Please don't take Mark Ruffalo for granted
The veteran actor never ceases to amaze in his work on screens big or small.
The first time Mark Ruffalo made a dent in my cinematic memory, he had slicked back dark hair and wore a badge on his coat. He was hunting down the man who would eventually be his killer: A lone assassin picking off targets in the night moves of Los Angeles. Ruffalo only had a small role in the Michael Mann thriller, but he stayed in my mind for a while.
It could have been the unfortunate fate that his detective meets, running into a Tom Cruise bullet while scrambling out of a nightclub. He was the only guy who knew something was wrong about a string of murders all connected to Jamie Foxx’s cab driver. It’s Foxx’s eyes that do the job for us when he spots Ruffalo’s cop in a crowd, like a protagonist recognizing his own hero. Collateral taught us that heroes die more often than they survive, a sad fact that Mann specializes in.
Ruffalo has only risen since that 2004 movie, achieving top of the title poster status like Cruise and Foxx, yet still retaining the class of a seasoned actor. He can mix into brilliant ensembles like HBO Max’s Task, or co-starring in sweet stories like Begin Again or hard-hitting dramas like Dark Waters. With no offense to Eric Bana or Edward Norton, he is Bruce Banner to me for life. Look at his motion capture work in Avengers: Endgame; that’s all Ruffalo tweaking whatever life he can out of an animated character.
In Task, he’s a morally wounded FBI agent suddenly taken off light duty and thrown into a string of home invasions with blood dripping from them. As Tom Brandis, Ruffalo shows every crack in the priest-turned-lawman’s facade. The chinks in the armor that real life can pull out of a human without a moment of damage taken on the job. Without spoiling all of Brad Ingelsby’s flawless goods, I’ll admit that we see Brandis take hit after hit in the seven-episode series.
He’s thrown down a flight of steps, and tossed to the ground. He’s punched by a biker gang grandfather (Jamie McShane), and shot at by multiple parties of criminals. But it’s Ruffalo’s ability to throw down in dialogue-driven scenes with a fellow officer that he knows is dirty that make his performance pack a real punch. A man who lost his wife and his faith in a quick swoop and is trying to make it right with more than a case needs an actor with some weight.
The monologue at the end of Task is as good as the reviews say it is. A tour de force of dramatic impact inside a single stack of dialogue that most actors would have overworked. Ruffalo just lets it eat him whole, and spit out the effects of decisions and choices spill on the stage. Those two things define our lives, and Brandis embodies that more than pure law enforcement.
Throughout a career that reaches 37 years of age as Ruffalo edges closer to 60 in life, he has delivered full-bodies characters that can unfold in a role, big or small, and carried a long way at the cinema or at home on the flat screen. There’s empathy in his face, despair and light in his eyes, and a batch of hope that clings to his work. Good or bad character with an array of intentions or just one driven goal, he makes it work and hits hard.
I think audiences, myself included, take his sharp work for granted. We assume it’ll be great, and at times let that shape our critiques. Performances like Brandis though can reignite the flame that first reminded us of his abilities.
Thank you for the work, Mark.