Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Whoa / Film James Ransone in Broken City: Barely onscreen and barely restrained
Posted by Ben Sachs on 01.16.13 at 03:36 PM
This marks the third compelling performance I've seen from Ransone in less than a year. The others were in Sinister, where he played a shifty small-town policeman, and in Starlet, where he played an aspiring porn performer. In all three roles the 33-year-old actor uses his hard-staring eyes and wiry frame to suggest a sociopathic, even animal intensity that could break out at any moment. It's a surprisingly malleable quality; Ransone doesn't seem out of place as any of these characters, which vary from rich to poor and from cunning to dopey. This barely contained energy alternately suggests a caffeine buzz, unchecked pride, and Tourette's syndrome. It could come from anywhere, and the chief pleasure of watching Ransone onscreen—like the great Dan Duryea (Woman in the Window, Black Angel) before him—is in pondering its source in regard to whatever particular eccentric he's playing.
