Charlie Sheen is at his best when he lets stronger personalities unsettle him. We value the uncertainty of his work with Oliver Stone, while the timing and energy of his broad comedy deserve their due.
Fi1m perspective
In Platoon (1986), Charlie Sheen’s Chris Taylor lets the men around him make the stronger impression. That is the right choice for a young infantryman in Vietnam who has not yet worked out whom to trust. Alongside Willem Dafoe’s Elias and Tom Berenger’s Barnes, his uncertainty makes their competing influence credible. We were frightened for him because he seems so susceptible to men who sound sure of themselves.
Oliver Stone makes the moral division between the sergeants too tidy, a weakness that the performances cannot quite disguise. Yet Sheen keeps the heat, muck and fear more pressing than the question of which man Taylor should follow. Stone’s Wall Street (1987) gives him another useful position as Bud Fox, an ambitious broker drawn into corruption. In both films, he makes it plausible that a young man might accept someone else’s authority before understanding what it will cost him. We like his willingness to look impressionable, without trying to signal that he knows better than the character.
That restraint can also become passivity: The Rookie (1990) leaves too little sense of a person beneath the part. The comedies offer a livelier use of him, with Major League (1989) and Hot Shots (1991) drawing on his timing and energy. Broad comedy suits him, and it deserves to be taken seriously as acting. Television followed with Spin City (2000–02), then the hedonistic bachelor role in Two and a Half Men (2003–11).
His appearance as Charlie in Being John Malkovich (1999) sits within a fantasy comedy we recommend warmly, although our chief acting pleasures there are Malkovich and Catherine Keener. It is not the place to begin if Sheen is the attraction. Choose Platoon, and notice how often the recruit holds our attention while another man does the persuading.
Biography
Charlie Sheen is an American actor. Born in New York City in 1965, he began appearing in films in the 1980s.
He is known for roles in Platoon (1986), Wall Street (1987) and Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), and for playing Charlie Harper in the television series Two and a Half Men (2003–11). He appeared as Charlie in Being John Malkovich (1999).
