Mickey Rourke and Walter Hill: Together Again

Posted by Robert Levin (rlevin@filmschoolrejects.com) on February 9, 2009

Each passing day brings more and more evidence that Mickey Rourke intends to stick around long after the Oscars have ended and Randy “The Ram” Robinson brings his existential crisis to your friendly neighborhood Netflix queue.

First, there was news of his role in Sylvester Stallone’s upcoming testosterone fest The Expendables. Movie sites have been abuzz with rumors of a possible Iron Man 2 appearance and The Informers, the upcoming Bret Easton Ellis flick in which he co-stars, earned a critical lambasting at Sundance. Recently, he’s been hard at work on 13, a 2010 thriller that co-stars Jason Staham and Michael Shannon.

Now, word comes from /Film of a planned pairing with Walter Hill, his director on the little seen 1980s flop Johnny Handsome. The new project called St. Vincent, a gangster drama, will be “about an assassin who masquerades as a priest in order to finish off a high level informant, only to undergo a crisis of conscience when he takes confession from his target.”

There’s early interest from buyers in Berlin, obviously anxious to see what the intriguing pair can make of the strange, fascinating premise. This sort of project, with Rourke in the lead, will be the truest test of his staying power.

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