Ian McKellen: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked
4. Kurt Dussander - Apt Pupil (1998)
Speaking of which, whilst he's probably going to be best remembered as Gandalf The White, Ian McKellen isn't one of those to be typecast as the kindly old Englishman. That's certainly not how he'll be remembered by anyone who's seen Apt Pupil, Bryan Singer's film adaptation of the Stephen King novella of the same name, where McKellen appears as a Nazi war criminal hiding out under an assumed name in 1980s suburban California. He's considerably less cuddly then. Singer changed the text considerably, toning down some of the violence but still including the bit where a drunk Kurt Dussander (McKellen) attempts to kill a cat by putting it in a gas oven and altering the ending, with the Nazism also being less important and more of a vehicle for his "study in cruelty". Regardless of the intentions going in, McKellen is absolutely terrifying as Dussander, and convincing to boot. Which makes it all the more terrifying since, y'know, he's a Nazi. A Nazi who manages to be doubly evil by having all sorts of sadomasochistic fantasies about young Todd Bowden, the high school student next door who discovers the true nature of the nice elderly Arthur Denker next door and blackmails him into sharing disturbing stories of his time presiding over prison camps, sending them both spiralling into self-destruction. Mesmerising and horrifying in equal measure, mainly thanks to McKellen's starring role.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
