“Lord of War” (2005)
There’s really no other way to say it: Andrew Niccol’s “Lord of War” is an insane experience, and I say this knowing that the movie opens with a long, impossibly ambitious shot depicting the life of a bullet, and later includes a scene where Jared Leto traces an outline of Ukraine using a single line of cocaine. Technically/obviously, the star of this totally bonkers movie is Nicolas Cage, but it’s Hawke who ends up rescuing this far-out satirical drama from its own excesses. Hawke plays shrewd, hard-charging Interpol agent Jack Valentine, who remains in hot pursuit of Cage’s unapologetic arms dealer all the way up until the end of the movie. Hawke works well with Niccol, who also directed him in “Gattaca” and 2014’s military drama “Good Kill,” and Niccol clearly trusts his frequent leading man (relegated to supporting status here) to keep things grounded whenever the film threatens to spin out into the strange recesses of the Cage-o-sphere. An interrogation scene where Hawke grills his target includes some of the most subtle acting either he or Cage have ever done, and while “Lord of War” doesn’t hang together 100% of the time, it offers further proof that Hawke remains one of our most versatile leading men. – NL
“Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead” (2007)
Nearly all of Sidney Lumet’s films, even the few bad ones, are filled with great acting, and “Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead” is no different. The film is a shattering modern-day morality play about frayed family ties and bottomless greed, featuring career-best performances from Philip Seymour Hoffman, Albert Finney, and Marisa Tomei. And yet, unsurprisingly, it’s Hawke who emerges as the beating heart of this otherwise chilly and remorseless thriller. Hawke ably acquits himself to this heavy-hitter ensemble, never hogging the screen and cementing his reputation as a fundamentally generous and intuitive performer. “Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead” is a film about brothers, with Hawke playing a callow, impulsive striver against Hoffman’s bullying, reptilian, profit-obsessed alpha male. One of Hawke’s gifts as an actor is his ability to convincingly come unwound, and there are plenty of chances throughout the frenzied, panicky second half of Lumet’s final film for the actor to do exactly that. And yet, as pathetically desperate as Hawke’s character is here – and he most certainly is that – Hawke never lets us lose sight of this poor man’s humanity, even in the face of progressively catastrophic circumstances. – NL
“Boyhood” (2014)
While some might not feel that “Boyhood” is worthy of all the acclaim it has received, there’s no disputing that Ethan Hawke’s warm and tremendous supporting performance is easily one of the best things, if not the best thing, about Richard Linklater’s humanist epic. Hawke, who had worked with Linklater many times before embarking on this decades-in-the-making experiment, plays Mason Evans Sr., the cool-dude father of the film’s aimless protagonist, Mason Jr. (Ellar Coltrane). Mason Sr. is the kind of imperfect but deeply lovable grown-up slacker that Hawke excels at playing: the actor never airbrushes over Mason Sr.’s lesser qualities, but he lets us see that the man is also 100% there for his kids when it matters most. Hawke’s unaffected ease with his character’s idiosyncrasies is rich and compelling. As played by Hawke, Mason Sr. feels like he’s lived an entire life before the movie begins, and the actor absolutely nails his big scenes, including a lovely moment where he graciously advises his son about a post-high-school breakup. – NL
“In A Valley Of Violence” (2016)
“In A Valley Of Violence” turned out to be a fairly major left turn for indie-grindhouse maverick Ti West, previously known for patient, micro-budgeted retro shockers like “The House Of The Devil” and “The Innkeepers.” West’s 2016 Western is, like his other films, an artful slow-burn, one that is held together by a magnetic, ruthlessly taciturn lead performance from Hawke. Here, Hawke plays a bedraggled drifter sauntering through the desolate plains of the Old West with little more than a loyal mutt for company. Things get hairy when Hawke’s vagabond antihero stumbles into the dangerous town of Denton, where he finds himself squaring off against the local Marshal (John Travolta) and his loud, aggressive dipshit Deputy son (James Ransome). Given how over-the-top Travolta and Ransome’s performances are, the slow-simmering quietude of Hawke’s performance becomes all the more watchable. Hawke makes us wonder: what goes on inside this lonely man’s head? Hawke lends no shortage of grit and conviction to this sometimes inscrutable character, effectively transforming an enjoyable genre exercise into something more rewarding.
