Don’t Count Charlie Sheen Out Yet

posted at 11:05 am on March 6, 2011 by Jazz Shaw
[ Hollywierd ]   

It’s been a couple of non-stop weeks of all and sundry having a grand ole’ time poking fun at Charlie Sheen. And I’m not here to say that the perennial film and television star hasn’t served up plenty of material to work with… he most certainly has. Call me crazy if you will, but I can’t help thinking that perhaps some of the career obituaries being penned are just a tad bit premature.

Even as fans and detractors alike were panning the debut of his new internet show, Sheen Korner, and others were tying him to symptoms of Palin Derangement Syndrome, Charlie kept sticking to a couple consistent message points and patterns of behavior.

If we’re to take him and his doctors at his word – and frankly I have no reason not to at this point – Charlie is continuing to take a series of voluntary drug tests and coming up clean. He’s getting up in the morning and working out in his gym. He’s reaching out to network with his many industry contacts and floating the idea of a new feature film since his schedule has suddenly, errr… “freed up” quite a bit. We can laugh all we like, but what if he doesn’t slip? What if he just keeps going?

I’m not discounting the serious nature of addiction problems, but the fact remains that twelve step programs in church basements and bowing to a higher power just don’t work for everyone. For some people a moment of clarity arrives and the only way they make it over that hill (if they manage to do so at all) is to just white knuckle it and ride the storm out until it passes. For all we know, Charlie Sheen is one of those people.

Family associations aside, what did Sheen really do? Sure, he made headlines in all the wrong ways, and if the network felt it was too embarrassing to be associated with him, they had the right to pull the plug. But Sheen did make one point in his various interviews which rings true: he may have been out there steaming like a sailor at night, but when the time came to show up and act, he was there, hitting his marks and making the jokes work. His hard partying lifestyle didn’t just happen overnight, but somehow he had been managing to continually deliver a product which remained one of the highest rated shows on the air. That doesn’t happen by accident.

Sheen has been at this a long time, dating back even before he showed up in the classic film, Platoon. (And by “this” I mean both the work as an actor and partying like a maniac.) He seems like a pretty tough character with a very strong will. Who is to say he can’t pull that plane out of its death spiral and get back to flying right? Remember, there was a time when pretty much everyone had counted out Robert Downy Jr. under rather similar circumstances. The guy got to the point where he couldn’t get any work beyond a guest stint on Ally McBeal. And that really killed his career for good, didn’t it? (See Iron Man 1 and 2, along with the upcoming Avengers, Sherlock Holmes with its upcoming sequel, and Good Night & Good Luck, along with nominations and wins for Oscars, BAFTAs and Golden Globes since then.)

Could Sheen still fully self-destruct? Sure. But if I had a couple extra million to spare and you came asking if I’d rather bet on his total collapse or invest in his next feature film, I think I might be considering writing a check for an executive producer credit.

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