Movies starring Clive Owen
Recently breaking into the top ranks of British superstars making it big in Hollywood, the smoothly virile actor Clive Owen was born on October 3, 1964, in Coventry. His father was a country/western singer who deserted his family when Clive was only 3. He attended Binley Park Comprehensive School and joined the youth theatre at 13 after playing the scene-stealing role of the Artful Dodger in a production of "Oliver!". In 1984, following graduation, Clive applied and was accepted into the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art for three years. While there, he built up a classical resume including roles ...
show all Recently breaking into the top ranks of British superstars making it big in Hollywood, the smoothly virile actor Clive Owen was born on October 3, 1964, in Coventry. His father was a country/western singer who deserted his family when Clive was only 3. He attended Binley Park Comprehensive School and joined the youth theatre at 13 after playing the scene-stealing role of the Artful Dodger in a production of "Oliver!". In 1984, following graduation, Clive applied and was accepted into the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art for three years. While there, he built up a classical resume including roles in "Henry IV, Part I" and "The Lady from the Sea". He subsequently joined the Young Vic Theatre Company and, in 1988, as it goes, the actor playing Romeo fell in love with his Juliet, 'Sarah-Jane Fenton' (qv). The couple eventually married in 1995 and have two daughters. 1988 was a good year for another reason. Clive made his film debut in the British-made Vroom (1988) co-starring with 'David Thewlis' (qv) as two fellows who restore a classic American car and take off on the road. Within two years, Clive became a full-fledged TV star playing devishly handsome rogue Stephen Crane in "Chancer" (1990). However, the now-sought-after Clive abandoned the star-making part during the show's peak because of unwanted invasion of privacy and his fear of typecasting. His next project raised more than few eyebrows after he filmed Close My Eyes (1991) in which he played a brother who acts on his incentuous desires for his older sister. Clive's popular reputation as a loveable shyster was completely shattered and he lost profitable commercial endorsements and film offers for the next two years as a result. But the persistent Clive pursued with stage roles, including playing a bisexual in a production of 'Noel Coward' (qv)'s "Design For Living". He returned to TV at that time as well and played a number of roles in both mini-movies and series. In 1997, he had a hit on the London stage with "Closer", an ensemble contemporary piece about relationships. Controversy surrounded him again in the film role of Max in Bent (1997) as a brash, reckless homosexual lothario in decadent pre-war Germany who finds unexpected love while interned in a Nazi war camp. His biggest film break, however, was in 'Mike Hodges (I)' (qv)' Croupier (1998), as a struggling writer-turned-casino employee who gets in over his head with a femme fatale scam artist. English audiences stayed away in droves but the U.S. embraced the film and Hollywood finally took notice of Clive, who was virtually unknown outside of England. Despite playing detective Ross Tanner in a series of successful "Second Sight" mini-movies and earning another stage hit with "The Day in the Death of Joe Egg" in 2001, Clive has stuck primarily with film, including the offbeat Brit romantic comedy Greenfingers (2000/I), the classy and popular 'Robert Altman (I)' (qv) film Gosford Park (2001), the 'Matt Damon' (qv) starrer Bourne Identity, The (2002), King Arthur (2004) as the title role, and the film version of his stage hit Closer (2004/I)' (qv) with 'Julia Roberts' (qv). There seems to be only bigger and better things awaiting him. Ever since playing the ultra-cool driver in BMW's "The Hire" series, there has been constant pressure for Clive to don a tux and become filmdom's next "James Bond". It would seem a perfect fit.
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England, 2027: this green and pleasant land is now a dirty dystopia in which humanity has become infertile and its childless society is crumbling as refugees and terrorists fight the fascist powers that be. Submerged in this chaos is alcoholic former activist-turned-bureaucrat Theo Faron (Clive Owen), who watches in despair from the sidelines until a surprise visit from an ex-lover (Julianne Moore) offers him an unlikely glimmer of hope. Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón (Y Tu Mamá También) here delivers a truly startling take on PD James’s downbeat novel, reworking its apocalyptic theme through the cracked prism of the post-9/11 era. Owen is excellent and there’s a glorious turn from Michael Caine as an ageing, pot-smoking ex-political cartoonist. But it’s Cuarón’s film: his hand-held camerawork apeing news broadcasts as it records nerve-shredding action set pieces in tense, unbroken shots. True, the proceedings are occasionally marred by a surfeit of plot exposition, yet the stark triumph of Children of Men lies in how its visceral vérité style brings the realities of a War on Terror fought in distant lands crashing back onto British soil.
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Director Spike Lee returns to form after the ill-conceived She Hate Me with this smart and emotionally complex thriller. One of his strongest films in recent years, it combines a slick heist movie with a subtle exploration of post 9/11 society. Denzel Washington is sharply charismatic as a police hostage negotiator called in after Clive Owen’s criminal crew lays siege to a Manhattan bank. What begins as a routine scenario suddenly becomes a powder keg of corruption and intrigue, as a shady power broker (Jodie Foster) arrives to cut an independent deal with the robbers on behalf of the bank’s chairman. The subsequent cat-and-mouse game has the character-driven punch of Dog Day Afternoon, but with a dynamic visual and structural style that intensifies the twisting drama. Lee handles the material shrewdly, balancing tension with dark humour. However, it’s his succinct commentary on racial prejudice and preconceptions that gives this sophisticated picture its distinctive edge.
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The spy thriller gets an exciting 21st-century makeover in this hip and energetic tale from former indie director Doug Liman. Based on the novel by Robert Ludlum, it stars Matt Damon as a half-dead amnesiac who’s found floating in the Mediterranean Sea with no means of identification, except for a device embedded in his hip containing a Swiss bank account number. Unaware that he’s actually a top CIA assassin, he sets off to Zurich to investigate, facing cops and government killers as his employers try to wipe out their now renegade operative. The film is fast-paced and slickly executed, with an edgy sophistication that must have influenced the reinvention of the Bond franchise with Casino Royale in 2006. Despite a routine plot, every scene feels fresh and believable, making intelligent use of a sharp, well-fleshed out script and strong actors. Damon seems particularly at ease in his smart action hero role, and there’s gutsy support from Franka Potente as his love interest.
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Poverty and repression have rarely looked so picturesque as in this glossy and well-meaning, but self-important and grotesquely naive melodrama. Clive Owen’s maverick relief worker throws himself into aiding the destitute of Ethiopia, Cambodia and Chechnya, ranting at every opportunity, but never discussing the causes of Third World misery in any depth. By offending friend and foe alike, he only succeeds in alienating an audience whose credibility has already been strained by do-gooding socialite Angelina Jolie, as she periodically abandons husband Linus Roache to lend Owen some moral and romantic support.
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Swedish director Mikael Hafstrom makes his English language debut with this neo-noir thriller that boasts plenty of sharp turns. Sadly, screenwriter Stuart Beattie’s (Collateral) plotting is all too predictable, as fellow commuters Lucinda (Jennifer Aniston) and Charles (Clive Owen) indulge in an extramarital flirtation. Apart from having zero chemistry, the circumstances under which the pair get talking seem contrived, and as a result all the Hitchcockian devices that follow are rendered futile. On top of that, the story fails to address Charles’s mounting sense of guilt, after one night with Lucinda at a cheap hotel puts his family at risk. Instead of drama and suspense, there is a rapid descent into casual violence. At least Vincent Cassel has some fun, hamming it up as the pompous French thug who blackmails Charles over the affair, but otherwise there’s nothing to buffer this wayward vehicle.
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