Armie Hammer Is Doing What Now??

Actors taking on roles that reflect how Hollywood views them is not new. The practice is tried and true, and has done wonders for some people with difficult careers. Take Mickey Rourke, for instance. His turn in The Wrestler was heralded as a stunning comeback that tackled his troubled past and earned him an Oscar nomination. He would go on to burn all of those newly built bridges, but it looked good there for a bit!

The snag is that there is a line. You can only get so close to anything that’s actually revelatory, and you don’t want to do something that would feel too close to actual controversy. Louis C.K. made a movie that people viewed as his step into legitimacy as a director, and it featured Charlie Day simulating pleasuring himself while discussing a female character in one scene, and, surprise, people did not care for C.K. alluding to his own misconduct.

All this is to say that no one wants to see Armie Hammer in a film where he mistreats women. People didn’t want to see him in movies before the allgations, as evidenced by most of his box office receipts, but they certainly don’t want to see him now. Regardless, that’s what he’s doing. Hammer appears in a new Western called Frontier Crucible, where he plays a crazed outlaw who does bad deeds.

It feels like forever since Hammer faced accusations of doing horrendous things, and it upended the career of someone Hollywood had been forcing on us for years. Aside from his appearances in The Social Network and Call Me By Your Name, it’s hard to argue that he delivered a performance that was particularly memorable. And yet, there he was, showing up in big-budget movies and attempted franchises.

Hammer has been attempting a comeback recently, and I’m going to take a shot in the dark and say that doing a movie that portrays him as some sick individual probably isn’t going to help. His fall from grace was swift and forceful (as it should have been). People aren’t going to just forget, especially if he’s actively reminding them. That said, this is Hollywood, a land where you can’t keep a straight, white man down. To that end, expect to see Hammer in Rush Hour 4.