Everybody's talking about this week's meeting between James Cameron and a frazzled coterie of scientists and government officials, the latest in a series of discussions to do something, anything to end BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill that's ravaged the Gulf of Mexico for more than a month. While some cultural observers take Cameron's significant underwater-exploration experience more seriously than others, I think the filmmaker has a much more valuable asset worth considering: The toughest, craziest and most all-around resilient character base of any mainstream director working today. Any mind capable of developing such bad-asses is surely one worth turning loose in the gulf. But who among that wide canon might be the best man (or woman) for the treacherous job? Movieline has some suggestions.
[In order of appearance]
· Kyle Reese, The Terminator: I mean, Sarah Connor was tough as friggin' nails, but let's face it: In an instance where foresight and apparent cover-ups might have made all the difference in preventing the disaster, 10 times out of 10 I'll take the guy who can time-travel.
· Pvt. Hudson, Aliens: Ellen Ripley is probably the more obvious choice from the Aliens series, but technically she predates Cameron's involvement by seven years. That leaves Bill Paxton's trigger-fingered, foulmouthed joker to do pretty much what he did with corporate sleazeball Carter Burke (Paul Reiser): Sit jackass BP CEO Tony Hayward down with a rifle in his face, and see what threatening to "grease this rat-f*** son-of-a-bitch right now" might accomplish. I'm guessing it would help quite a bit!
· Sexy Cowgirl, "Reach" by Martini Ranch: Could probably stop the gusher with one of those piercing stares of hers. Failing that, she's great with a lasso; maybe she could just tie the sucker off from 6,000 feet.
· Jack Dawson, Titanic: Here's a guy who knows from maritime clusterf***s, and he's been idling down in the seabed for, like, 100 years looking for something to do. He could probably be in the Gulf in no time. Additionally, his artistic aplomb has it all over that crappy robot hanging around next to the oil plume. One catch, though: His selfless triumph tends to yield the unfortunate side-effect of Celine Dion music at every turn for months or years to come. Sure, we're polluted enough, but I can stand it if you can.
· Steerage Dancer, Titanic: A walk-on part played by Cameron himself. Enough said.
· Colonel Miles Quaritch, Avatar: There's a clear argument to be made that Avatar's alpha-alpha-male colonialist might strive to wipe out the filthy hippies and liberals who've latched on to the spill as a cue to curb offshore drilling. While that's probably true, an even likelier scenario has Quaritch seething with rage as his once-robust BP shares plunge to near-worthlessness. An unprecedented environmental crisis is one thing, but the destabilization of an international energy giant? This guy wiped out Hometree in the name of natural resources! And of course this is nothing a mile-deep skin-dive can't solve anyway. Get out of the way.