Sunday, May 4, 2025

                                                               Val Kilmer

                                                                 Part 2

    The late (RIP at 65) Val Kilmer had an outstanding movie history.. He was always busy There are over 200 appearances in his short career. Mr. Movie has tried to dig out the very best. 

Kilmer gets the title role in The Saint (1997). This character has been portrayed in numerous movies and TV shows. You could argue that Val is the one of the best. Well, at least it’s different. In most Saint outings he is a good guy, a hero. Not here. This guy is a professional thief who uses various disguises and the names of saints to do his dirty work. But- stay tuned- perhaps his last caper results in a big payday for some charities!

Could film noir work as a tongue-in-cheek comedy. Actually, yes. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) is exactly that with Val Kilmer as private eye Perry Van Slike and Robert Downey, Jr. As a neophyte actor being taught the ropes of crime fighting by Perry. The two observe a car going into a lake and from there things get complicated. 

In Felon (2008) Stephen Duff plays Wade Porter, who winds up in prison after killing a burglar. He doesn’t do well in prison and is transferred to a high security, and very badly run, prison. He is paired with John Smith (Val Kilmer), a hard-bitten lifer. But the two decide to expose the nefarious prison and this goes downhill for Smith, but not so for Porter. 

Cinema Twain (2017) is to me Val Kilmer’s best performance. He begins as this middle-aged rather handsome actor. Before your very eyes he transforms himself into American legend Mark Twain. The monologue is updated with really very little quotation from Twain himself, buy with a good bit of biographical information about the author. Val not only knocks this out of the park, he wrote the thing and is the star. The results are  really quite extraordinary.  

Let’s make a sequel to Top Gun (1986)! Call it Top Gun Maverick (2022). Can we get Tom Cruise back as ace fighter pilot Maverick? Of course. Oh, and can we get Val Kilmer back to play Iceman Kazansky, Maverick’s friendly rival. Certainly. The word is that Cruise and Kilmer’s pressure got this thing made.  Iceman is now a Fleet Admiral, and as such arranges to get Maverick assigned to his unit. Iceman dies before the movies is half over, and this is actually Kilmer’s last film. The aerial part is very exciting. 

Val plays the man himself in Batman Forever (1995) but this is very lesser Batman and not really worth your time. 

    All of the films in this article, except Cinema Twain, are available for rent or purchase. There seems to be a problem with rights for the Twain movie. All are for adults

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