Screen Writer

DONALD CLARKE: Who will serve as my critical pinata now?

OVER THE past few months a little piece of me has been dying slowly.

Facetious film writers – whether professional or recreational – all need walking punchlines for their jokes. You know how this goes. Every second online evisceration of the latest high-budget atrocity will include a disparaging mention of Michael Bay. Poor performances are compared unfavourably with the efforts of (unfairly) Ashton Kutcher or (justifiably) Orlando Bloom. And so on.

This writer has, over the years, greatly enjoyed picking on Matthew McConaughey. Having emerged as an effective stoner in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused (1993), the actor went on to become the worst thing in a demonic series of half-formed romcoms. I occasionally felt bad about my quips. But consideration of the teak-panelled Texan’s swelling bank account rapidly spurred me on to further mindless cruelty.

Well, McConaughey showed me (not that he cares one whit). Over the past few months, switching from charismatic psychopathy in Killer Joe to delicious self-parody in Magic Mike, McConaughey has demonstrated that, in the right role, he can really eat up the screen. Later in the year we will see him shine in Jeff Nichols’s excellent Mud.

Here’s my question. Which standing joke is Hollywood going to steal from us next?

The strategy in such reinventions is easily stated but harder to achieve.You need to find the actor a role that takes cautious side-swipes at his or her perceived inadequacies while allowing the performer to turn those notional demerits to their advantage. McConaughey’s notorious solidity made the title character in Killer Joe seem all the more fearsome. His status as prime beefcake added value to his bare-torso gyrations in Magic Mike.

In Boogie Nights, Paul Thomas Anderson exploited Burt Reynolds’s faintly sleazy, flared charm to triumphant effect (Reynolds later squandered the opportunity). In Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino allowed John Travolta to play on his already dusty reputation as a dance-floor lothario (and despite some poor choices, Travolta remains a star).

Hollywood could probably do something with Kutcher. He is currently shooting a biopic of Steve Jobs, and it must be admitted that, physically at least, he is a ringer for the late visionary. But it will require work to exploit Ashton’s beach-boy vacancy in that project. The least said about Orlando Bloom’s hopes of reinvention, the soonest mended. The two will retain punchline status for a few more years.

We should, however, worry a little about the status of the current reigning critical pincushion. Rob Schneider, sidekick of the intermittently rehabilitated Adam Sandler, was put on this earth to chill the blood. Whatever you might say about Schneider, you couldn’t

say he deadens the action when he appears on screen. Those grinding funny voices; those twitching double takes; that hint of genuine instability: the Schneider arsenal always makes you sit up in your seat (and dip your head into a bucket).

Somebody, somewhere can surely fit Mr Schneider into a proper film about a possessed troll or a messianic street lunatic. I would, however, prefer if they didn’t. We need those cheap punchlines.

dclarke@irishtimes.com