Rutger Hauer Tribute: A One-Man Slaughterhouse

Despite these moments of beauty Hauer would struggle to shake this bad guy persona. But he did his best to try. He was the all-American (?) hero in Sam Peckinpah's final film The Osterman Weekend (1983) and starred in 1985's underrated fantasy Ladyhawk, a film that sees two lovers (Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer) separated by a magical curse. Hauer, perhaps unsurprisingly, spends his nights as a wolf.

Director Richard Donner had typically eyed the Dutchman up for the villain, but the actor refused, holding out instead for the heroic lead. It was a good fit. Navarre is a dark and troubled anti-hero, a black-clad knight out for bitter revenge against the satanic Bishop who cast the spell. Hauer makes for a convincing, if tormented, romantic lead, his passion burning behind those fiery blue eyes. "Wouldn't it be nice", he tells comedy sidekick Phillipe "if I could call her by name and pretend we met before."

Blind Fury (1989) was a fun action comedy based on the Japanese Zatochi series. Here he was Nick Parker, a man blinded in Vietnam but rescued by local villagers and taught to become a master swordsman using his other senses (with a samurai sword concealed in his wooden cane). Hauer relished the lightness of the role, speaking softly and when not fighting goofily tripping over bags and prat-falling in the street. He has a tender bond with the boy he's protecting and teaches him to be a man. Yet critics and audiences struggled to accept Hauer as anything less than the personification of evil. And so back he would go, back to madness.

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