Kurt Russell: five best moments

While Death Proof didn’t bring Kurt Russell the Travolta-esque comeback many were expecting (before seeing it), his second film with Quentin Tarantino is likely to cause more of a stir.

Russell takes on one of the meatier roles in The Hateful Eight, as a grizzled bounty hunter trying to survive the night surrounded by potentially murderous strangers. He’s following it up with oil rig disaster film Deepwater Horizon and rumoured roles in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 and Fast & Furious 8.

But before he posits himself back as a multiplex mainstay, here’s looking back on his greatest performances.

Escape from New York

After TV roles, a set of films with Disney and a short-lived baseball career, Russell finally became a movie star with his second of five films with John Carpenter. The dystopian actioner, released in 1981 and set in a crime-ridden 1997, gave Russell the chance to inhabit iconic antihero Snake Plissken who quipped and swore his way to cult stardom (and the inferior 1996 sequel, Escape from LA).

The Thing

Carpenter continued to bring out the best in Russell with this 1982 classic which was unfairly dismissed upon release but later viewed as one of the decade’s finest. In this bleak and vicious tale of body horror in the Antarctic, Russell led a fine all-male cast as the brisk and commanding hero, trying to fend off an alien that hides within his rapidly decreasing team.

Overboard

As a much-needed reminder of his great comic talents, originally displayed in his Disney work, Russell starred in his third, and finest, film with partner Goldie Hawn as antagonists who become lovers. Ignore the slightly sinister plot (man uses woman’s mental illness to kidnap her), because the pair have an undeniable chemistry, and Russell’s charm keeps the proceedings light.

Tombstone

After Unforgiven breathed new dusty life into the western genre in 1992, many others of varying quality soon followed. One of the best arrived in 1993, with Russell taking on the role of Wyatt Earp to far greater success than Kevin Costner, who played him a year later. Russell’s tough masculinity, which has been a constant throughout his career, was used to its full potential in a role that was unfairly overlooked when it came to awards.

Breakdown

A simple yet incredibly effective Hitchcockian thriller, this 1997 exercise in suspense and paranoia deserves remembering for a multitude of reasons. The late JT Walsh makes for a menacing villain, director Jonathan Mostow stages the action with seat-edge skill and, yes, Russell makes for a believably fraught middle-class hero forced to engage with his inner rage when his wife goes missing.