Alternate Best Actor 2010: Vincent Gallo in Essential Killing

Vincent Gallo did not receive an Oscar nomination, despite winning the Volpi Cup, for portraying Mohammed in Essential Killing. 

Essential Killing follows a member of the Taliban as he attempts to escape a detention center in Europe as he's pursued by the American military.

That creatively named member is named Mohammed, though really he could just be called the running man as that is the basic nature of the role played by Vincent Gallo. Vincent Gallo a director and actor who is known both onscreen and offscreen for his rather unappealing presence and personality. Gallo is a strange example because he's someone who when you see him and usually when he speaks there is just an innate unlikable quality that exudes from him, however there is something very strange about Gallo because he is oddly captivating to watch despite his presence to the contrary. His role in essential killing theoretically removes one of his most unlikable features being his unpleasant voice and his far more unpleasant words as the character of Mohammed is mute other than grunts and screams related to survival situations. We don't get a deep background on this guy, why he was fighting or anything like that. We just follow him as he kills a soldier, is captured, then needs to escape. The most we get in terms of some sense is a vision in one scene where he sees a woman in the desert, which doesn't say much other than the vaguest of spiritual beliefs. Gallo's performance just shows some awe, establishing I guess that the character has some religious conviction, maybe, but otherwise than that the nature of the role is one in the moment, in reaction and action towards the idea of escape and survival. 

The survival is much of the film as we see Gallo, we see Galllo run, see Gallo run, go Gallo go, see Gallo go, see Gallo step in a bear trap, see Gallo scream, scream Gallo scream, see Gallo breastfeed, breastfeed Gal...actually I'm done with this bit. The performance is a survival film performance where it is very much about the visceral reaction in the moment to the situation or moment. As performances of this ilk goes, I have to say, I don't find Gallo's performance especially captivating beyond a certain point. I think he's perfectly fine in terms of just portraying realistic reactions in terms of the physical wear of the situation, whether that is just general physical exhaustion of his constant running, or more specific intensity of falling through rocky terrain or getting his foot in a bear trap. Gallo's anguish is convincing enough, though I wouldn't say it kind of goes beyond a surface interest. I certainly don't turn my gaze from Gallo here, but he doesn't pull me into the psychological existence of Mohammed, I just see a man running for his life. His checkpoints of this idea are perfectly fine in the moments we get respite when coming across as a random French woman. He portrays that innate desperation and fear of the man in the race, less a dogged conviction of a man with a plan, but just the conviction of a man with the will to survive. The progression of his performance is just of the increased physical exhaustion. It isn't more or less than kind of what can be believable in a general sense. I don't feel I've come to know the character from the progression of this, I don't feel I see this natural change in the state of man's nature either, I feel Gallo just kind of *is* what he needs to be, but doesn't go beyond that. The moments where he is nursed to health by the French woman, we get maybe bits of silent tenderness there, almost like a childlike reduction in the manner of the man from overt fear, however I don't think it still amounts to all that much. It's a good performance, however it isn't more than that. For it to be great, I'd say it would've had to truly elevate the piece to me becoming fully invested in his silence, which I wouldn't say was quite true.