Born in a log cabin in Oregon 43 years ago this month, River Phoenix was raised much like the character he played in the acclaimed film The Mosquito Coast. He was born into a flower child family and grew into a vegetarian, member of PETA, and supporter of saving the rain forests. He was an activist, a creator, a musician and actor who no doubt would have been a key figure in the mid-1990s American culture had he not died from an overdose of narcotics outside of Johnny Depp’s club in L.A. He was 23 years old and has been gone 20 years this October.
Like other famous people who died before 40, like James Dean, Buddy Holly, Jim Morrison, Brandon Lee, JFK, Jr, Chris Farley, Karen Carpenter, Andy Gibb, Princess Diana, John Belushi, and–as we revisit the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., 50 years after his “I Have a Dream” speech this week–you can’t help wonder what someone like Phoenix would be doing had he not made a wrong life turn back in 1993.
This year is turning out to be a busy one for Ethan Hawke. This past weekend his new sci-fi horror thriller Purge opened in theaters at the #1 spot at the box office. Not bad considering the blockbuster films like Star Trek and Iron Man 3 still in the theaters that it is facing off against. Co-starring Lena Headey (300, Sarah Connor Chronicles, Game of Thrones),Purge follows a family in a future society where for 12-hours all hell breaks loose as crimes are legalized to “get it all out of society’s system”. Next weekend he co-stars with An American Werewolf in Paris’s Julie Delpy in the romance drama Before Midnight. Late this summer, Hawke stars in the crime-action flick Getaway, about a man trying to save his kidnapped wife in a film that shares a lot with Colin Farrell’s Phone Booth and Chris Evans’ Cellular.
Ethan Hawke is an actor, who, especially in his genre films, seems to show great improvement in each subsequent film. He first got noticed by the masses in Explorers (1985), a pure kid flick in which he co-starred with River Phoenix as a boy encountering a spacecraft that he takes to find an alien being on another world. He stepped up his game in his major break, Dead Poets Society (1989), playing a fumbling young man in prep school, where he co-starred with Robin Williams and Robert Sean Leonard (House, Much Ado About Nothing). Hawke became a protagonist that you might not have liked, but his lack of confidence made his characters accessible. Hawke took on two adventure roles, saving a part dog/part wolf in White Fang (1991), and surviving a plane crash in Alive (1993).
Hawke’s best film was Gattaca (1997), playing opposite Jude Law and Uma Thurman in a sci-fi film that revealed the problems of eugenics in a futuristic society. It’s a great film that holds up to this day. Arguably his other big film was 2001’s critically acclaimed drama Training Day.
In 2005 Hawke played against type playing a cop in an L.A. police precinct in John Carpenter’s remake of Assault on Precinct 13. It’s another great Hawke role in a solid action film.
Here is the trailer for Purge:
Purge is now in theaters.
Here is the trailer for Before Midnight:
Before Midnight opens in theaters this weekend.
Here is the trailer for Getaway:
Does Getaway, which features Hawke and a much younger girl driving around in a tough car, look like it could be a spinoff, such as the further adventures of Paul Le Mat and MacKenzie Phillips from American Graffiti? Does that make Jon Voight Bob Falfa? Getaway is scheduled for release in theaters August 30, 2013.
