor for this than the end of the film.  Hackman injured on a boat by himself going round in circles having been one step behind the criminals.  This hellish morass is the result of the 60’s social conscious being stripped away leaving only the me centered hedonism of the 70’s.