The only thing that has kept Alec Baldwin from becoming a megastar of the magnitude of Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, and Harrison Ford, or a heavyweight dramatic leading man like Russell Crowe, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Leonardo DiCaprio… is Alec Baldwin. Baldwin is too obscenely gifted to fail, and too self-destructive and difficult to succeed. The moody 30 Rock star has just about everything: devastating good looks, a voice like aged scotch, impeccable comic timing, boundless charisma, simmering intensity, voluminous talent, and a bizarre, colorful family dynasty. Yet he’s found countless ways to sabotage his career.
In the late ’80s and early ’90s, Baldwin seemed destined for a spot high atop the A-list. It’s a testament to the heat and intensity of his career at that point that Harrison Ford was reduced to scooping up Baldwin’s professional sloppy seconds when he assumed the part of Jack Ryan after Baldwin abandoned the franchise following The Hunt For Red October. Furthermore, Baldwin stole Glengarry Glen Ross from Alan Arkin, Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, Jonathan Pryce, Al Pacino, and Ed Harris, even though he only appeared in one scene. Baldwin’s succinct but unforgettable turn in Glengarry Glen Ross is the cinematic equivalent of a Miles Davis solo; given its musicality and rhythm, it’s no surprise that it became the basis for the infectious dance song “Greatest Man Alive (Man’s Game Mix),” a standout track on the second disc of Steinski’s essential career-spanning retrospective What Does It All Mean?
Yet something curious happened en route to Alec Baldwin’s rocket ride to greatness: He fucked everything up. Baldwin’s scuffles with paparazzi, explosive temper, and tumultuous marriage to/divorce from Kim Basinger (and subsequent vicious custody battle) garnered more press than his increasingly iffy films. In Art Linson’s wry show-business memoir What Just Happened? Bitter Hollywood Tales From The Front Line, the veteran producer recounts having to tame an overweight, belligerent, unbecomingly hirsute Alec Baldwin before shooting The Edge. (In the little-loved film version of Linson’s book, Bruce Willis plays the Baldwin role.) Baldwin had recently appeared in a long string of duds (The Marrying Man, Prelude To A Kiss, The Getaway, The Shadow, The Juror, Heaven’s Prisoners, and Ghosts Of Mississippi) and the actor needed a classy, David Mamet-scripted major studio film like The Edge more than it needed him. But that didn’t keep Baldwin from playing prima donna and nearly sinking the film before shooting even began.
Unsurprisingly, Baldwin developed a reputation for being hard to work with. Before 30 Rock resurrected his career, he alternated between thankless supporting roles in shitty films (Mercury Rising, The Cat In The Hat, Along Came Polly, Fun With Dick & Jane) and bigger roles in films that either went directly to DVD or barely saw release (Thick As Thieves, The Confession, Mini’s First Time, Suburban Girl, Lymelife, Brooklyn Rules).
The notorious voicemail message in which Baldwin called his 11-year-old daughter a “rude, thoughtless little pig” did little to rehabilitate his image as a volatile loose cannon, nor did his frequent vitriolic attacks on conservatives. A fascinating 2008 New Yorker profile of Baldwin paints a dark portrait of a bitter soul who derives no joy from his remarkable gifts or impressive comeback, and sees his rightly acclaimed role on 30 Rock as nothing more than the acting equivalent of being a pastry chef.
Baldwin’s ill-fated 2001 directorial debut, Shortcut To Happiness, filmed as The Devil And Daniel Webster, similarly illustrated the most talented Baldwin’s genius for snatching defeat from victory’s claws. On paper, the film looks fantastic. It’s based on beloved, time-tested source material—Stephen Vincent Benét’s classic 1937 short story “The Devil And Daniel Webster,” which in 1941 inspired a minor classic starring Walter Huston as a homespun Beezlebub. It boasts a screenplay co-written by Oscar-winner Bill Condon and National Book Award winning novelist/screenwriter Pete Dexter (Paris Trout). It also sports a stunning cast: Baldwin, his Edge co-star Anthony Hopkins, Dan Aykroyd, Amy Poehler, Kim Cattrall, Jason Patric, and Bobby Cannavale. Oh, and Jennifer Love Hewitt as the devil.
Yet the film quickly devolved into a clusterfuck of historic proportions. As befits a film about a man who makes a deal with Satan and lives to regret it, the film seemed cursed from its inception. After two of its investors were busted for fraud before post-production could be completed, the film ended up in bankruptcy court, where producer Bob Yari purchased it for several million dollars in 2007 and re-edited it so heavily that Baldwin had his directorial credit replaced with the pseudonym “Harry Kirkpatrick.” When filming began in 2001, Baldwin never could have imagined that nine years later, his star-studded take on a classic American story would be available only via Netflix’s “Watch Now” feature. (Similarly, when Happiness slipped into a handful of theaters in 2007, 30 Rock fans must have experienced cognitive dissonance watching an ostensibly new release featuring an Alec Baldwin six years younger and a good 40 pounds lighter than the handsome butterball of Tina Fey’s cult sitcom.)
Happiness begins on an appropriately amateurish note with an opening-credits sequence featuring a mischievous devil that only vaguely resembles Hewitt. It looks like it was assembled by the slow students in an Intro To Animation class at a lesser junior college. That opener sends a message: “We ran out of money before post-production was finished.”
We then cut to Baldwin’s hapless, luckless writer reading his latest story aloud. It’s a maudlin morality tale that’s become the bane of his existence, concerning an adorable moppet who ties helium balloons to a bike. When the boy’s father sees what he’s done and hears his explanation, he gets his Ward Cleaver on and sagely counsels, “Remember son, there’s not a shortcut to happiness.” The movie hasn’t properly begun yet, and already it’s beating us over the head with its moral.