Mark Wahlberg 4 Eva: A Retrospective

Dear Phil,

This weekend, Elly and I found ourselves lying prostrate on her couch with a pizza between us, scrolling blissfully through the endless list of channels with acronyms that I cannot possibly decode, searching out the perfect worst-slash-best viewing option for our evening.  After rejecting a marathon of Millionaire Matchmaker and a reality show on the Country Music Channel about Southern debutantes, we struck gold on the TV Guide Channel (who knew this channel had actual programming?) with the mid-nineties psycho-sexual thriller, Fear.

Me: Oh! Oh! Oh!  Yesssssssss.
Elly: Perfect.

About twenty minutes into it, this conversation happened:

Elly: This movie's kind of creepier than I remembered.
Me: Yeah, but Mark Wahlberg is so hot.  Who even cares?
Elly: I always forget that you love Mark Wahlberg.
Me: Really? Because I never do.
Elly: I don't think I can even name that many of his movies, can you?
Me: Yes.
Elly: How many of them have you seen?
Me: Um, all of them?
Elly: Shut up.
Me: I think I have.  I mean, there may be one or two that I missed, but I'm a pretty devoted fan.
Elly: We need to IMDB this.
Me: Do it.
Elly: Okay...Renaissance Man.
Me: Yes.
Elly: The Basketball Diaries.
Me: Yes.
Elly: Boogie Nights.
Me: Yes.  
Elly: The Yards.
Me: Yes.
Elly: The Perfect Storm.
Me: Yes.
Elly: Traveller?
Me: No.  I've never even heard of that.
Elly: It says it's about "a young man, Pat, who visits the clan of gypsy-like grifters (Irish Travellers) in rural North Carolina from whom he is descended. He is at first rejected, but cousin Bokky takes him on as an apprentice. Pat learns the game while Bokky falls in love and desires a different life."
Me: Oh my God.
Elly: I know.

It turns out that there are, in fact, two of the twenty seven films in the Mark Wahlberg filmography (I've chosen not to count the TV Movie in which he appeared as Marky Mark -- aka himself) that I have not seen: The elusive, gypsy-grifter tale, Traveller, and Date Night.  I don't have a good excuse for that second one.

In honor of my unrequited MW crush that has now spanned multiple decades, here's a list of some of my favorites from the Wahlberg oeuvre...

1.  Fear

 

 First of all, it's oddly comforting to see 1996 again, no?

 

There's something about that era of movies that always makes me feel a spontaneous burst of affection.  Does everyone feel nostalgic over movies released when they were in high school?  It's funny, I don't look back on high school itself that fondly, but there's something about seeing a movie from that time -- the actors, the clothes, the music -- that captures a moment in a way that's familiar and kind of wistful.

Whatever, maybe it's just me.  For the record, I don't feel that way about Wild Things or Baby Geniuses.

Fear is one of those movies that straddles that treacherous borderland between ridiculous and awesome and wins.  It's hard not to love a movie in which Mark Wahlberg alternately beats himself in his own chest Celine-Dion style, tattoos himself (in phonetically accurate dialect) with a razor blade and a ballpoint pen, and tries to break down Reese Witherspoon's door with an axe.

At some point during our viewing, Elly googled the soundtrack...

Elly: It says Mark Wahlberg has a song on this soundtrack called "The illest."
Me: I know.
Elly: [raises an eyebrow]
Me: I have his albums.
Elly: Wow.

2.  Four Brothers

via austinchronicle.com

As a general rule, I'm not a huge fan of John Singleton.  I feel like he made Boyz 'N The Hood, and then just tried to re-make that same movie over and over again, but without the same success.  That said, against all odds I do love Four Brothers.   Here's the plot in a nutshell: four guys -- Mark Wahlberg, Andre 3000, Tyrese and the dude from Country Strong -- are adopted as a young boys by a kind-hearted woman named Evelyn who raises them as brothers on the mean streets of Detroit, MI.  Years later, the four brothers return home to solve and avenge Evelyn's murder.  In spite of the heavy-handed thuggery and general lack of plot originality, Four Brothers still manages to be a great time for me, not least because Andre 3000 spends much of the movie in overalls...

via allmoviephoto.com

3.  The Italian Job



I mention this movie for two reasons:

First, it's actually a decent remake which is a rare thing in the cinematic world.  It manages to go toe-to-toe with its predecessor without appearing like a sad, watered down version of a more interesting movie (The Truth About Charlie, I'm looking at you).  I'd even venture to say that I enjoyed it even more than the zany Michael Caine original.  Yeah.  I did.  True Story.

Second, I kind of wish Donald Sutherland and Mark Wahlberg were really father (figure) and son...

Except that I feel like such a relationship would inevitably spark any number of drunken, jealous incidents with Kiefer...

4.  I Heart Huckabees 



I don't really have to explain this one do I?  I Heart Huckabees is one of those movies that you either L-O-V-E and believe David O. Russell to possess a brand of peculiar and hilarious genius, or hate and find nonsensical and crazy.  Either way though, I'm pretty sure everyone can get behind the Wahlberg performance, which is, in my opinion, one of his best...



5.  Shooter




I feel like MW's face in this shot really tells you everything you need to know about Shooter.

Essentially, it's about an ex-marine sniper hired by the government to plan a faux presidential assassination, only to find himself set up as the fall guy in an actual assassination carried out by the corrupt government officials he signed on to help.  MW is forced to go on the lam with only Michael Peña for an unlikely ally...

 

No lie, I have seen this movie something like seventeen times.  It's hard to explain why I love it so much except to say this:  At one point, Mark Wahlberg gets shot by a shady government agent and has to give himself an IV in a gas station bathroom using only a bottle of water, a length of dirty tubing, a needle and some salt.  It is amazing.

Obviously, I could go on with this list, but instead, let me just leave you with this:



You're welcome.

xo,
Lindy