Walken plays: Warren Sharp - Savvy ski-jumper, crusty coach
Synopsis: Michael 'Eddie' Edwards (Taron Egerton) really really wants to compete in the Olympics. Everyone else - family, professionals, bystanders - really really doesn't want him to, and for good reason. And yet, in a story so daft it had to be true, our bespectacled hero stumbles and crashes his way through a succession of possible sports, before settling on ski jumping - one of the most dangerous - and, frankly, stupid - winter Olympic sports. Naturally, guided only by his plucky, borderline psychotic perseverance, and his reluctant, bedraggled, drunken coach (Hugh Jackman), Eddie fumbles his way into the 1988 Calgary Olympics, as his silly post-jump antics win the heart of his nation, and he accomplishes the most triumphant Olympic goal imaginable: managing to not kill himself. Director Fletcher pours on the cheese like there's no tomorrow, but it's a pleasantly chipper little tale in spite of its howlingly by-the-numbers execution. There are nods aplenty to Cool Runnings (which, amazingly, took place during the same Olympics that year, in what must have been the most batshit year for underdogs in Olympic history), and it's an appropriate tonal reference point, given some life through its gaggle of pump-up 80s tunes. And yes, there is a training montage set to Hall 'n Oates. You know you want it.
Walken's Warren Sharp is a glorified cameo, mostly restricted to images in old photographs and an autobiography book cover, as well as a spectacularly awkward excerpt of narration. Still, his presence is felt throughout - as Jackman's former coach, he casts an imposing spectre of discipline, finger waggling, and crushed dreams throughout. You wouldn't be surprised to see him cast (for the third time!) as the angel of death here, if the movie took any such illustrious artistic chances. By the time Sharp actually pops up in the flesh, in a fleeting, ominous TV interview, and in a gooey climactic emotional reconciliation locker room visit, it's pretty clear that the part coasts by on Walken's star identity, and that he doesn't have to do much other than show up. Still, he accentuates Eddie's post-jump emotional high well, capably conveying the struggle of a man fighting through years of emotion to finally make up with his prodigal son, and his heartfelt hug with Jackman is so cathartic it makes it all worth the while. He even works in the tiniest flourish of illustrious Walken weirdness by presumptuously offering to sign Eddie's copy of his autobiography. Cheeky bastard.
Wacky Walken dialogue: Only the most banal inspirational/foreboding dialogue here, but I do enjoy the fact that when he arrives in the locker room to congratulate Eddie for surviving his record highest jump, he only seems to want to talk about his own book.
DOES HE DANCE: Nope. Hell, he barely moves beyond a two-dimensional image.
Overall Walken-o-meter: 2/10 cowbells. Walken could have done this easy cameo in his sleep, but his unique ability to be simultaneously charming and hugely creepy does lend Sharp the appropriate gravitas. If anything, Hugh Jackman gets to shoulder a lot of the charismatic oddness we'd normally seek out Walken for here, including some spectacularly unconvincing drunk caterwauling, and simulating an orgasm in a close-up facing the camera, which he ends by nearly operatically bellowing "BO DEREK." In short, Walken's as pleasant as the movie itself, but watching Eddie the Eagle for him alone (as I did...) isn't that rewarding for any but the most tenaciously devoted Walken followers.
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