The Good, The Bad & The Badass: Robert Downey Jr.

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Last week, we took a look at the career of former 007 Pierce Brosnan. This week’s subject is another guy who can tell you a thing or two about franchises, with him currently juggling two of them…

Even before Robert Downey Jr. ever played Tony Stark/Iron Man he was one of my favorite actors. As a child, I was fond of many of his movies, like AIR AMERICA, HEART & SOULS, CHANCES ARE, etc., and even during his well-publicized troubles in the late-nineties/early-oughts’, he managed to churn out lots of good work, including TWO GIRLS AND A GUY , his sleazy turn in NATURAL BORN KILLERS, and a small but juicy role in the now-classic WONDER BOYS. After getting sober, Downey Jr launched probably the most successful career comeback in Hollywood history, finally achieving the mega-stardom that had eluded him for decades with IRON MAN.

By design, the Marvel universe on film is bigger than any one actor. I truly believe that as good as they are, Chris Hemsworth or Chris Evans could bow out of their respective franchises and you could still get more CAPTAIN AMERICA or THOR movies. In fact, a change seems inevitable at some point. But I truly think Downey Jr is the only guy that could ever play Tony Stark. He’s the anchor for the entire Universe, bringing a cheeky charisma to the films that’s tough to replicate (although Chris Pratt has a lot of potential on that score) and I couldn’t imagine an AVENGERS movie without him. Arguably, he made the Marvel films what they are today, with him injecting so much of his own personality into Stark that the movies played to a wider-audience than they would have otherwise. He brought in a whole new group on moviegoers (specifically non comic-book fans) that ended up sticking with the various franchises well beyond THE AVENGERS to the point that the Marvel audience is arguably the broadest of any franchise going today, which is why all the films are so huge. Kids, teens, young adults, parents, these days everyone seems into Marvel and that simply would never have happened without Downey Jr’s big-time charisma and tireless promotion of even the Marvel films he’s not involved in.

If Downey Jr only made IRON MAN/AVENGERS movies the rest of his career; he’d still be one of the biggest stars in town. But the guy also found the time to launch the highly lucrative SHERLOCK HOLMES franchise, and seems to be aiming for an Oscar with his new prestige project, THE JUDGE, which is having its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival later this week. In anticipation of what’s sure to be a successful launch, now seems like as good a time as any to look back at his amazing career, and highlight some of his lesser known films along with his full-on blockbusters.

My favorite Downey Jr film will always be Shane Black’s KISS KISS BANG BANG. Have you ever gone to see a movie that played to your specific sensibilities so much that you felt like it was made just for you? That’s how I felt about this. Black and producer Joel Silver took a big risk casting Downey Jr in the lead (and another huge risk in making the Val Kilmer character gay) as a small-time crook who finds himself embroiled in a Hollywood murder-mystery. It’s simultaneously a film noir homage, a hilarious Hollywood satire, an action flick, a romance, and a drama but it brings these genres together perfectly, with Black’s amazing dialogue brilliantly conveyed by Downey Jr and the cooler-than-cool Kilmer (“look up idiot in the dictionary and you know what you’ll see? A picture of me? No! The definition of the word idiot, which you f**king are!”

However, while KISS KISS BANG BANG is my favorite film of his, the best performance he’s ever given had to be CHAPLIN. Now I know a lot of you are probably shaking your heads reading this, saying either TROPIC THUNDER or LESS THAN ZERO. Yes, he’s hilarious in TROPIC THUNDER but he doesn’t carry the movie (although he does steal it). And LESS THAN ZERO, yes, he’s amazing and convincing as a junkie-turned-hustler, but the film is only really good in a camp eighties way, with it being a hilariously watered-down version of the Bret Easton Ellis novel. It’s pretty much an after-school special, and while Downey is great he’s the only thing about that film (other than the Rick Rubin-produced soundtrack) that really works. But CHAPLIN, while dry, is a pretty great movie. Directed by the late Richard Attenborough, in ’92 Downey Jr’s performance as Charlie Chaplin was so well-received he was nominated for an Oscar. But since then it’s become pretty obscure and is ripe for rediscovery. Downey is amazing playing Chaplin from his humble early days through his success as “The Little Tramp” to his downfall as he’s pretty much exiled to his native UK. While the movie is maybe a little too “print the legend” when it comes to the often unsavory exploits of Chaplin, it can’t be denied Chaplin’s performance is masterful, and his recreations of Chaplin’s iconic physical comedy bits are spot on. Heck, he even sings a nice pop-cover of Chaplin’s “Smile” over the end credits.

One movie of Downey Jr’s I’ve never been able to stand is DUE DATE. I guess director Todd Phillips was trying to go dark, but in the process he made Downey Jr’s character such an insufferable prick that you full-on hated him by the time you got to his eventual about-face, where it turns out he’s not such a bad guy. Even Downey Jr’s considerable charm wasn’t able to save a movie that often felt toxic.

One Downey Jr movie I find really underrated is ZODIAC. Whenever anyone points to his performance in LESS THAN ZERO is a great depiction of drug addiction, I point them to his much more subtle job as the coked-up reporter Paul Avery in Fincher’s underrated masterpiece. Why was this film so ignored when it came out? You can blame the unfathomable March release date and the fact that Fincher’s director’s cut, which only bowed on DVD/Blu-ray was far superior to the theatrical version.

Obviously, I had to include a little Tony Stark in here, right? This scene from THE AVENGERS, where Stark comes face-to-face with Loki and lays down exactly why he’s doomed to fail (“we have a hulk”) is the perfect example of what exactly Downey Jr brings to the Marvel universe.

5. TROPIC THUNDER
4. CHAPLIN
3. THE AVENGERS
2. ZODIAC
1. KISS KISS BANG BANG

Next up for Downey Jr is THE JUDGE after which he segues back into Marvel mode for AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON.