Ben Stiller can act?OK, that’s a cheap shot, especially when you consider that the guy has been in more than 30 movies.
But it wasn’t until he took on the role of Jerry Stahl – talented writer and hopeless heroin addict – that Stiller showed he could do more than make people laugh.
Based on the autobiography of Stahl, Permanent Midnight tells the story of a New York writer/druggie who comes to Hollywood to get away from the bad influences of his life in the Big Apple and hopefully get back to doing what he does best –writing.
Unfortunately, the move west doesn’t do much for Stahl except put him in a better climate. He soon gets a job as a writer for a show where the leading man is a puppet (in real life Stahl wrote for the sitcom Alf) and while the money is great it only means he can buy better drugs and buy them more often.
Hollywood is full of comedians who at some point in their career get sick of being the ‘funny guy’ and try to make the switch to drama so they can be taken more seriously as an artist. Some are successful at it, some crash and burn so badly they can’t even go back to being ‘just funny’ anymore.
Stiller proved in Permanent Midnight that he has the chops to dramatically go toe-to-toe with not only his comedic peers but with most of the so called ‘serious;’ actors making movies today.
Starring Ben Stiller, Elizabeth Hurley, Maria Bello.
IMDB Site.
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