Why not Rutger Hauer …

I was cruising along the Internet this morning and somewhere in the back of my mind I started hearing this voice, asking me … “Why not Rutger Hauer?” I thought, yeah … why not? I mean, no one can claim Hauer hasn’t been in his fair share of films. According to IMDB.com, Hauer has been in well over 80 movies, with six more on the way. No, the question is more a matter of why doesn’t he get bigger roles in bigger movies? Granted, for all we know, he may be selecting the films he does intentionally. That list of films consists mainly of smaller low-budget and/or direct-to-video titles.

I can’t help but think of Blade Runner and wonder why that role alone didn’t set his career on fire, permanently. Hauer played the replicant Roy Batty in the 1982 sci-fi classic and it was his first major Hollywood role after establishing a place as a Dutch actor back home. As much as I love Blade Runner, I truly feel Hauer was a major factor in the movie being as good as it is. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the studios hated the movie at first and it was actually a box office flop when it first released. Only later did the film become the sci-fi/cult classic it is today.

Despite what I’ve said, I am glad Hauer has chosen some of the movies he’s done. Even without the stigma of becoming a massive Hollywood star, Hauer has created some great performances, even in the smaller stuff. A few of my favorites include The Osterman Weekend (1983), Ladyhawke (1985), The Hitcher (1986), Blind Fury as Nick Parker, a blind Vietnam vet who is a skillful samurai who returns to America to rescue a friend, and Split Second where he plays Harley Stone, a cop tracking an alien creature in a futuristic Earth. There are many more Hauer films to check out, but in my opinion, these are the better ones from his early hay-days in the 80’s and early 90’s.