Tony Scott pushed adrenaline as well as any Hollywood director of his time. He took his own life Sunday by jumping off a bridge in Los Angeles and there are reports that he was battling inoperable brain cancer. Whatever his reasons, we grieve for his family and friends and pay tribute to a man who entertained us for over 30 years.
We forgive him for directing two of the worst sports scenes in movie history: the shootout on the field of an NFL game near the end of “The Last Boy Scout”, and the baseball game that wouldn’t stop for a torrential downpour in “The Fan”. We forgive him because he was from England and might not have paid much attention to two distinctly non-British sports. We don’t forgive everyone on the set with him for, “The Fan”– really, not one of you had the balls to say to the director, “yeah, um…. they’d probably call a rain delay at this point.”
Tony Scott movies, good and not so good, were always a lot of fun. They weren’t going to play at any art house theaters and he was never nominated for any Academy Awards, but he sure as hell made some iconic movies that a lot of people watch every time they roll by one on cable television.
Days of Thunder? Terrible, but I’ll stay up an hour after I was going to go to bed to watch it. Cuz if you ain’t rubbin, you ain’t racin’. Spy Game? Pretty bad, but shot so beautifully and starring Robert Redford and Brad Pitt? I’m in. Beverly Hills Cop II? Funny enough. The “Unstoppable” “Deja Vu” of “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3”? I don’t remember them, but I’m sure they starred Denzel Washington and had their exciting moments. I wonder if Damon Wayons ever feels like he got screwed out of having Denzel’s career? Probably not. I know actors are all delusional, but he can’t be that far gone can he?
Anyway, back to Tony Scott. A life ended too soon, but a legacy that will live on forever on dvd and Saturday afternoon cable. Here’s a look at his five best movies.
5. Enemy of the State
This 1998 action thriller had Will Smith at the height of his powers and Gene Hackman, who’s always at the height of anybodies powers. Hackman’s character is a tip of the cap to his work in Francis Ford Copolla’s “The Conversation” from 1972. Smith plays a run of the mill DC lawyer who it turns out is not run of the mill at all. Action, deception, who’s screwing who, it’s all here in this smarter than the average summer movie.
4. Crimson Tide
Scott hooks up for the first of five movies with Denzel, this one set on a U.S. nuclear sub. Gene Hackman gives another Gene Hackman Hall of Fame performance as Captain Frank Ramsey, the old salt, a little too trigger happy leader of the sub. Denzel is the voice of reason who is forced to make the old man stand down to avoid a nuclear war. The scenes with Hackman and Washington going at one another verbally are super-charged and give you goose bumps. Watching two of the all-time greats go at it is something else.
3. Man On Fire
Denzel is just off the charts good as ex-CIA assassin John Creasy, who gets a job from his old boss, played by Christopher Walken, as a bodyguard for a young girl down in Mexico, where kids are getting kidnapped at an alarming rate. Washington is pitch-perfect as a burned out, alcoholic, lost interest in everything former somebody, who finds out that he has just enough somebody left in him to be a major bad ass. Major bad ass. Dakota Fanning is fantastic as the young girl and Christopher Walken is his usual brilliant self. Easily the most underrated movie in the Tony Scott oeuvre.
2. True Romance
Much of the credit for this one deservedly goes to the one of a kind writing of Quentin Tarantino, but it’s a movie that needed brilliant direction to stay on course. There’s a million different little things that go on in this classic, and Scott gives just enough time and space for each one to work perfectly. Brad Pitt’s cameo is the stuff of legend, but the Hall of Fame scene from this movie is between Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper.
1. Top Gun
Yup, Top Gun. It’s easy to look back now and make fun of this movie, but it’s impossible to overstate the grip it had on the country when it came out in 1986. You can laugh at Def Leppard now, but the shit was awesome during it’s time. Navy jets are the backdrop to this love story between a robot and a lesbian. Kidding, see, it’s very easy to make fun of now. Then? Everyone I know saw it multiple times. Everyone I know thought that flying jets in the NAVY would be the coolest thing in the world. Everyone I know thought Val Kilmer and Tom Cruise would wage a decades long battle to be the biggest star in the world. Everyone I know thought Danger Zone and Take My Breath Away were epic songs. Everyone I know thought that Goose’s wife was as cute as a bug’s butt. Of course, everyone I know was wearing acid wash jeans too, but still.
He always showed us a great time at the movies. RIP Tony Scott.