The Big Actors

I'm reminded of Singing in the Rain. Don Lockwood jumps into Kathy Selden's car and the resulting conversation revolves around the difference between screen actors and stage actors. Screen actors, or so Miss Selden says, are just a "bunch of dumb show." Of course, the skills that screen actors require are much like those of stage actors - the ability to portray an emotion on cue, the ability to, well, to act. A fascinating place to see the convergence of the two types of acting is in the play brought to the screen.

Movie-plays are often, for me, the most enjoyable films around. They're often superbly written, being that, in their original form, they relied on dialogue and limited locations for their story. Especially a film like The Big Kahuna, in which a few actors in a Mamet-style situation negotiate the narrative entirely through their dialogue. While the camera work was deft and evocative, what really interested me were the skills of the men in the film, their characters and their acting. Indeed, each man brought something stellar to the film.

Kevin Spacey, the biggest hitter of the group, plays an overly-blunt man who seems to be a cousin to American Beauty's Lester. At the beginning of the film he seems quite obnoxious, a man who talks too much and thinks too little. On the other hand, while he's blunt, he seems to have integrity, something that builds through the film as we realize that his bluster isn't a show, isn't bluster for the sake of bluster. Spacey has, like Jimmy Stewart did, I think, that gift that lets an actor be both the person they're portraying and keep a little of themselves in the character as well. The result is that the actor creates a character who really passes beyond the boundary of character and into that boundary of "real person." Spacey does this in most of the films I've seen him in, but he does it especially well in this one.

Danny Devito has always been the second man. He was second to Arnold Schwarzenneger in Twins, to Matt Damon in The Rainmaker, to Judd Hirsch in Taxi. Yet he has always been able to make those parts work, whether smarmy or nice. His character in The Big Kahuna is contemplative, quiet, and touching. As the film itself acknowledges, he is almost a "wife" figure to the blustery Kevin Spacey character. Their relationship is both strong and tender, and is as enhanced by Devito's deep, contemplative eyes as by Spacey's shouting.

Peter Facinelli, the third salesman at the convention, begins the film as a likable if somewhat naïve apprentice to the other two. His understated performance and young man's assurance made a great addition to the cast. My favorite moment for him, in the film, comes when he gets angry and transmogrifies into Tom Cruise from A Few Good Men. I had flashes of , "Should I, or should I not listen to the galactically stupid!?"

Particularly fascinating is the familial triangle that the film sets up between Spacey, Devito, and Facinelli as father, mother, and son. When Spacey gets angry, his yelling causes an Oedipal confrontation between he and Facinelli, after which Devito is effective with his calm, even "motherly" words. Indeed, the entire film is infused with a familial struggle and an interesting reflection on growth, age, and homosocial relationships. Whatever you make of my Freudian reading, the acting in The Big Kahuna makes it well worth a view, though its relative stasis might make it a better video rental than a big-screen experience.