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| Ione Skye in Say Anything |
When Ione Skye starred with John Cusack
in Say Anything in 1989 (a film I missed first time around), I felt sure that she would either be
discovered as an impostor and swiftly returned to whatever perfect
mould she originated in, would learn how to act or would realise that
acting wasn’t for her. A beautiful girl, she should perhaps have gone into modelling but no,
many years later, I had the misfortune to witness her ‘talents’
once more.
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| Kevin Durand as Keamy in Lost |
Poor Kevin Durand, an actor I had liked
in the minor role of Martin Keamy in a couple of episodes of Lost.
For more on Lost, see Opinion8: Must-see TV. He’s a big guy, 6’6” I
believe, and is often sidelined or pigeon-holed into roles as
over-sized aliens (eg in I Am Number Four, a film that also
wastes Timothy Olyphant as a sidekick to an unappealing teenage hero) or mindless
villains, because of his physique and never really given a chance to
show what he can do. Now, finally, he gets a lead role. And what does
he have to play against? A plank of wood. My sister reminds me when
watching this, that someone on Freecycle (a UK website on which
you can give away items you no longer need that others might find a
use for or request something you need that someone else might no
longer need) was asking for attractive pieces of wood and Ione Skye
fits the bill. She’s so bad in this that it’s painful to watch,
worse to listen to. Her voice throughout is completely affectless,
evincing no emotion, no meaning. It’s all totally flat, as if she were
reading the phone book. If she were a piece of music, she would be atonal. This
seems to rub off on the rest of the cast. The sheriff says his lines
as if he were rehearsing with someone, merely giving them their cues. Even Michael Moriarty (as Ione’s father), who I’m sure has been
good in the past, can't really be bothered.
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| 'Please, no more scenes with Ione!' |
It’s not helped by a ridiculous
script, which has Ione’s FBI agent (in pursuit of Kevin Durand's criminal
fugitive, Lowman) at odds with her father although
no reason is given while at other times we’re subjected to some
horribly on the nose dialogue to explain some character’s
motivation and, as if things weren’t bad enough, a series of
flashbacks featuring Ione failing to render any readable emotion.
What do the filmmakers have against us? It's like torture. At one point, Ione
declares 'I know where he's going' but doesn't bother to tell anyone
and goes after him alone. Or maybe the the other actors refused to accompany her in case it meant they would have another scene with her.
Why does Lowman (our
Kevin) take the girl (Brittney Wilson does her best with this underwritten part) with him? –
it's more trouble than it's worth. When asked for a reason, even he
can't come up with one. There’s no plausible rationale for this so
we have to assume this was done to inject (see what I’ve done here)
drama and conflict in the story by sticking in (and here) a
time-sensitive diabetic-needs-her-insulin thread. In fact, no
explanation is given for his past misdeeds either.
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| 12 Hours to Live |
But, despite all this, Kevin Durand
still manages to create a convincing character, bad but by no means
all bad, sympathetic if not simpatico. Even his hostage starts to
root for him a little. He acts the rest of them off the screen and
does not allow himself to get distracted by the flaws in the script
or the other players’ ineptitude or lack of commitment. He becomes
Lowman in every mannerism, mood, movement, expression. He’s
invested him with humanity. Kudos to Kevin. It’s just a shame that
he gets to shine in such substandard material because his performance
is so believable, so totally on point. I can only hope that any
casting director can see past the entirety of this terrible film and
recognise the deftness and skill of his portrayal, how he’s
transformed the two-dimensional template he’s been given into a
three-dimensional anti-hero.
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