"Bad Ass Mofo": Robert Downey Jr.

“I've noticed that worrying is like praying for what you don't want to happen. I don't worry, but I observe where my mind tends to go.” Robert Downey Jr.

I know its been a while since I posted one of these. What with my work situation, trying not to kill myself, and just plain old not knowing who the hell was bad enough to be a Bad Ass Mofo, I didn’t know what to do. But then I was watching Tropic Thunder and laughing so hard at Lincoln Osiris during commentary and then flipping through my channels and found a special about this weeks BAM that hit me like a bolt of lightning. I present to you…Robert Downey Jr.!

Now when you think of someone who hit the lowest of lows and was able to come back stronger than anyone else, you have to think of RDJ, which is what the cool kids call him. Not me. I call him motherfucking Iron Man! Seriously, he was able to make the man in the suit more interesting than the superhero. This is something that not even Christian Bale was able to do as Bruce Wayne in the Batman films.

"What do you mean 'You people'?"

In Tropic Thunder he managed to be an American actor playing an Australian playing a Black man. Some people don’t like this film but you have to watch this movie for the commentary to crack up laughing as Downey goes from speaking like Osiris, then a Chinese man, then the Australian actor Kirk Lazarus. He is just amazing. I’m just waiting for the chance to scream “I’m a lead farmer!” and mean it.

In his latest film featuring him as Sherlock Holmes. This isn’t the version of Holmes that I used to play at when I was little by wearing two baseball caps and facing them in opposite directions. This version knows kung fu and explains how he is messing people up in slow motion as he’s doing it. God, I loved that movie.

Folks throw the term American Treasure around so much. Robert Downey Jr. truly is one. This guy went from promising career, to drug addict prison, Ally McBeal, not being trusted to complete a film sober, to being one of the biggest actors in the world right now. Years ago if you had told me that the guy playing Charlie Chaplin would be flying around in the Mach 1 suit I would have laughed at you. Loudly.