It’s a big ole’ Mickey Rourke love fest around here lately, what with my coverage of the actor’s Santa Barbara tribute yesterday and John’s appreciation earlier this afternoon. But last night they showed this clip of Rourke’s cameo in Sean Penn’s “The Pledge,” and it struck me as a particularly poignant clip, given the horse race the two are locked in for the lead actor Oscar. I also think, however brief, it might be one of the most powerfully performed scenes of Rourke’s career.
Here he is, Mickey Rourke, as directed by his 2008 Oscar rival Sean Penn in 2001’s “The Pledge”: