Christian Slater has been transparant since he began his film career back in 1985, in a film called The Legend of Billie Jean; he’s a Jack Nicholson wannabe. Worse, he’s a poor imitator of Nicholson. For years, I thought he’d grow out of it and develop his own acting style, and the only glimpse I ever really spotted of his potential to do so came in the 1992 film Untamed Heart, but he never had the courage of his own talent to stick with the Nicholson-free version of himself and soon reverted to form.
Love Lies Bleeding is a film that summarizes the sorry state of Slater’s career as it now stands. Following bouts with alcohol and drugs that slowed his career, he is reduced to playing a “corrupt and increasingly crazed” DEA agent in a film where he is the biggest star and the second biggest star is… well, just pick any name at random from this list full of nobodies.
The title role of an Iraq war vet goes to Brian Geraghty, while the female lead is Jenna Dawson. No, I haven’t heard of them before, either. So it is that Duke and Amber (their characters) stumble onto a bag full of drug money after a shootout leaves all principals in the drug bust gone bad dead or, at least, incapacitated.
Thinking they can take the money with no consequences, they hit the road and head toward a new life, only to be tracked by Slater’s Pollen character. What follows is an increasingly hard-to-believe chase movie that, while delivering a fair amount of action, is too full of mindless violence, pointless characters and unbelieable (yet somehow still sadly predictable) plot twists. The profanity ratio is off the scale, too, so this flick earns its R rating in just about every way conceivable.
Which wouldn’t be so bad if this were a stylistic send-up by Quentin Tarrantino; but it’s not. This is the kind of film Tarrantino lampoons while also celebrating his his movies. Slater doesn’t even look that good in the role, and appears to be, at this point in time, a man in need of some weight loss pills.
One thing Slater never learned from Nicholson is how to pick great roles in great films; as an actor entering his 40s, Slater’s no longer young enough to be this desparate for work while at the same time being this hasty in his selection of roles. After a career imitating Jack Nicholson, it’s clear all Slater can achieve so far is to get down the voice and mannerisms to some degree. What he can’t duplicate is Nicholson’s talent, judgment and wisdom.
Sure, it took Nicholson a while to get there, too; but by the time he was entering his 40s, Nicholson had already made Chinatown. Slater seems unable to recognize the difference between Chinatown and Plan 9 From Outer Space. Unless he changes course, his career seems destined to pale in comparison to Nicholson’s, just as much as his imitative performances pale in comparison to saucy Jack himself.