Alphabetical Movie – Major League

When watching Major League, I can’t help but think of a time when Charlie Sheen and Wesley Snipes weren’t punch lines.

I’m not suggesting that this film represented the finest work of their careers.  But they sure come off as likable guys, you know?  It doesn’t seem like they will just slip into obscurity or insanity.  I think they both show a kind of charisma that suggests they are unlikely to burn out.

Snipes was Blade for goodness’ sake!  He and Sandra Bullock are the reason that Demolition Man isn’t a complete disaster.  Snipes kind of wills his audience to enjoy that movie.

By the time Sheen makes this movie, he’s been in Wall Street and Platoon!  For both of these guys, this dopey baseball film should be little more than a speed bump.  Sheen ran over it twice because he appeared in Major League II.  His career then migrated to Television, where he did very well until – well – we all know what happened.

Snipes, for his part, decided to skip paying taxes for a while.  So he spent a little while in jail.

He’s in Expendables 3 so things are looking up for him.  Good news there.  The Expendables franchise is not at all about featuring action stars past their prime in mediocre films.  Should work out great.

Sheen’s got another show on television so I’m pretty sure that he’ll be able to spend another few years swimming in a pool of cocaine on his days off.

It isn’t that these guys aren’t working.  It’s that they aren’t working on the sorts of things you thought they could have done.  Snipes might not have been the next Sidney Poitier but he had potential that has gone unrealized.

Sheen was in Wall Street and Platoon! He was good in those movies!  Who knew he was going to turn into something a lot closer to Gordon Gekko than Bud Fox?

I guess Snipes may have turned out more like Gekko.

How many promising actors does Hollywood destroy just by being Hollywood?  Snipes and Sheen are grown men and they are responsible for their own lack of responsibility.  Hollywood didn’t turn them into who they are.  Hollywood just made it very easy for them to be who they are.

It is as pointless to long for what they could have been as it is to feel sorry for what they have become.

And it’s quite possible that neither one of them would ever have done anything great.  Maybe they could never have been anything more than they currently are.

Maybe.

But Major League, while not a brilliant film, shows both of them acting as part of an ensemble and contributing to the film.  Neither one of them look like they are too full of themselves.  It sure seems like they have the ability to be actors who can share the screen with other actors.  Part of the reason I enjoy this mediocre comedy is because of them.

So I guess that means that they actually are good actors, because they managed to make me believe they were something they clearly are not.