When Great Beginnings End

Precisely thirty-nine minutes and 12 seconds into the very bad, very long, but mostly very bad 3000 Miles to Graceland, Kevin Costner whips out an unmistakably phallic, nickel-plated six-shooter and blows away Christian Slater. The shockingly greasy, oafishly duck-tailed honcho of a cabal of unlikely Elvis impersonators who have just knocked over a casino in Vegas, Costner had taken exception to several thoughtless remarks Slater had made about Costner's fixation on the King.

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When Slater hit the deck, I was convinced that Costner had merely winged the still-boyish actor. I actually watched the film all the way through to the very end, anxiously awaiting Slater's resurrection and revenge. It never occurred; I was devastated. A fan of the actor since I first saw his impressive turns in Heathers and Pump Up the Volume many years ago, and numbering True Romance among my favorite films of all time, I did not want to believe that a performer who had started out with so much promise was now making an early exit from one of Kevin Costner's least successful comeback attempts. Though Slater had been on the slippery slope in recent years, doing supporting roles in such dire outings as Very Bad Things and the ridiculously overrated The Contender, I did not want to believe that he was now getting sent to the showers a third of the way through a film in which the likes of Kurt Russell and David and Courteney Cox Arquette were still taking up valuable screen space. It suggested, once again, that the film industry was not doing things the way I wanted. Much less the way Christian Slater wanted.

When a flashy, likable young performer appears on the silver screen for the first time, even the most cynical film lover feels a frisson in his otherwise insensate neural cortex. Knowing only too well that useless frat boys like Ben Affleck and Jurassic palookas like Sylvester Stallone will be with us for years to come, we take consolation in the fact that some of the people who make their way into the movies actually have gifts we want to see exhibited again and again for the rest of our lives. If nothing else, in a world of bad jobs, bad [marriages and bad hair, it gives us something to look forward Ito. That first glimpse of greatness provides an incomparable rush: "Oh my God, here's an actor who doesn't suck; here's an actress who's not just tits and a 'tude. Next thing you know, we might get a president who's not a scumbag." Think of Jack Nicholson in Easy Rider, Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, Harrison Ford in Star Wars. Think of Julia Roberts in Mystic Pizza. For that matter, think of Kevin Costner in No Way Out. But under no circumstances think of Kurt Russell in anything.

More often than not, gifted young actors who make a big initial splash hang around for a long time, giving us plenty of good reasons to keep going to see them in more credible, mature roles, finally adopting a respected older-statesman stature like Paul Newman, Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Faye Dunaway and Patrick Swayze (only joking). These stars may lose some of their luster, but they remain stars all the same. A fat, decrepit Marlon Brando can still light up the screen in a curiosity like The Freshman. A geriatric Alec Guinness can still single-handedly seize control of a galaxy long ago and far away. And a wrinkled Paul Newman can still teach Jude Law a thing or two about Method acting in a movie like Road to Perdition, simply by showing up.

There is no defined template for the career that does not quite happen. From the very first, there were always questions about Slater's ability to outgrow his sly boyish appearance, his elfin charm. What worked so well for the young pup in Heathers and even Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves did not work so well as he grew into manhood. Like Dorian Gray, Slater never seemed to get any older, never seemed to acquire the leading man gravitas of a Mel Gibson, much less a Gene Hackman. It was impossible to see him as the morally conflicted submarine commander, the ruthless hit man or the jaded private eye. He remains now what he was from the very beginning: the snarky studmuffin with the Jack Nicholson eyebrows and a vaguely Ewokian stature. Personal problems partially derailed his career, and various ill-advised roles certainly did not help, but Slater's biggest obstacle is that he is too old to play boys, and too boyish to play men. This is not to say that he doesn't have the chops; put him in a quirky film like Very Bad Things and he will blow his costars right off the screen. But who wants to watch movies like Very Bad Things?

Another example of the incredibly shrinking career phenomenon is the strange, perplexing case of Andy Garcia. When Garcia first blew into town in The Untouchables, Black Rain, Internal Affairs and The Godfather Part III, he looked like the next Al Pacino. Not the poor man's Al Pacino, as detractors might label him, but the authentic heir to the throne. It didn't happen. Once quoted in GQ as saying that he wasn't sure he wanted to be a big star, Garcia has all but ensured that he isn't. Marooned in forlorn pap like When a Man Loves a Woman, Things To Do in Denver When You're Dead and Desperate Measures, Garcia--a born leading man--has now become paunchy, predictable and often somewhat ridiculous. The brooding fire-eater of the late '80s now looks puffy and soft. His best work recently was as a lech in Ocean's Eleven, playing second fiddle to George Clooney and Brad Pitt, leading men who do not look puffy and soft. This is nice work if you can get it, but it is not the sort of work Garcia originally seemed destined for.

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