Over the weekend, I had the distinct pleasure of seeing a pre-release viewing of The King’s Speech with Geoffrey Rush and Colin Firth. It was a really great movie and I predict that the two of them are going to be up against each other for a Best Actor Oscar®. And while there were some great supporting actors and characters (Helena Bonham-Carter as Colin Firth’s wife and Guy Pierce as his brother), the strength of the film was the developing relationship between the two main characters, Lionel Logue and King George VI.
This got me thinking about other similar films in which the strength and greatness of the film lies in both the characters being portrayed and the actors portraying said characters.
The ones that immediately come to mind:
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The Dresser* - Albert Finney and Tom Courtney both chew up the scenery. Sleuth - The original; Lawrence Olivier and Michael Caine. The Man Who Would Be King - Michael Caine and Sean Connery. Love 'em both. Thelma and Louise - Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon My Dinner With Andre - Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory
I had thought of Spartacus, but while both main characters (and actors) are extremely substantial, Kirk Douglas and Lawrence Olivier have very little screen time together and doesn’t quite fit the criteria I’m looking for where the actors rely on interaction with one another for their character development.
*Hell In The Pacific *(1969 starring Toshiro Mifune and Lee Marvin about an American and a Japanese soldier stranded on a Pacific island during World War II.
They are the only characters in the movie.
The second, whose title I forget, was a remake of *Hell In The Pacific * made about 25 years ago which transported the story to the far future and a world where an human and an alien enemy are stranded.
And, of course, just about any movie based on Robinson Crusoe.
Robinson Crusoe on Mars – pretty good early 1960s SF flick. a lot of people feel that enemy Mine is pretty reminiscent of it. The African Queen – I know the OP says “No love stories”, but TAQ certainly doesn’t start out that way, and it’s a two-person contest of wills until they start falling for each other.
Moon – recent SF film in which the two “people” are, at first, the lead and his computer, then the lead and the newcomer.
Don’t forget Redford and Newman in The Sting, too.
All the President’s Men - Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Woodward and Bernstein, trying to get to the bottom of the Watergate scandal.
Breaker Morant - Edward Woodward and Bryan Brown as friends and comrades during the Boer War, being court-martialed by a kangaroo court (there are other major characters, including another officer and their defense counsel, but it’s really focuses on those two).
In the Line of Fire - Clint Eastwood as a tough-as-nails but past-his-prime Secret Service agent, and John Malkovich as his sinister foe, an aspiring presidential assassin. Scarily good.
Trading Places - Dan Ackroyd and Eddie Murphy team up to scam the billionaire brothers who used them.
Seven Days in May - Kirk Douglas is a youngish Marine officer who suspects that his boss, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (played by Burt Lancaster), may be planning a military coup.
Hot Fuzz - Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as buddy cops in a quiet little British town that won’t stay quiet for long.
Hmmmm… that one doesn’t work as much for me. Yes, the arc of the film is charted by the two main characters. But I don’t see this as a character film; they seem secondary to the story being told as their core characters didn’t change much. They start off idealistic and driven and remain as such.
Same with Seven Days in May… I don’t think of it has a Lancaster/Douglas-character driven film (and it is one of my favorites).