David Mamet's Tale of Introverted Nerd-Empowerment

The completely brilliant and under-recognized Gene Healy speaks truth to David Mamet/Alec Baldwin power:

Alec Baldwin's now-infamous voicemail to his daughter reminds me of how much more I've liked him as an actor since he started playing to type: sloppy, angry, obnoxious and vicious. He's excellent at it, for much the same reason that Keanu Reeves is great at playing dumb guys. It reminds me also of one of the first movies I saw Baldwin play a bad guy in: 1997's "The Edge." But more than Baldwin, what I really liked about the Edge was the Anthony Hopkins character. He's an odd, bookish guy, and although he's filthy rich and married to a supermodel, you can tell he's taken grief his whole life from people who think you're weird if you'd rather read than talk. When he and Baldwin crash their plane in the Alaskan wilderness (long, implausible David Mamet story involving a scenic photoshoot for the Hopkins character's wife), and they have to fight for their lives against an enormous bear, Hopkins has the last laugh. It turns out all that book-learnin' was good for him, as he's picked up all sorts of survival skills from various things he's read. It ends up being a tale of introverted nerd-empowerment, an inspiration to bookish types everywhere. Of course, if this ever happened to me, I'd be left trying to fend off a bear with Raymond Chandler wisecracks and useless anecdotes about Warren Harding.