“First Reformed” (2018)
At first, the idea of transplanting the normally affable, easygoing Mr. Hawke into the scabrous universe of writer/director Paul Schrader is one that sounds like it might not work. And yet, against all odds, “First Reformed” – a stately yet berserker cautionary tale about environmental collapse and dwindling faith in humanity that was arguably the best film of 2018 – taps into yet another one of Hawke’s hidden skills as an actor, which is his gift for scintillating interiority. Hawke’s characters are typically not men who act out in oversized displays of rage. When they do, it’s a terrifying spectacle. Hawke frequently plays men who keep their darkest secrets close to the vest (in “First Reformed,” Hawke’s protagonist, the Reverend Ernst Toller, keeps a rather haunted-sounding diary that reads as though someone gave the sadistic soliloquies of Travis Bickle a theological polish). It’s important for us to like and sympathize with Toller, as it makes some of the more deranged-seeming behavior he exhibits later in the film all the more unfortunate. This was the performance that should have won Hawke his long-overdue Best Actor Oscar. – NL
SPECIAL DIRECTORIAL MENTION:
“Seymour: An Introduction” (2014) / “Blaze” (2018)
Ethan Hawke clearly harbors a passion for music, whether he’s strumming a guitar in “Reality Bites” or playing jazz legend Chet Baker in the biopic “Born To Be Blue” (another honorable mention, for sure). It should come as no surprise, then, that most of the few films Hawke has directed to date center around music; even the central love interest of his underseen 2006 sophomore feature “The Hottest State” is a musician. The central focus of Hawke’s terrific documentary “Seymour: An Introduction” is Seymour Bernstein, an accomplished, New Jersey-born concert pianist whose career has toggled between teaching, composing, and playing with the likes of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Appreciating “Seymour: An Introduction” (which isn’t related or indebted to the J.D. Salinger novella of the same name, believe it or not) may be easier if you’re a music geek, but the film also just tells a moving and indelible story about persistence, and how creative dreams evolve over time. Hawke took his infatuation with musical subcultures to a new level with 2018’s heartfelt drama “Blaze,” an unconventional biopic about outlaw country artist Blaze Foley, an oft-overlooked contemporary of Townes Van Zandt and Merle Haggard. For whatever reason, never reached the heights of those more mainstream artists, even if many dedicated country heads remember him fondly. With “Blaze” it felt as though Hawke was attempting to cement his own unique filmmaking voice, and his more unwound directorial tendencies are consistently anchored by the movie’s replenishing surplus of great music and hard-won soul, not to mention a bearishly commanding lead performance from actor Ben Dickey (Alia Shawkat is great in this too because she’s pretty great in everything).
Honorable Mention:
It’s kind of a corny movie, but Hawke acquits himself capably to the Disney-packaged outdoor adventure of 1991’s “White Fang,” giving a persuasive performance in a mostly unpersuasive film. He’s also dynamite in Richard Linklater’s lo-fi indie curio “Tape,” in which he’s working in a slightly darker and scuzzier register than he has in his previous collaborations with the Texas filmmaker. Hawke also holds it down in the remake of John Carpenter’s standoff classic “Assault on Precinct 13.”
Hawke really is one of those rare performers who can transcend the sludgy surface of what appears, on the surface, to be a trashy Hollywood production, which is why he’s without question one of the best parts of the first “Purge” movie. Hawke also gave easily the best performance in Antoine Fuqua’s remake of “The Magnificent Seven;” clearly, these two know how to get great work out of each other. Hawke is as endearing as ever as the hunky singer-songwriter who more or less steals Chris O’ Dowd’s girl (said girl being Rose Byrne) in one fell swoop in “Juliet, Naked.” Watching the performance, you sense that Hawke’s character in “Juliet, Naked” is the type of dude Troy Dyer would have liked to be whenever he finally decided to grow up. Hawke gave one of his more interesting recent performances in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s lighthearted family dramedy “The Truth,” where he evinced both youthful zeal and also devastatingly grown-up regret as a struggling actor and recovering alcoholic who’s simply trying to be a good father while simultaneously making peace with his checkered past. Hawke was also memorable and funny in the RZA’s heist thriller “Cut Throat City,” where he enjoys the film’s best scene, a booze-fueled monologue in an iconic New Orleans cemetery. Last, but definitely not least, we have to mention Hawke’s performance in the 2015 indie, “Maggie’s Plan,” from Rebecca Miller.
