RIP Val Killmer

I kinda saw this one coming, but it's still disappointing as someone who grew up watching him. RIP.

Aw, man.

Way before bothering with Willow - Kilmer is terrific, as his chemistry with his soon to be wife Joanne Whalley, but the rest of it is pretty tiresome - check out the spoof Top Secret! for lots of laughs and Thunderheart for a decent genre pic. Directed by Michael Apted (Gorky Park, Gorillas in the Mist), it is loosely inspired by real-life 1970s unrest on several of the Indian Reservations, including Wounded Knee and the killing of Native American activist Leonard Peltier in a shoot out with the F.B.I. Thunderheart's fictional narrative doesn't address any of that, but uses it as a backdrop for a procedural about a young agent (Kilmer) who is one-quarter Sioux, sent to South Dakota to investigate a murder. Sam Shepard plays the senior agent in charge, Fred Ward heads one of the factions on the Reservation, and Graham Greene, in his first major role post Dances with Wolves, is a Tribal cop.



Not difficult to guess where things go, genre plot wise, but a strong cast and nicely made, including some terrific Badlands location photography by Roger Deakins. The actual movements and events from the 1970s are more interesting than this cop picture, and Apted did follow it up with a good documentary Incident at Oglala: The Leonard Peltier Story. But Thunderheart is solid for what it is.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

I can’t say he’s an huge favorite of mine, but I have a lot of respect for him and his work. Sometimes it’s also not about the heavy hitters… it’s about those who make a great impression in the stuff they are in even if they are not the main lead.

I loved him in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang*and even with a stacked cast he outplayed everyone in Tombstone… and of course his part in Top Gun: Maverick was absolutely perfect. One of those moments where the lines between reality and fiction blended together for a moment and everything just washed over you.

Rest in peace.

Not a huge fan of his. I liked him in Willow. I'll probably watch that again sometime soon on Disney + in his honor.

RIP

I think this is what made his scenes in Maverick so good...it really felt like we were saying goodbye to him in that film. Loved him in Top Secret, Willow, Heat, Tombstone....and he was so screwed over when he wasn't even nominated for playing Morrison in The Doors...especially since he sang the songs himself.

Folks have a tendency to claim a performance was Oscar-worthy without putting it into the context of its awards season. That was the year Anthony Hopkins won for Silence of the Lambs. Assuming you're OK with allowing that iconic performance to stand as the winner, the other four nominees were Robert DeNiro for Cape Fear, Robin Williams for The Fisher King, Warren Beatty for Bugsy, and Nick Nolte for The Prince of Tides. To me that is a very solid group, but if you go to replace one of them, some of the other unnominated lead performances from that year were John Turturro in Barton Fink, River Phoenix in My Own Private Idaho, Harrison Ford in Regarding Henry, Jason Patric in Rush, Gary Oldman and Tim Roth in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Kevin Costner in JFK, Joe Mantegna in Homicide, Denzel Washington in Mississippi Masala, and on and on.

Kilmer does a spot-on impression of Jim Morrison, but Oliver Stone's movie is relentlessly dopey and pretentious (not a good combo), and to me it just plain is not one of the five best performances of that year.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

One of my favorite actors, ever. So this, although expected, is devastating. All of the films mentioned provide great memories of his acting skill and many of them I was glad to see on the cinema screen. One that rarely gets mentioned is The Ghost and the Darkness (1996), a very entertaining action/adventure/thriller based on a true story. Michael Douglas gets top billing but Kilmer was the star, and the movie belongs to him. He even gets more screen time than Douglas, but such are film contracts. I can watch this one over and over.

In fact, for me, most of his are worthy of rewatch on a frequent basis. I'm glad we were blessed with his talent onscreen. My prayers go out to his family. Godspeed, Val.

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Its funny you mention ghost and the darkness as i bought a copy of that movie just a few weeks ago as hadnt watched it in years. A very underrated movie and well worth a watch.

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Did you know that BATMAN has a code word to ask SUPERMAN for help because he has trouble saying he needs help.
The word is Banana Muffin.

>Folks have a tendency to claim a performance was Oscar-worthy without putting it into the context of its awards season

Well, I'm not even saying Val should've won...but not even nominated? And given that Warren Beatty, the original Oscar darling himself, was one of the other actors nominated, I think he could have taken the bump for Val.

