The Rocketeer Gave Alan Arkin The Chance To Do What He Did Best: Be A Shining Supporting Player
The late Alan Arkin was far from an "always the bridesmaid, never the bride" type of character actor, having famously portrayed Joseph Heller's hapless (anti)hero John Yossarian in Mike Nichols' "Catch-22" movie adaptation (among other notable leading roles). Still, if one were to run through Arkin's better-known performances, odds are most of them would be supporting in nature. That's no accident, either. The man excelled at playing backup to others, whether that meant doling out well-intended but useless advice as Winona Ryder's oblivious suburban dad in "Edward Scissorhands" or terrorizing a blind Audrey Hepburn as the swingin', cryptic baddie in "Wait Until Dark."
Brusque mentors and sidekicks were also Arkin's specialty, as he demonstrated as far back as 1991's "The Rocketeer." Now justly regarded as a cult classic movie, director Joe Johnston's high-flying '30s adventure was surprisingly unsuccessful during its initial release. Johnston and the House That Mickey Built were piping hot off the lucrative "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" at the time, so their reunion on an "Indiana Jones"-styled period action movie (complete with its own Nazi-punching, All-American hero) should've been a slam dunk. Alas, "The Rocketeer" had the misfortune of premiering one week after "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," with the majority of filmgoers turning to Kevin Costner's outlaw and his "English" accent over Billy Campbell's stunt pilot-turned masked, rocket pack-assisted do-gooder Cliff Secord for their action-adventure fix. ("Terminator 2: Judgment Day" arriving two weeks after surely didn't help.)
Time did its thing, though, and "The Rocketeer" grew its fanbase by leaps and bounds on the home market over the decades that followed. But it's not just the top-notch thrills and spectacle. The film's cast is key to its enduring appeal, with Campbell, Arkin, Jennifer Connelly, Timothy Dalton, and Paul Sorvino all putting in fine work as the film's intrepid heroes, dastardly villains, and those who fall somewhere in the middle on the good-bad scale.
'We're gonna need one hell of a lawyer'
Alan Arkin, for the uninitiated, co-stars in "The Rocketeer" as "Peevy" Peabody, a seasoned plane mechanic who (naturally) has a heart of gold beneath his irritable exterior. He's both a friend and father figure to Billy Campbell's Cliff Secord, berating the himbo-y aviator for being insensitive to his aspiring actor girlfriend, Jenny Blake (Jennifer Connelly), yet diving in head-first alongside him when the determined flyboy decides to strap a mysterious rocket pack on his back and try his hand at being a superhero.
Among Joe Johnston's amusingly specific stong suits as a director, as it turns out, is showing characters testing extremely volatile rockets and making these scenes feel as breezy and carefree as a summer afternoon — something he did to great effect in both "The Rocketeer" and, years later, "October Sky." Of course, it helps to have someone as effortlessly charismatic as Arkin in "The Rocketeer" scolding Cliff for thinking it's even a remotely good idea to actually wear the rocket pack ("We're gonna need one hell of a lawyer!") or cracking wise about his helmet (telling Cliff he looks like a "hood ornament"). To this day, Peevy's dry wit still hits the spot thanks to Arkin, in contrast to the increasingly tedious snark that's come to dominate comic book superhero cinema over the years.
Even better, Peevy winds up being indirectly responsible for saving the day when he spur-of-the-moment uses chewing gum to plug up a fuel leak in Cliff's rocket pack (a setup that gets paid off in a satisfyingly explosive fashion during the film's climax). Suffice it to say, if you've never seen Johnston's whiz-bang adventure flick or simply want to enjoy Arkin doing what he did best (shining as a supporting player), now's the time to (re)watch "The Rocketeer," which is streaming on Disney+.