Oliver Platt Movies
A hulking character actor who brings new meaning to the concept of versatility, Oliver Platt has appeared in a dizzying array of films that make him instantly recognizable but not instantly placeable to the average filmgoer. Since making his screen debut as an oily Wall Street drone in Mike Nichols' Working Girl (1988), Platt has lent his talents to almost every conceivable genre, including period dramas, political comedies, children's films, and campy horror movies.The son of a U.S. Ambassador, Platt was born in Windsor on January 12, 1960, Platt and his family soon moved to Washington, D.C. Thanks to his father's job, he had an exceptionally itinerant childhood. By the time he was 18, he had attended 12 different schools in places as diverse as Tokyo, the Middle East, and Colorado. Long interested in acting, Platt received a BA in drama from Boston's Tufts University; following graduation, he remained in Boston for three years to pursue his stage career. In 1986 he moved to New York, where he performed in a number of off-Broadway productions and had the lead in the 1989 Lincoln Center production of Ubu.
Following his screen debut in Working Girl, Platt began finding steady work in such films as Married to the Mob (1988), Postcards from the Edge (1990), Beethoven (1992) -- which featured him and future collaborator Stanley Tucci as puppy thieves -- and Benny and Joon (1993). He also proved himself adept at cheesy period drama in The Three Musketeers (1993), which cast him as Porthos, and at all-out comedy, as demonstrated by his turn as a struggling comic in Funny Bones (1995). Rarely cast as a leading man, Platt has always been visible in substantial supporting roles, equally comfortable at portraying nice guys, bad guys, and just flat out weird guys alike. As Ashley Judd's suitor in Simon Birch (1998), he was the straight man, while in The Impostors (1998), his second collaboration with Tucci (two years earlier he served as associate producer for the latter's Big Night), he again displayed his capacity for broad physical comedy as a struggling actor who finds himself a stowaway on an ocean liner. In Dangerous Beauty (1998), Platt was able to exercise his nasty side as a bitter nobleman-turned-religious zealot in 16th-century Venice; that same year, his capacity for exasperated quirkiness was displayed in Bulworth, which cast him as Warren Beatty's put-upon, coke-snorting campaign manager.
1999 proved to be a somewhat disappointing year for Platt, as two of his films, Three to Tango (which featured him as a gay architect) and the schlock-horror Lake Placid, which cast him as an idiosyncratic mythology expert, were both critical and commercial flops. A third film that year, Bicentennial Man -- in which Platt played the scientist who turns the titular robot (Robin Williams) into a man -- fared somewhat better. The following year, Platt's comic abilities were again on display in Gun Shy, in which he hammed it up as a bottom-rung mafioso with an overblown ego. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
- 1989
- PG13
Master cinematographer Caleb Deschanel is, not unexpectedly, stronger on visuals than substance in his direction of Crusoe (though the camerawork is officially credited to Tom Pinter). The protagonist, played by Aidan Quinn, is a shipwreck victim, just as novelist Daniel Defoe proscribed over two hundred years ago. But this Robinson Crusoe is a child of the late 19th century; moreover, he is no ordinary sailor but an insensitive slave trader. The "Friday" character is divided up amongst several black natives of the island where Crusoe is stranded. Ultimately, Crusoe profits by their example, rather than the other way around. Director Deschanel busies himself with gorgeous scenery (mostly lensed in the Seychelles) and languid sunsets, permitting screenwriters Christopher Logue and Walson Green to pursue the politically correct message of Crusoe without interference. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Aidan Quinn, Ade Sapara, (more)
Michelle Pfeiffer is Married to the Mob in this comedy. The wife of Mafia hitman Alec Baldwin, Pfeiffer regularly chastizes her husband for his underhanded line of work. Baldwin refuses to entertain any thoughts of quitting the mob-and besides, he's got a good thing going with Nancy Travis, the promiscuous girl friend of gang boss Dean Stockwell. When Stockwell catches on to Travis' peccadilloes, he murders both his mistress and the unlucky Baldwin. At Baldwin's funeral, Stockwell is overwhelmed by Pfeiffer's beauty, and immediately begins plying her with expensive gifts. But Pfeiffer is through with this sort of thing, and with her young son in tow, she leaves town, hoping to start life anew. Upon making the acquaintance of bumbling, seemingly sincere Matthew Modine, Pfeiffer is convinced that Modine is just another mob flunkey. But it's even worse: Modine is an FBI agent, ordered to get to Stockwell by using Pfeiffer as bait. Reluctantly (he's grown quite fond of her himself), Modine blackmails Pfeiffer into setting up a rendezvous with Stockwell. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michelle Pfeiffer, Matthew Modine, (more)
Unhappy with her job and her loser boyfriend, Melanie Griffith takes a secretarial post at a major Wall Street firm. Her boss is Sigourney Weaver, an outwardly affable yuppie whose grinning visage hides a wicked and larcenous propensity for exploiting the ideas of her employees. While Weaver is incapacitated, Griffith is compelled by circumstances to pose as her boss. Her inborn business acumen and common sense enable Griffith to rise to the top of New York's financial circles, and along the way she wins the love of executive (Harrison Ford). Things threaten to take a sorry turn when Weaver returns, but it is she who suffers from the consequences of her own past duplicity. Working Girl was Melanie Griffith's breakthrough film, proving than she was more than just the off-and-on "significant other" of Don Johnson. The film was later adapted into a brief TV series, starring a pre-Speed Sandra Bullock. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford, (more)
