Gene Hackman’s last screen role was in 2004’s Welcome to Mooseport, so we’ve had time to adjust to his absence from our screens but still, boy, does news of his passing still hurt. Arguably the finest American screen actor of the past half century, the California won two Oscars but might have won about a dozen more.
With a roguish charm that could switch to wolfish and predatory for his villainous turns – has there been a better superhero nemesis than his Trump-y Lex Luthor in the Richard Donner Superman films? – and charisma that flooded the screen, he was an electrifying presence even in his lesser films. From Royal Tenenbaums to The Firm, his stock-in-trade was making you side with the scoundrel, but, honestly, there wasn’t much he couldn’t do. His on-screen greatness was such, it took two other movie stars to introduce his lifetime achievement award. Here’s five scenes that show off his powers.
1. ‘I’m Captain of this boat, now shut the f*ck up!’ – Crimson Tide (1995)
Hackman was the ultimate rule-bender in many of his greatest roles, from The French Connection to Mississippi Burning. But in Tony Scott’s nuclear thriller, a sweat-caked chamber piece disguised as a blockbuster, he trades power moves with Denzel Washington’s morally courageous 2IC as a submarine commander whose desire to go by the book may or may not mask a degree of psychopathy. Like a pot boiling over, he hits a tipping point in this pivotal scene where amused intellectual jousting gives way to raw fury and sends the whole movie spinning in an unpredictable direction. Only a peak Pacino meltdown could match Hackman for shock and awe in moments like this.
2. Striking the motherlode in Eureka (1983)
Not every Hackman performance got the flowers it deserves. Nicolas Roeg’s trippy, enigmatic answer to The Treasure of Sierra Madre is a relatively under-seen entry on the actor’s CV, but absolutely worth seeking out to see the great man in maximalist mode. Here, he embodies the feverish obsession of a 1920s Yukon prospector who strikes it rich and then discovers the dark side of his new-found wealth, showcasing the ‘Nic Cage’ end of his repertoire as Roeg crosscuts to the mysterious clairvoyant who made it all possible.
3. ‘I don’t deserve this… to die like this’ – Unforgiven (1992)
Who but Hackman could imbue a proper wrong’un like Unforgiven’s William ‘Little Bill’ Daggett with enough humanity to make a death scene this sad? With minimal dialogue, the twisted lawman essays the full range of emotions of a man about to meet his maker: fear, acceptance, sadness, even a pained snarl of defiance. That ‘I was building a house…’ as Clint Eastwood cocks his rifle is somehow both pathetic and moving – a mournful coda to a wayward life that’s about to be snuffed out.
4. ‘Is that gun just for show?’ – Mississippi Burning (1988)
A character actor who knew how to bide his time in a scene, brooding menace came naturally to the Californian. Here, as FBI Agent Rupert Anderson, a steely G-man based on real-life Fed called John Proctor, he sits down with six white racists in 1960s Mississippi and makes it feel like they’re the ones who are outnumbered. Alan Parker cuts it like a western showdown and Hackman leaves no doubt who’s packing the lethal force here. That final beer swig is the act of a king.
5. ‘How does a nice bowl of soup sound to you?’ – Young Frankenstein (1974)
A comedic powerhouse, too, Hackman could play arch and wry better than anyone too (Superman, The Royal Tenenbaums), and deadpan came naturally to him, too. Peter Boyle’s hulking Monster stumbles into the wrong lonely blind man’s house in Mel Brook’s Universal horror parody. Hackman, Hollywood’s go-to tough guy in the ’70s, switches on the guilelessness in a cameo scene that has his kindly recluse accidentally unleashing an array of torments on his house guest.
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