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Monday, April 24, 2006
Fans of 24: There's More To Peter Weller Than His Dirty Dealings With Sentox Gas
24 watchers have been treated to a real festival of bad guys this season, including the suave Julian Sands and familiar-to-horror-TV-fans-from-cult-favorite-Forever-Knight Geraint Wyn Davies, but sizing up as the best of the bad is the character of Christopher Henderson, as played by the always great Peter Weller. Never anything less than cool, intelligent, and fascinating, Weller's over 30-year career is full of terrific performances than his new 24 fans -- and we all love a bad guy, right? -- shouldn't miss.
Let's hope everybody remembers Weller's high-tech and heartbreaking performance as the titular Robocop in 1987's Paul Verhoeven-directed science fiction masterwork. Violent, disturbing, and fascinating, Robocop's success owed much to Weller's nuanced yet controlled work as Alex Murphy, a young police officer, slain in the line of duty -- and what a brutal sequence that is -- who is reborn into a super-powerful cyborg body. What happens when Murphy's memories of his left-behind family start to come to the surface is what gives Robocop its humanity; everything else is a bang-up full-bore action movie that has few equals. Not for widdle girls!
I'd also recommend Weller's obsessed -- and can you blame him? -- turn as an apartment dweller who does battle with a gigantic rat living behind his walls. 1983's Of Unknown Origin is a neat little urban monster movie; with any lesser actor this might have been a lousy TV-level movie, but Peter Weller's unshakable intelligence moves this creepy premise to something grand.
Weller's also great in another early '80s domestic thriller entitled Firstborn. He's the seemingly perfect and handsome new husband of a woman (Teri Garr), but she quickly learns he's a sadistic bastard, and it's up to her teenage son to try to get his mom out of this dangerous situation. Firstborn doesn't seem to be released on DVD at the present time, but perhaps it'll play on TV. Watch for it; you'll enjoy this early bloodcurdlingly evil glimpse of Weller's talent.
Connoisseurs of the completely weird won't want to miss Weller in director David Cronenberg's imaginative 1991 adaptation of William S. Burroughs fantastical novel Naked Lunch. It's a crazy ride and viewers desiring the straight and narrow need not -- indeed should not -- check it out, but I think you'll admire the vision and sheer audacity of making a movie so totally uninterested in pandering to a wide audience. You won't soon forget the world of Naked Lunch.
My favorite early Weller performance is in the delightful cult science fiction favorite The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, from 1984. A gleeful, off-center, unceasingly cool and completely charming Weller  plays Buckaroo, a brilliant surgeon/rock star/inventor who, along with his band, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, and his public posse the Blue Blaze Irregulars, battles to foil the invasion of Earth by the evil Red Lectroids. With a cast jam-packed full of familiar faces -- Jeff Goldblum, Ellen Barkin, John Lithgow, Clancy Brown, Christopher Lloyd, Carl Lumbly, and many more -- Buckaroo Banzai has gathered a legion of fans devoted to this nutty and lovable movie. Gets even better with repeated viewings! Absolutely check this one out!
When you're writing about 24 you better work fast, because, especially so this season, characters are dropping like flies! Let's hope Peter Weller and the dastardly Christopher Henderson are around till the bitter end.
Enjoy 24 Monday nights on Fox, and on Global up in Canada.
If you -- like I did -- fall in love with Buckaroo Banzai, be sure to check out this terrific fan website.
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