I, like many people I'm sure, first really noticed Chris in
Footloose (1984). Very silly and dated movie, but the sequence where Kevin Bacon's character tries to teach Penn's rhythmically-challenged farmboy how to dance (to Denise Williams' "Let's Hear It for the Boy") is the flick's most charming piece.
Footloose was his third major feature, following Coppola's
Rumble Fish and the Tom Cruise High School football drama
All the Right Moves. Being such an Eastwood fan, I'll always remember him from
Pale Rider (1985) as Josh LaHood, the scumbag son of the corrupt owner of the mining operation who kidnaps Megan (Sydney Penny) and has to be taught a lesson by Clint's mysterious Preacher. The only time Chris got to act on the big screen with older brother Sean was in
At Close Range (1986), and they played brothers in the film as well (to a villainous father played by Christopher Walken). Their mother, Eileen Ryan, played their on-screen grandmother, and it marks the only time she worked with Chris (she has worked in movies with Sean three more times thus far, including
Judgement in Berlin directed by Leo Penn).
For the next few years the biggest roles he had were in the karate flick
Best of the Best (1989) - Penn earned a black belt in real life - and
Mobsters (1991). He was working frequently, but hadn't really made his mark yet. Then came
Reservoir Dogs (1992). Chris Penn could have lived to be eighty and made sixty more films, he'd still have been Nice Guy Eddie Cabot to most, the sweatsuit-wearing son of the man in charge who wants to know how the job got so ****ed up and where his Daddy is. You can tell how much of an impression
Dogs had on the casting agents and directors in Hollywood when you see that Chris was in SIX features released in 1993, the year after Tarantino's movie made him. Sure one of them was
Best of the Best 2, but he also had a nice little supporting role in Tony Scott's
True Romance (from another Quentin screenplay), Paul Mazursky's satire of low-budget filmmaking
The Pickle, the indie coming of age flick
Josh & S.A.M. and the disposable family sequel
Beethoven's 2nd. He's also in two of my favorite movies of 1993: Robert Altman's L.A. ensemble
Short Cuts as the pool-cleaner husband of a phone-sex performer (Jennifer Jason Leigh) who's frustrations boil over one sunny day in the park, and coming in at the end of
The Music of Chance as the tough guy son of M. Emmet Walsh.
The next few years he continued to work in projects as varied as
Imaginary Crimes (1994),
Mulholland Falls (1996) and
To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995). The best of his post-
Reservoir roles, his only true leading role, and maybe the best work of his entire career came in Abel Ferrara's
The Funeral (1996). Chris was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award as Best Lead Actor, though he lost to William H. Macy in
Fargo (the other nominees were Chris Cooper in
Lonestar and Tony Shalhoub & Stanley Tucci in
Big Night). Unfortunately despite the critical raves he got for
The Funeral, it was the last good role he ever really got. He settled into becoming a character actor who might show up anywhere, from
Rush Hour (1998) and
Starsky & Hutch (2004) to
Corky Romano (2001) and
Stealing Harvard (2002) to
Murder by Numbers (2002) and
After the Sunset (2004), often just for a scene or two.
It's too bad his career had stalled after
The Funeral, but for dying at forty with twenty-five years or so in the movie business, he left a decent body of work behind him and a few projects that will outlive all of us.
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