I can't believe it's taken me this long to get to Michael Caine. In fact when I was looking at potential subjects for this week's column, I quickly dismissed his name as I was all but certain I had covered him previously. Caine has been a legend for half-a-century now. Right from the start of his career, in the action-adventure classic ZULU, Caine's had the incendiary charisma of true star, a fact which helped him escape the long shadow of certain roles which could have easily typecast him. Lewis Gilbert's ALFIE is a good example, with Caine writing in his biography that he was offered tons of ALFIE-clones in the wake of its success, which he wisely turned down. The bespectacled spy Harry Palmer is another, although perhaps it worked to Caine's advantage that none of the three Palmer flicks (THE IPCRESS FILE, FUNERAL IN BERLIN and BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN) caught on in the way the Bond films did – despite sharing a producer (Harry Saltzman).
Many of Caine's contemporaries found their status as leading men drying up as the swinging sixties drew to a close, but Caine never lost a beat. While the late seventies and much of the eighties saw him cast adrift in many sub-par roles (including the infamous JAWS – THE REVENGE), the occasional breakout part like EDUCATING RITA, DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS (a classic) and HANNAH & HER SISTERS (for which he won an Oscar) kept him in-demand.
It's was in the late-nineties that Caine truly had a resurgence in popularity, beginning with his part in the under-seen BLOOD & WINE (opposite Jack Nicholson), and coming to a head with his second Oscar-win for THE CIDER HOUSE RULES. Since then, many top-flight directors have come to rely on him as one of the great character actors of our time, with Christopher Nolan having notably found a part for him in every film he's done since BATMAN BEGINS. Despite nearing eighty, Caine can still carry a film when given the chance, and his latest – YOUTH – is giving him some of the best notices he's gotten in years, proving that despite his seemingly endless list of credits Caine gives each part his all and has never been one to coast on his own icon status – even if he is one of the most widely imitated men in the world – as shown below.
While Caine's done so many amazing movies (too many to list them all here) I have a soft spot for THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING, which notably paired him with Sean Connery, with whom he goes way back. A passion project of director John Huston – who had tried to make this a quarter decade before with Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart, in this Kipling adaptation Connery and Caine play amoral English soldiers who stumble upon a remote village, where Connery's character is mistaken for a God. While Connery starts to believe in his deity-destiny, Caine remains our cynical hero, well-aware of the fact that their ruse will have disastrous consequences. Even though the two deserve the tragic fate that befalls them, you feel for them and Caine's agonized acting as he watches his best friend die is one of the finest moments of his career.
In the wake of Caine's incredible performance in Philip Noyce's THE QUIET AMERICAN, Caine's status as a leading-man started to pick up again, and his part in Norman Jewison's THE STATEMENT was widely hyped at the time as the movie that would finally net Caine a best lead actor Oscar. It got respectable reviews – mostly no doubt due to the establishment's respect for both Caine and Jewison – but the movie is a mess. Caine is always good, but he's not terribly convincing as a sadistic Nazi war criminal on the run, and it's one of the rare times I've ever felt that he was miscast, as typically Caine can make even the worst junk kinda work (like the infamous killer bee movie, THE SWARM).
Daniel Barber's HARRY BROWN was a movie that took me by surprise when it came out. When I heard Caine was doing a dark vigilante thriller, for some reason I was expecting an elegiac, slow film but instead I got a rock-solid action thriller that feels like a truly contemporary, high-voltage take on the DEATH WISH formula. Caine is amazing as the titular character, an ex-soldier who takes on the worst criminals in his troubled neighbourhood after a fellow pensioner is brutally murdered. It's a must-see for any of his fans.
In many ways, GET CARTER is the most important film of Caine's career, in that it forever broke the swinging-sixties lad-image he had following ALFIE. As a tough-as-nails Cockney gangster looking to avenge his dead brother, Caine is lean and mean and an utterly convincing tough guy, especially when Roy Budd's bad-ass main theme starts to kick-in. His climactic confrontation with one of the architects of his brother's demise is a great tough guy moment.
5. All his Christopher Nolan movies
4. MONA LISA
3. DRESSED TO KILL
2. CHILDREN OF MEN
1. HANNAH & HER SISTERS
5. THE EAGLE HAS LANDED
4. ALFIE
3. GET CARTER
2. THE ITALIAN JOB
1. THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING
As usual, Caine's keeping busy, with parts lined up for NOW YOU SEE ME 2, and the Zach Braff remake of GOING IN STYLE opposite pal Morgan Freeman. Presumably, there will also be a role for him in Christopher Nolan's soon-to-be-announced next movie. While he's certainly getting up there in age, Caine is still an absolute legend, and doesn't show any signs of slowing down to enjoy his golden years. Clearly, the man loves to work and it shows in his performances.