The Costner dilemma

By Vince Guerrieri
210 west Managing Editor [send email]

God help me, I might be a Kevin Costner fan.

I guess I’ve been in denial about it for, geez, at least a decade, and probably closer to 15 years.

It started innocuously enough. I was talking to a friend of mine last week who recounted the story of his brother, who asked, “How can I like so many movies Kevin Costner is in, and hate Kevin Costner?”

That got me to thinking, and I think it’s OK to like a couple of Kevin Costner movies and not call yourself a fan. But more than you can count on one hand, well then, you might be a Costner fan.

Now, let the record show that Kevin Costner inspires severe dislike in me. I sat through Waterworld, and I’ll never forgive him for that. However, Chuck (my father, to the uninitiated) liked it. But then again, Chuck is drawn toward bad movies like Tank Girl (although that movie introduced me to Naomi Watts…homina homina homina…), Starship Troopers (he’s still pissed that wasn’t nominated for an Oscar), Battlefield Earth, need I go on? But that’s another column for another time.

The premise of The Postman still gives me a headache. Neither rain nor snow nor sleet nor gloom of night nor nuclear holocaust will keep a mailman from his appointed rounds? Gimme a goddamn break! If someone dropped the Big One, the last thing I’d want is to see my mailman getting my Mastercard bill to me. In fact, if the end is imminent, I’m going to start smoking again and run up a fortune on my credit cards because if I die with a pack of Camels in my pocket and a balance on my Amex, then I win!

I still think that Marty Scorsese should have won at least one Oscar in 1991 for Goodfellas. Instead, Costner took home the gold for his interminable horse opera Dances With Wolves (He has a thing for interminable horse operas…Wyatt Earp, anyone?). I hate that movie so much I can’t sit through it. But Costner seems to be taking a page from the Hollywood lightweight handbook. Many pretty boys before him took home Oscars for directing, not acting (Warren Beatty in Reds, Robert Redford in Ordinary People and most recently, Mel Gibson in Braveheart).

But still, there are some Costner movies that I will drop everything to watch.

The Untouchables This was the first R-rated movie I ever saw, and it was a good one to start with. Costner plays Eliot Ness, a straight-arrow T-man determined to bring down Chicago mob boss Al Capone. It was Costner’s first big movie, and although he was overshadowed by Robert DeNiro and Sean Connery in his Oscar-winning performance, only someone as wooden as Costner could have played Eliot Ness, regarded as a savior in Chicago (but he still couldn’t solve Cleveland’s Torso Murders). I still quote this movie, but mostly lines that belonged to Connery (What are you prepared to do?).

Sizzle Beach U.S.A. Costner’s first movie, shot in 1974 but not released until a decade later…there’s a reason for that. But still, women show their tits. Need I say more?

Bull Durham Dan Nied, the intrepid editor of this whole racket, wouldn’t let me post this column without mentioning this movie, about America’s National Pastime. Oh, and it’s about baseball, too. Costner’s role as a washed-up catcher mentoring a pitching prospect with a “million-dollar arm and a ten-cent head” was originally for Kurt Russell, who played minor league baseball. But I can’t imagine anyone but Kevin Costner actually teaching Tim Robbins to speak in clichés (which is one of the reasons I got out of sportswriting). He recites a credo that could be adopted by many men, including me. I also believe Susan Sontag’s works are self-indulgent crap, that the designated hitter and artificial turf are tools of Satan... I’m not going to say any more because my mother will probably read this.

Field of Dreams The first President Bush couldn’t understand this movie. It’s Citizen Kane on a baseball field. Every man is looking for his youth or a chance to atone for this sins with his father on some level, and any man who says he doesn’t cry at the end when Costner asks his father with a quake in his voice, “Hey Dad, wanna have a catch,” well, he’s either a liar or doesn’t have a heart.

For the record, Field of Dreams falls into a subset of movies where it’s OK for men to cry. They involve baseball and the father-son relationship, always complicated due to things left unsaid. Two other good examples would be The Natural, which ends with Robert Redford (again with the Costner comparison) playing catch with his son, and The Rookie, when Dennis Quaid gives the game ball from his first major league appearance to Brian Cox, his father.

For Love of the Game Costner seems to like baseball movies, and they’ve been good to him. This movie makes the list because Costner threw a perfect game against the Yankees, and I always like to see the Yankees lose. I quote this movie, but this time, it’s Vin Scully: If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs, you probably have no grasp of the severity of the situation.

Tin Cup Some dismissed this as Bull Durham on a golf course, but it’s still a great movie. It’s worth it just for the scene where Costner engages in the Quixotic labor of trying to get over the creek with one mighty swing.

Thirteen Days Costner also seems to like movies centering on John Kennedy. The most obvious example of this would be JFK, which, like Dances With Wolves, I found interminable. This movie is almost 13 days long, but it’s worthwhile. After 9/11, I actually found myself quoting Costner from that movie: What is it about the free world that pisses the rest of the world off?

However, Costner’s put-on Boston accent goes down as one of the worst Boston accents in the history of film, right up there with Bebe Neuwirth in Malice.

You know, looking back at this list, I don’t think I’m a Costner fan. I think it is possible to like movies he’s in while not liking him. I like to think it makes me Scott Fitzgerald’s definition of a genius, that I can hold two seemingly contradictory ideas in my head.

At least, I sure hope that’s the case. I’d hate to think I’m a Kevin Costner fan. Maybe I’m still in denial, but I’ll be damned before I see Open Range.