To mark the release of Tommy Lee Jones's latest movie, In the Electric Mist, Xtra-vision Marshall Julius celebrates ten of the actor's greatest hits.
An eighth-generation Texan with mixed Cherokee and Welsh ancestry, Tommy Lee Jones is a real-life cowboy with his own cattle ranch, a sportsman who raises polo ponies, A Harvard graduate who once roomed with future Vice President Al Gore, and yes, a movie star too, with one of the most familiar - not to mention deeply craggy – faces in Hollywood.
Now 63, T.L.J. has enjoyed a long career playing tough, sarcastic law enforcement officers, military and western types, and if you had to describe his acting style in a single word, that word would surely be deadpan. "I do not have a sense of humour of any recognisable sort," says Mr Jones, though he may have been joking. It's hard to say.
This week sees the release of Jones' latest movie, In the Electric Mist, exclusively available on Blu-ray and DVD from Xtra-vision. To mark the occasion, we thought we'd put together a top ten list of our favourite Tommy Lee movies, which turned out to be a tougher challenge than we expected as he's made rather a lot of good films over his near-forty year career. To cases then...
For years Jones played the bad guy in a slew of dramas and thrillers, but we'll always have a particular soft spot for Under Siege (1992), surely the best of Steven Seagal's ultra-violent, old school actioners. Stranded aboard a nuclear battleship seized by terrorists, Seagal slays his way up the bad guy food chain en route to a staggeringly fast, close quarters knife fight with ultimate wrongdoer Jones.
1993's The Fugitive was the film that, after years of being more a familiar face than a famous name, made a star of Tommy Lee. Earning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his work as a single-minded US Marshal doggedly pursuing poor, innocent Harrison Ford, Jones delivered the year's most quoted line – which he famously wrote himself – delivered after Ford implores, "I didn't kill my wife". Says Jones, icy cold: "I don't care".
Based on the best selling novel by John Grisham, 1994's The Client is an engrossing, Southern fried legal thriller about a child who knows too much (Brad Renfro), the lawyer sworn to protect him (Susan Sarandon), and the District Attorney (Jones) who'll stop at nothing to bring the bad guys to justice. Certainly it marked a change of pace for Jones, who barely does any running about.
A light-as-air, effects-driven sci fi action comedy from Barry Sonnenfeld, Men in Black (1997) paired straight man Jones with joker Will Smith as a pair of undercover agents charged with protecting the earth, specifically New York City, from the scum of the universe, namely aliens, and illegal ones at that.
Far more serious was Rules of Engagement (2000), an involving war movie and legal thriller from director William Friedkin starring Samuel L. Jackson as a colonel whose actions may be responsible for the deaths of innocent Yemenite protesters, and Tommy Lee Jones as the disillusioned lawyer who might just get his mojo back by defending him.
2003's The Hunted, also from Friedkin, was strongly reminiscent of The Fugitive, the action-packed tale of a trained assassin (Benicio Del Toro) on the run from an FBI deep woods tracker (Jones). Atmospheric, intense and appropriately violent, though not a memorable movie, it is a fun one.
An emotional, character-led western that builds to a cracking action climax, Ron Howard's The Missing (2003) sees frontier medicine woman Cate Blanchett forming an uneasy alliance with her eccentic, estranged dad, after her daughter is snatched by evil Apaches.
Jones turned director in 2005 to make the oddly wonderful The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, a quirkily characterised and acceptably arty drama about a ranch hand's quest to bury his best friend in his Mexican hometown. Also starring in the movie, Jones won Best Actor at Cannes for his troubles.
A mesmerising crime thriller from Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country For Old Men (2007) saw Jones once again in lawman mode, on the trail of a psychopath (Javier Bardem) and $2 million from a drug deal gone awry. A smash hit with critics and audiences alike, the movie won numerous awards, among them Academy Awards for Best Film, Writing, Directing and Supporting Actor Bardem.
Finally, and most recently, there's Jones's latest, In the Electric Mist (2009), a surreal murder mystery from French director Bertrand Tavernier. Set in New Orleans and co-starring John Goodman, Peter Sarsgaard, Mary Steenburgen and Ned Beatty, it's strange and interesting and well worth a watch. It's also exclusively available from Xtra-vision, so add it to your list and enjoy.