McQueen Cool

Today marks the 77th anniversary of the birth of the late Steve McQueen. The first thing I'd ever heard of McQueen was how cool he was. Nobody could elaborate further except to say that he was just cool. So I watched some of his movies: The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven, The Getaway, Bullitt, Hell Is for Heroes, Nevada Smith (yea for righteous vengeance), The Towering Inferno and the original Thomas Crown Affair. The first two are great movies, the rest fall somewhere between mediocre and halfway decent and are quite dated. McQueen did not exactly wow me with his acting ability in any of them, but his coolness was undeniable. He seemed to exude all the adjectives associated with being cool: nonchalant, rebellious, brooding, unconcerned. He was a movie star because it was cool to be a movie star. He was the bad guy you rooted for. The end of The Great Escape sums it up: he's the loner trying to escape the Nazis by jumping a barbed-wire fence on a motor cycle. I came up with the closest actors we have to being McQueen Cool today. Below are the candidates and why each one fails. Brad Pitt: He takes himself a little too seriously. His Long & Serious Trilogy (Legends of the Fall, Meet Joe Black, and Seven Years in Tibet) had good moments but would have been better if they weren't so... well, long and serious. Also, he takes too many roles where he makes himself look ugly so as to prove he has acting ability and not just good looks. If Pitt were as cool as McQueen, he wouldn't care what people thought of him. George Clooney: The ladies like him and the guys would like to be him, but he's too polarizing because of his political stands. Hollywood types trying to use their celebrity to forward a political agenda just aren't cool. Matt Damon: The Bourne Trilogy has grown on me. It stands out among the other serialized action franchises. However, what will forever keep Damon from the being McQueen Cool is his association with Ben Affleck. If ever there was a guy who wishes he were cool, it's Affleck. Vin Diesel: While I didn't see The Pacifier, I felt it was too soon for someone of his action movie caliber to take on such a comedic role. Sure, Stallone did it with Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot and Schwarzenegger did it with Twins and then again with Kindergarten Cop and then again with Junior and then again with Jingle All the Way. On second thought, maybe Arnold really was a comedic actor after all. My point is that Vin Diesel was really building himself from an action hero into The Action Hero. I mean, did you see him in XXX? He was wearing a fur coat and not only getting away with it, but making it seem cool. Daniel Craig: Casino Royale was cool. The idea of reinventing James Bond was a gamble, but it seems to have worked. It took a movie franchise that had once been cool but had more recently been kind of silly and gave it new life. It's too soon to tell if Craig can become as cool as Sean Connery, let alone Steve McQueen. Jason Statham: He was Handsome Rob. He was the Transporter. He could kick your butt. Statham successfully works together the tough guy persona with the sensitive type. He's not quite main stream enough to be McQueen Cool, but over time he might be able to become such. Johnny Depp: Over the past few years, his rebel status has faded some. And while I've liked him in his many collaborations with Tim Burton (Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), if I had to use one word to characterize Tim Burton, that word would be "weird" (if I could use two words, however, they would be "dark" and "edgy"). Weird rarely translates to cool (unless you're one of those people whose favorite channel is Sci-Fi). Will Smith: His rapper background lends him street cred, but his current wholesome family man image isn't cool. It's commendable and a refreshing change from Hollywood's normal family values, but it's not McQueen Cool. Plus, if you ever watch reruns of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air it makes you wonder why 80's fashion gets such a bad rap compared the "hip" 90's clothes on display in that show. John Cusack: Everyone still talks about his Say Anything's Lloyd Dobler and Better Off Dead is one of my all-time favorites. The problem with Cusack, however, is that he seems to have been unable to get past the high school movie genre, as least as far as mainstream is concerned. Sure, there are a few exceptions: Being John Malkovich, High Fidelity, Grosse Pointe Blank, but even that last one was set in the backdrop of a high school reunion. The rest of his recent movies have been forgettable chick flicks. Tobey Maguire: Just kidding. This loser is anything but cool. Colin Farrell: He was up and coming for a while there and the bad-boy image is certainly alive. However, Alexander set him back a little bit and Miami Vice turned what was the epitome of cool 80's television into a lame display of testosterone and violence. Jamie Foxx: I just can't get past his scrunched up, sour, screw-ball face from In Living Color (the black Saturday Night Live. While SNL had their token black guy Chris Rock, ILC had their token white guy Jim Carey). Also, sometimes it seems that Foxx is trying a little too hard to be cool. Kiefer Sutherland: His 24 persona Jack Bauer is cool, but in looking at Kiefer's body of work, I'd almost say Donald is the cooler Sutherland. Denzel Washington: He's another one of those actors that takes himself too seriously, and he's getting up in age. Plus, is it just me or have every one of his movies lately been exactly the same? Another thing I've noticed about Denzel is his leading ladies are always unknowns. You get five bonus points if you have heard of even one of the following: Paula Patton, Radha Mitchell, Salli Richardson, Kimberly Elise, Nicole Ari Parker, Embeth Davidtz. So tell me what you think. Do any of the above actors have what it takes to be McQueen Cool?