Dear All
One of the best known European actors has
died.
Blade Runner actor Rutger Hauer has passed
away at the aged 75.
He will always be remembered for his role
of Roy Batty in the sci-fi epic which made him into a sensation. For me the
best film which I enjoyed seeing him in was the 1986 movie, The Hitcher. In
this movie, Rutger played a seemingly suicidal and homicidal maniac and C.
Thomas Howell as his primary victim. Although this movie didn’t do as well
as it should, it was a great horror movie played well.
The scene in the diner between Rutger and C.
Thomas Howell as the younger man threatened to shot him and his response
was classic Hauer. The cast also featured the rather talented actor Jennifer
Jason Leigh playing a waitress who comes to the aid of C. Thomas Howell. Her
death was pure Hitchcock, tied to a truck tractor unit and trailer and pulled
apart, off screen.
Another movie, a favourite of mine was the
film he done in 1987, with Alan Arkin, Escape from Sobibor, a tale of the
biggest mass escape from the Nazi death in Eastern Poland. In this movie, he played
a Russian soldier caught by the Germans and sent to Sobibor to do hard manual
work.
This movie was a British television
film, however it had a great supporting cast of talent. One of the actors who
delivered a powerful performance was Hartmut
Becker, the German actor who was born in Berlin. His scenes as SS-Hauptscharführer
Gustav Wagner spreading fear and killing without conscience elevated this movie
considerably.
Escape from Sobibor won an Emmy Award for
Best Supporting Actor for Hauer in his role in the gritty drama which is worth
seeing.
One film which also might make your list
was the Sly Stallone movie Nighthawks, where Rutger Hauer played a terrorist
operating in New York.
Director Guillermo Del Toro tweeted:
"RIP the great Rutger Hauer: an
intense, deep, genuine and magnetic actor that brought truth, power and beauty
to his films. My personal favorites: Flesh + Blood, Eureka, The Hitcher, Blade
Runner, Ladyhawke and Blind Fury."
Rutger Hauer had an impressive list of
screen credits.
Surviving the Game in 1994 was another good
movie for him alongside ICE-T and Charles S Dutton. The movie also stars Gary
Busey who plays a total fruitcake who just loves killing people. As Doc
Hawkins, a CIA psychologist and the founder of the hunting team when
he gets bumped off, you know he deserved it. It is a film with both humour and
horror. The scene near the end when Hauer dons a disguise as a Priest to escape
and meets an old lady begging for money is a hoot.
Hauer did some great movies, real
blockbusters, but also he did some lesser movies on the cheap such as Salute of
the Juggler aka Blood of Heroes. One of the real turkeys he did was a film
called Omega Doom which was truly awful. In life you sometimes pick the wrong thing to be in and certainly Omega Doom was one of them.
Finally, Rutger Hauer was a big talent who
worked continuously through-out his career, he deserves the recognition as a
superstar.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow
University
2 comments:
RIP Rutger. I grew up in the 1980s and loved the the Hitcher.
Wonderful actor who took on alternative films. Watch Hobo With A Shotgun. Weird and outrageous but also very funny.
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