Pruitt Taylor Vince

Vince often seems to need reassurance, even when his imposing presence suggests that somebody else ought to be worried. We rate him for the tenderness he can bring to these nervous men, although the casting does not always ask enough of him. Adrian Lyne’s Jacob’s Ladder (1990) casts him as Paul, among the supporting players around Tim Robbins. Robbins gives those hallucinations a human cost, though the film’s tangled explanations are less convincing.

Oliver Stone’s JFK (1991) gives him Lee Bowers, another supporting role in a film that benefits from astute casting. We recommend it for the grip of that casting and the forceful editing, with a firm reservation about its confidence in its evidence. With both Stone and Lyne, there is a danger of people being lost among the film’s effects and explanations. Vince’s gift for making an uneasy figure emotionally understandable is useful in such company. These films belong to the stretch in which he gained notice, before a lead allowed his sensitivity more room.

Heavy (1995) was his first lead, as Victor Modino, a lovelorn cook. We were moved by Victor’s loneliness because Vince makes him seem vulnerable without making him seem foolish. This is an important turn from the earlier supporting roles: he has to sustain our interest in an isolated man, rather than make an impression within somebody else’s story. He is worth the extra attention.

The reservation is the repeated casting as disturbed men, with Identity (2003), his second collaboration with director James Mangold, among the examples. When the part asks chiefly for strangeness, there is less space for the tenderness that makes him interesting. His recurring J.J. LaRoche in The Mentalist (2010) offers another possibility: a meticulous investigator whose work gives him something more specific to play than unease. For a fuller account of what Vince can do, start with Heavy.