Early on in “Greenberg,” the titular character, Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller), jumps into a swimming pool and is barely able to stay afloat with a flailing dog paddle.
It’s a moment of obvious visual symbolism: This guy’s life is going nowhere fast.
Greenberg is a character not so much in crisis as in stasis. At 40, he is unmarried, unemployed, stuck in the past and just now recovering from a nervous breakdown.He’s no hero, unless you consider it heroic to gain finally the most tentative of fingerholds on adult life and emotional maturity. What he is, is a protagonist -- a troubled, multi-dimensional character going through an extended bad patch in the drama that is life.
It makes you realize how seldom Hollywood makes movies about guys like Greenberg anymore. Too much of a downer. All talk, not enough action.
Ever since “Rocky” scored big in 1976, popular movies have become focused on straight-ahead, uncomplicated guys who save the day without discussing endlessly why they’re doing it. That wasn’t always the case.
Hollywood legends like Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable played men with complicated pasts and iffy futures. Bogart's tough guys in both "Casablanca" and "To Have and Have Not" are the most reluctant of heroes, and he
regularly played louses throughout his career, including his supremely unhinged Commander Queeg in "The Caine Mutiny."
regularly played louses throughout his career, including his supremely unhinged Commander Queeg in "The Caine Mutiny."
Ditto for Gable who, in his most famous role as Rhett Butler in "Gone With the Wind," arguably rapes the
heroine and walks out on her at the end, uttering the most famous exit line in American cinema.
heroine and walks out on her at the end, uttering the most famous exit line in American cinema.
In the late ‘60s and ‘70s, anti-heroes reigned. Think of the warped and troubled souls played by Warren Beatty in “Bonnie & Clyde,” Jack Nicholson in “Five Easy Pieces” and Robert De Niro in “Taxi Driver.”
Even in that first “Rocky,” Balboa was far from simple in that he was simple-minded. But presto-chango, by the time the second and succeeding “Rocky” slugfests rolled around, that dimness was a dim memory, despite many more blows to the head during multiple epic ring battles.
Hollywood’s hero worship became almost codified after Ronald Reagan was elected President in 1980. It was morning in America and a sunny one at that. A product of Hollywood’s Golden Age, this movie star turned politician divided the world neatly into good guys and bad guys and winners and losers, just like in the movies he had made.
Studio fare followed his lead and has been pretty much sticking to the path ever since.
Consider the career of Harrison Ford, an actor who isn't always given credit for being as good as he is. In 1977, his grouchy Han Solo was far from a sweetheart in "Star Wars," the seminal blockbuster. Ford even tried playing
a father who went nutso, bringing harm to his family in the process, in 1986's "The Mosquito Coast."
a father who went nutso, bringing harm to his family in the process, in 1986's "The Mosquito Coast."
But when that movie failed at the box office, he permanently got with the program.
