Actor Spotlight: Bruce Willis
One of our most bankable stars never really gets the credit he is due.
Drew and I have not crunched the numbers, but Bruce Willis is close to being the actor we have written about the most. Willis has almost exclusively been making straight to TV movies over the past several years. Leading to a loss in understanding the hold he had on Hollywood. Starting out as a prominent tv actor, he began to transition into movies with an almost for sure box office bomb with Die Hard. Turns out it was one of the greatest action movies of all time. We have written about Pulp Fiction, The Sixth Sense, Die Hard, Ocean’s Twelve, Die Hard With a Vengeance, Moonrise Kingdom, and Looper. He is an actor that always understood the assignment and never truly got the recognition he deserves. It is hard to speak about him in the past tense because he is not gone, but was diagnosed with aphasia. A disease that affects a person’s ability to understand or express speech. We love this man’s career and we hope that you take the time to watch some of his most wonderful performances.
Thank you to all who entered our DYLA Oscars Prediction Contest! We had three winners that guessed all 8 categories correctly! See below for the winners. The average score was 3.78 out of 8.
Katie Carter (winner via tiebreaker)
Marta Roberts
Paul C.
Billy recommends…
The Fifth Element
Luc Besson is an actor’s director. Not many great movies, but an auteur that attracts massive actors into absurd roles. I mean that with the utmost respect. Besson has a clear vision with each of his efforts and The Fifth Element is one of his most fascinating movies. He attached one of the most bankable stars in Bruce Willis to be in this sci-fi epic (epic adjacent?). A colorful and flamboyant aesthetic is not something that I associate Willis with, but he fits in perfectly, and helps ground this wonderfully weird movie.
The Fifth Element is not a movie I often think about, but I have vivid memories of as a child. A movie that was often on cable and my mom would exclaim, “Oh God, I love that movie!” every time we passed it surfing through what was on cable. Creating some of the sentiments I have for strange movies now. This movie is hard to describe when it comes to a cohesive plot and I am not sure that is the point Besson is going for.
The Fifth Element centers around action and comedy. Chris Tucker bringing the most comedic tone to the movie and Bruce Willis attaching himself to every action moment. Milla Jovovich plays LeeLoo, a mute character, who is a very important key in saving all of humanity. A premise we have heard many times before and I will never get tired of seeing. Besson gives two protagonist (Willis and Jovovich) characters we can latch on to, wonderful supporting characters, and Gary Oldman as a wonderful villain. Oldman’s second turn at being a villain in a Luc Besson film.
Willis is often attached to movies that can attract big budgets, but brings a sentiment that grounds the biggest movies. Looking back on The Fifth Element makes me a bit sad. Not because I think it is a bad movie. It has aged wonderfully over the years. This is what I imagined blockbuster movies to be. Massive scope with contained story telling. Showcasing each element of moving making. Bruce Willis has always been a symbol of what genre filmmaking can be at its best.
Drew recommends…
Unbreakable
Just one year after the runaway success of The Sixth Sense, Bruce Willis re-teamed with director M. Night Shyamalan for a grounded take on the comic book movie years before that genre swallowed up mainstream movie culture. Unbreakable may seem quaint compared to the Avengers, but this understated quality is where the film shines, and Willis is one of the main reasons why.
While The Sixth Sense was a much bigger sensation, I’d wager that Willis gives a better performance in Unbreakable. He plays David Dunn, a seemingly ordinary man that survives a deadly train crash before coming to realize he possesses superhuman abilities. Dunn is a security guard and former football star, a character Willis can comfortably embody. But what makes this one of his best performances is the uncertainty and vulnerability on the surface. Dunn is physically unbreakable but Willis and Shyamalan bring an emotional depth to what could be a stock character.
Dunn’s relationship with his wife and son is a big driver of this depth. But it’s his run-in with a mysterious comic book store owner named Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) that ends up driving the story, as well as reuniting Willis with his captivating scene partner from Die Hard with a Vengeance. There’s a reason Unbreakable remains one of Willis’ best movies. The actor was in his prime working with a hot filmmaker and the immortal Sam Jackson. On top of all of that, Willis committed to portraying an “ordinary” superhero full of doubt, well before that would become a popular archetype.
From the DYLA Archive
Die Hard
Die Hard with a Vengeance
Looper
The Sixth Sense
Moonrise Kingdom
Ocean’s Twelve
Pulp Fiction
Links
Will Smith resigns from The Academy. After a tumultuous week that left the whole industry with their mouth wide open, I think this move will hopefully end all talks about the matter.
Please… For the Love of Tom Cruise.. Let us see Top Gun. Here is yet another trailer for the sequel that was supposed to come out in 2020.