“Speed” (1994)
It goes without saying that Jan De Bont‘s lean action flick “Speed” isn’t Dennis Hopper’s most illustrious role, but it’s one of his most well-known, and it’s what he does with what could have been a forgettable and cheesy villain that really shows what Hopper’s made of. The often imitated, never duplicated, sarcastic, psychotic disgruntled ex-cop Howard Payne is Dennis Hopper at his Hopper-ist; practically parodying himself. Delivering his cliché action movie one liners as if tearing into a juicy steak, Hopper is the perfect foil for Keanu Reeves‘ languid SWAT cop. He lets himself be as hammy as the role calls for, but imbues it with his trademark live wire energy. The actor doesn’t have to be as great as he is in this, but that’s Hopper for you — always fully committed, embracing the edge of insanity, and brilliant.
“Land of the Dead” (2005)
George Romero’s fourth zombie movie (and his first since 1985’s lackluster “Day of the Dead“) was an ungainly, gore-splattered critique of Bush-era politics and the post-9/11 culture, where a few privileged (white) Americans, led by Hopper, live in a walled-off utopia while outside, a zombie apocalypse rages on. This certainly wasn’t one of the actor’s classier roles and it probably paid slightly above some of those awful made-for-cable action flicks he regularly appeared in, but it is still an undeniably captivating performance. Watch as the man with everything loses it all, as his kingdom quite literally comes tumbling down around him, both from the zombie threat outside and internally from his own ambition and greed. It’s also strangely ironic to see Hopper, a very outspoken Republican, play a character so obviously modeled on Donald Rumsfeld.
“Elegy” (2008)
In a sea of terrible late career choices half necessitated by finance, and half dictated by his unfortunate late-career politics, it was hard to find a genuine Hopper performance. The noted live-wire not known for his subtlety seemed to have faded away with age, an overworked elderly actor now confusing sleepiness with understatement. He wasn’t even the main focus of “Elegy,” a film where Ben Kingsley plays an aging lothario addicted to his younger mistress. But as the quiet, dedicated best friend George O’Hearn, Hopper is both touching and sweet. Somehow, even in a glacial film like “Elegy,” the wild man of “The Last Movie” was the voice of reason, his character delicately condemning his friend’s promiscuity without denigrating their friendship. Sadly, it’s O’Hearn’s mind that starts to go, and in his final days, his grasp on reality becomes tenuous, his union with his wife (a heartbreaking Deborah Harry) becoming a distant memory behind a paid of half-opened, defeated eyes. It’s unquestionably Kingsley’s film, but there are no stronger moments than his taciturn friendship with Hopper’s slowly dissipating character.
Special Mention: Hopper’s Greatest Disaster
“The Last Movie” (1971)
No amount of hidden-treasure curiosity or revisionism can change the critical perspective on this film. While Hopper was an actor first and foremost, they tend to forget he made his name by writing and directing the landmark counter-culture film, “Easy Riders.” His sophomore directorial effort however — something about American Imperialism via a story about a film shoot in Peru that goes wrong killing a man and a Kansas unit wrangler who decides to stay on in the village, shacking up with a local prostitute — would be undone by ill-conceived hubris in the editing room.
While it is an odd curio, probably not coming to DVD anytime soon (unless someone dumps it), “The Last Movie” is a mostly mirthless and masturbatory exercise. It would be one thing if the film was eccentrically fragmented, perhaps even deconstructing its narrative a la the temporal shifting hinted at in say, John Boorman‘s 1967 film, “Point Blank,” only with counter-culture abandon, but that is sadly not the case as the picture is a dull collection of non-sequiturs and bad cuts as if trimmed by an editor on heavy narcotics. And sadly, there’s no trainwreck value either — Hopper’s egoistic, wandering picture is an insensible jumble and a bit of a waste of time. But hey, it was the hangover from the ’60s, what led to Hopper’s lost weekend years — bluntly evinced in the 1971 documentary, “Dennis Hopper: The American Dreamer” (7 minutes of it can be seen here) — and probably an experience the actor/director just had to go through. The actor was so eviscerated by critics — it was so poorly received the film was pulled early from theaters — he would not direct a film until seventeen nine years later, 1980’s “Out Of the Blue,” followed by 1998’s much more cool and mature film, “Colors” (shit, we forgot all about that one). The picture would also mark a type of soft exit from Hollywood instead choosing to appear in B-Movies that only exacerbated his loose cannon tendencies (see “Mad Dog Morgan“) or appearances in German-made films (see Wim Wenders’ aforementioned pic).
Remember these are our personal faves and while they may not be revelatory or groundbreaking (who doesn’t love Frank Booth?) they are our picks. That said if you want to champion another film or role, feel free to sound off in our comments.
— Kevin Jagernauth, Stephen Belden, Kimber Meyers, Drew Taylor, Katie Walsh, Adam Sweeney.
