Let me begin this column by saying that on Saturday I watched ""American Psycho,"" and I am now legitimately freaked out by a) Christian Bale, 2) people who decorate their homes with a lot of white, and d) chainsaws. This brings up an excellent point. What if Tobey Maguire had been cast as Patrick Bateman, prince of delusion? Or what about everybody's favorite actor ever (!!!), Paul Walker? Would it have worked? All the sweating and the tanning and the handling of nail guns, knives, axes, etc.? Would you really get it if Peter Parker pointed a handgun at a kitten?
Even if you haven't seen ""American Psycho,"" I'm sure you've witnessed moments of perfect casting. Moments where suddenly, everything seems real—the histories, the breathing, the men and women in their conversations. It's like an Aaron Sorkin show where the characters pretty much walk out of the screen and sit on your lap. And this might be why ""American Psycho"" is so terrifying: Christian Bale on my lap = sounds good to me; Patrick Bateman on my lap = I might get chopped up and eaten in the next five-10 minutes.
Now, I'm not interested in big, big movies, the obvious kind, the kind with Oscar nods and A-lister orgies as rampant as suburban white kids at a Ben Folds concert. I'm interested in movies like, well, ""The Burbs."" Released in 1989, ""The Burbs"" is one of those brink-of-the-'90s Tom Hanks movies. While I'm not knocking Rob Reiner and all the magic that comes with a classic Tom and Meg romp, nosy Ray Peterson of ""The Burbs"" is easily my favorite Hanks role. Later came all the big roles, the winners, but be that as it may, I'd still rather watch him do something ordinary (like spy on his grave-digging neighbors), because he's just so damn good at it.
A performance almost as satisfying as Tom's is James Spader's creepy-gone-erotic portrayal of Graham Dalton in ""Sex, Lies, and Videotape."" Now, Graham's no Patrick Bateman, but he still displays his fair share of odd sexual fantasies, and Spader, to me, is akin to that sketchball middle-aged dude you catch staring at you in Espresso Royale. I think this role makes James Spader a real actor—not the kind that can only play one sort of character (Hugh Grant *cough*) but the kind that can sink into a role like a cement block, the ""actor"" unseen until they're in a suit jacket at the premiere.
I think that versatility is the key here. Tom Hanks can convince us as an FBI agent, a symbologist, a widower and a little boy that grew into a man overnight. James Spader can slap a secretary on the ass with a meter stick or melt a bored housewife into water, and we'll still believe him. And Christian Bale...well, Bale is the superhero here. ""Batman Begins"" and ""American Psycho"" are both great movies that may have been nothing without him, and why? An actor's ability to disappear into his character is crucial to any role. That's why Tobey Maguire could never shoot a cat but is free to swing from buildings. And that's why Paul Walker could never solve a mystery, get the girl, win the war, but he can...um...well...I don't know. Anyway, he sure is pretty. Aw.