That was the year Anthony Hopkins won for Silence of the Lambs. Assuming you're OK with allowing that iconic performance to stand as the winner

I'm actually not okay with it. Because that was a Best Supporting Actor performance. His runtime in the movie is around 15-minutes. It's one of the more classic cases of category fraud in history. And, I loved Jack Palance as much as anyone then, but I'd have been fine had it been Hopkins winning in that category and freeing up a spot in Best Actor.

>Kilmer does a spot-on impression of Jim Morrison, but Oliver Stone's movie is relentlessly dopey and pretentious

Hasn't stopped the actors from winning before. Rami Malek just won for that awful Queen movie and he didn't even sing any of the songs and Butler was just nominated for the equally-awful Elvis movie. That said, The Doors movie itself is incredible to watch, especially the concert scenes so I have no idea where you're coming from there. You just have to accept that most of it is fiction and that's it's not really an accurate story. But that's the case with many of Stone's films...you mention Costner in JFK and that movie is equally pretentious and full of mistruths. Not sure why that's so different from the Doors, especially since both movies are riveting. But like you say, mileage may vary.

This one hurt.

R.I.P. Va and thank you.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

I've been a fan of Val Kilmer since I first saw him in Batman Forever. That was the first Batman movie I saw in theatres and I thought he did a good job with contintuing the role after Keaton's exit. I always found Kilmer to be a 'cool dude' and had movie star looks. It didn't hurt that he was extremely talented and leaves behind a stellar filmography of performances. If you were to ask anyone what their favourite performance of his was, you'd probably get a different answer each time.

People tend to remember him as a serious actor, especially with his on set behaviour of demanding to be taken seriously and being notoriously difficult with other actors and directors; Batman Forever & Island of Dr. Moreau are two famous examples. But he had a sense of humour that could surprise you. His early roles in Top Secret and Real Genius showcased these talents, then of course later in his career he would return to comedy with his role of Gay Perry in Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and Dieter Von C*nth in McGruber. I wished Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang would have jump started Kilmer's career again, much like it did for RDJ.

He held his own against the two heavy weights of Pacino and Deniro in Heat and has one of the most memorable "silent" scenes when he goes to see his wife, just for her to give him the 'signal'. Without a word we see the rush of emotions run across his face. When I think of Heat I think of two scenes, the iconic diner meet up of course, but also the shot of Kilmer exiting the bank and seeing the cop across the street. It's the zero hesitation move in which he raises his weapon and fires that sticks out in my mind. We've all heard those stories about how the military would show clips of Kilmer reloading his weapon to new recruits. Whether true or not, it's a pretty cool story.

People talk about his oscar worthy performance in The Doors, but it's withoutadoubt in my mind that he should have been nominated for Tombstone. Tommy Lee Jones won that year and despite that performance being fun, people still talk about the legendary role of Doc Holiday. He stole that movie from the other actors, just like he stole the film Top Gun from Tom Cruise. I wanted to be Iceman because of how cool he was. It was bittersweet seeing him reprise it in Maverick.



I would watch movies simply because he was in them. That was the case for The Saint and The Ghost and the Darkness. The former was a fun role for him to play dress-up and embodie multiple characters, the latter had him take on a more serious role while Douglas got to ham it up.

If I were to recommend three sadly underseen Kilmer movies, they would have to be David Mamet's Spartan, D. J. Caruso's The Salton Sea and Ric Roman Waugh's Felon. A missing person's thriller, a neo-noir crime drama and a prison film where Kilmer is terrifying yet approachable. I'll also throw Wonderland in there too where he plays John Holmes, notorious pornstar involved in murder.

Red Planet came out the same year as Mission to Mars and failed at the box office, that was the last big budget Val Kilmer led film. No comment on the quality of that one.
After that, he would pop up in supporting roles such as Mindhunters & Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans or direct to video films with varying degrees of quality, but mostly they were terrible.

When he lost his voice, his roles basically disappeared. He would have to be dubbed and the film would be shot around hiding the fact. It was done hilariously bad in The Snowman. His documentary Val was spectacular and sad. Seeing him have trouble simply sitting at a comic-con type event to sign merch was enough to see that Val was in bad shape. Do I wish he would have listened to doctors earlier and treat his throat cancer with actual medicine? Of course, maybe he would still be around. Hearing about famous people who have money to get the treatment they need, but choose alternative methods is frustrating. But he lived the life he wanted to live.

RIP Val Kilmer.

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Suspect's Reviews

That scene in Top Gun Maverick destroyed me

his always my fav on top gun and batman . rip val

>That scene in Top Gun Maverick destroyed me

Same here. Was hard to not see Val himself in that role.