People tend to forget that Michael Douglas won his first Academy Award not as an actor but as a producer, bringing the classic film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” to the screen in 1975.

His father Kirk had given him the project after years of trying to get the things going and Michael went outside the industry to find the money to make the picture, approaching music giant Saul Zaentz. The rest, as they say, is history, and Douglas became a major player in the business who has no doubt gone toe-to-toe with many a studio executive to get what he wants for his films.

I wonder, however, even with an acting Oscar eventually to his credit (for Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street”), has Douglas ever been given his proper due as an actor?

When he won the Oscar for a strong performance in Stone’s film, I recall he thanked his father for allowing him to step out of Kirk’s formidable shadow. His work in “Wall Street” was excellent, Douglas spitting his lines out with venomous glee, knowing what a toxic character he had been given the chance to portray.  Stone was not sure Douglas was the man for the job, so he challenged him the first day of shooting by making it clear the character was no where near what he wanted, which angered the actor. Instead of sulking, he allowed his anger to fuel his creativity, which, of course, was exactly what Stone was counting on.

Douglas has given better performances than the one he gives in “Wall Street” but oddly has never again been nominated by the Academy.  I thought he deserved a nomination for his work in “Falling Down” and certainly for his superb performance, possibly the best of his career, in Curtis Hanson’s “Wonder Boys.” The eventual winner that year, Russell Crowe, was stunned, as he believed of all the performances he had seen in 2000, Michael Douglas’s was the most deserving of a nomination.

That same year Douglas was outstanding in the Steven Soderbergh epic “Traffic,” taking over for Harrison Ford after the star abandoned the project, leaving Soderbergh in a difficult position.

Douglas was here a couple of years ago for “King of California,” a film I admit to hating. It was one of very few films in which I could see Douglas going through the motions.  There was no authenticity to his character, the never a moment when I believed him to be real.  I just hated the film.

He’s back this year with “Solitary Man” (*), and I am happy to report he is terrific in the film, playing the sort of role he is very good at, and that no doubt challenges him as an actor, because Douglas makes it very clear these days that he needs something very special to get him out of his house. However Douglas is the ONLY good thing in the film.

With his thick grey hair, Douglas looks terrific. He has aged well, is fit and trim and smiles often and easily. Having been born into Hollywood royalty it is only in the last 25 years that he and his movie star father Kirk Douglas have made their peace with one another. His life has been a series of ups and downs, and even now he is struggling with the very public arrest of his son for drug use, something that must weigh on his mind even while he moves from critic to critic discussing his new film.

“Steven Soderbergh sent me the script and I was interested the moment I finished it,” Douglas explained here recently.  “I mean, I need real motivation to go to work these days. For a long time my career mattered, making films mattered, but now not so much. I still enjoy making them, but they are not my priority at this point in my life.”

That said, Douglas is still a busy man. With “Solitary Man” finished he starts his scenes for the “Wall Street” sequel next week, reuniting with director Stone and the character that won him an Academy Award.  “Hey, what’s not to like,” he said.  “I mean, I had a lot of fun making the first one, and they gave me an Oscar!  So yeah, I am excited about this new one, and working with Oliver again.”

In “Solitary Man,” Douglas portrays a first rate bastard, a self-involved, arrogant, nasty hound dog who once owned a prosperous car dealership in New York that made him wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. When a business scandal ruins his business and his marriage, one would think he had learned something, but it is quite the opposite.

He cannot look at a woman without lust in his thoughts despite his relationship with a younger, attractive woman. Virtually everyone abadoned him after the collapse of his empire and will have little to do with him even now.  He seems self-destructive, knowing the consequences of his own behaviour, yet does not seem to care, leaving us wondering why?  What happened to this man to leave him in this state? No one acts this way on purpose, do they?

Douglas has always been terrific at portraying flawed men, perhaps drawing on personal weaknesses. His work here is among the best of his career, but the character is thoroughly detestable. In fact, there is barely a redeemable feature in this man, he is that nasty. Greed governs his thinking when his libido doesn’t, and he stalks the film trying to find out what life will give him next, all the while living in a world of deceit and sleaze.

The film does not quite work. There are too many questions left hanging in the wind when it is over. Could a man really lose everything as fast as he does?  There just seems to be a switch thrown and this poor schmuck is left out in the cold, which I found a tad implausible because with his wealth and power he must have met some very powerful people who could and would help him out.

There is nothing particularly strong about the film visually, so it is left to Douglas to entertain us, and he manages to do that. It’s one of those films like “Street Smart,” a weak film with a brilliant Morgan Freeman performance. And the supporting cast has so little to do, one wonders why they even bothered to make the film? Only Danny DeVito seems to have a character that can really relate to Douglas, and that is stretching it.

Here we have a brilliant, daring performance from Douglas in a film that is a genuine chore to sit through. As much as I like him, I am not sure I could get through this one again.  Pity.

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