Reviewing Charlie "Winning" Sheen's career

By Jeff

Everyone is talking about Charlie Sheen nowadays. The man may be certifiably insane. He has a wife, well until May, yet has two live-in girlfriends, one of which is a porn star. He parties like crazy and has a god complex, and he doesn't give a crap what anyone thinks of him.

Many men probably view him as a hero, while women probably despise him, unless they are in his presence, then they instantly realize he is a winner and they can be winners too.

That's all I'm going to say about his personal life, because you can go anywhere to get opinions on that. The rest of this post is going to be looking at his film career. Why? Because he made some awesome movies in a career that has basically spanned my lifetime. And until the past couple years, I never knew he was such a drug-crazed loose cannon. I mostly look at his major films because he made a lot that I never even knew about, but appear to have sucked.

Reports say Sheen didn't need any makeup
for his scene in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off".

 IMDB was used to get his filmography.

"Red Dawn" (1984): Sheen started his career off with a bang. This classic starred Sheen and Patrick Swayze as brothers in high school who led a band of guerilla fighters against a Soviet invasion. It was all kinds of awesome. The remake will probably suck unless Sheen makes an appearance and gives a pep talk to the guerillas about the importance of winning. Wolverines!

"The Boys Next Door" (1985): Sheen's character and his buddy graduate school and then go on a road trip that includes assaulting and/or killing a bunch of people. Nothing to see here. But how was he supposed to follow up a classic like "Red Dawn"?

"Lucas" (1986): OK, the movie pretty much sucked. Corey Haim was a nerd that fell in love with a hotty (Kerri Green, and then got crushed in a football game because the coach put him in and he took his helmet off to try and make a catch. Anyway, Sheen was in it and hooked up with Green's character. These are pains all actors go through. It's rare to show up on the scene and only get awesome gigs. Then again, can you get lower than co-starring in a movie where Corey Haim is the lead? Maybe Sheen had not developed his winning gene yet.

"Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (1986): Sheen just made a cameo in the police department. Awesome movie, but not because of him.

"The Wraith" (1986): Never saw it. Never will after reading this IMDB description. "Jake is killed by neighborhood thugs, and returns as a mystical figure (The Wraith) to gain revenge." Seems like Sheen was firmly in his drug habit at this point and had completely lost the ability to say no.

"Platoon" (1986): How the hell did Sheen go from "The Wraith" to this, one of the greatest war movies out there. Sheen was great in this a young recruit faced with the horrors of the Vietnam War. The best scene of the movie was stolen by Willem Dafoe running through the jungle with what seemed like the entire Viet Cong shooting him, but you can't hold that against Sheen. Although, you could say this was kind of like Sheen trying to be like his father, Martin Sheen, who starred in the greatest Vietnam movie ever made, "Apocalypse Now". Either way, it's good and it was Sheen's big break.

The next four movies were all terrible movies that didn't rate above six on IMDB. Hmm. Maybe "Platoon" wasn't the big break. I'm thinking 1986 was the year he really got hooked on drugs and just couldn't say no to anything in this timeframe.

"Wall Street" (1987): And he's back! I've never heard anyone say anything bad about this movie. But once again, Sheen's performance was overshadowed by his co-star, this time it was Michael Douglas telling us about greed that stole the show.

"Young Guns" (1988): Sheen's character was supposed to be the leader of the gang, but then Emilio Estevez showed up as Billy The Kid and stole the gang out from under Sheen. I wonder if it bothers Sheen that he was killed off while Estevez went on to star in the sequel. Well, I've seen "Young Guns II" and I think Sheen was probably more than happy to let his brother have the spotlight. It sucked.

"Major League" (1989): The Wild Thing is one of the greatest sports movie characters of all time. The guy didn't wear sleeves on his tux! Can you be any more badass? I would say no.

You'd think Sheen would follow this up with some solid flicks, but no, he went back to suck for the next seven movies. One of which was "Men at Work", which was not a biography of the Australian band of the same name, but a movie about him and his friend, played by his brother, who were garbage men that disrupt a crime ring.

"Hot Shots" (1991): OK, this should go in the suck column. It tried to be "The Naked Gun" and it wasn't.

"Major League II" (1994): Wild Thing had sleeves. Stupid.

"Money Talks" (1997): This was the last good movie Sheen made. It's sad that a career that started off so promising went to hell because he just seemed to say yes to every movie that was pitched to him. Sheen and Chris Tucker were hilarious in this movie. The climax is incredible with lots of stupid, funny violence. Remember when Chris Tucker was funny?

I'm sorry I didn't get in-depth on all 66 of his movies. I just didn't have the time or the patience to tear into the bunch of crappy movies I've seen and give the ridiculous plot summaries from IMDB for the movies I haven't seen. The man made seven movies in 1986 alone!

Whatever. Sheen is awesome. He said so himself.

Elton John - Tiny Dancer