Despite his most recent snag with the law, Tom Sizemore has turned over a new leaf, one not grown from the coca plant. His guest role this season on CBS’s Hawaii Five-O as straight-laced IAB cop, Captain Vince Fryer, fits nicely with Sizemore’s new-found path of cleanliness and sobriety. We here at Criminal Complex truly hope this all pans out, as Sizemore has always been a fine actor and seems like a cool guy to hang out with. But if life imitates art, this new role could also mean that Tom Sizemore might get mortally wounded. Again, we can’t stress enough how horrible this would be, but let us take a look at Tommy’s track record so far, shall we?
- Natural Born Killers (1994)—Sizemore first made a splash on the big screen playing the role of Detective Jack Scagnetti in this Quentin Tarantino-penned film directed by Oliver Stone. Sizemore’s penchant for flashy scumbag characters is on grand display in this flick, as Scagnetti is a complete and utter bastard, meant to serve as the hypocritical foil for his nemeses and the film’s anti-protagonists, Mickey and Mallory Knox. A hero cop, ol’ Jack still finds the time to strangle hookers half his size, so to be fair, we all can tag him immediately as getting killed before the credits roll. So Sizemore’s odds today are still fair, just so long as he avoids being a complete sick-o. Odds of Five-O death: 50 to 1
- Heat (1995)—Here we have Sizemore playing a bank robber, but immediately the gang is portrayed sympathetically, lead by such stalwarts as Robert DeNiro and Jon Voight, guys who have made it to the third reel of most of their flicks. This is good and bad news for Sizemore’s character, Cheritto. The good news is the audience is going to like him a lot more than they would Scagnetti—he just generally seems like the kinda guy you’d wanna have a beer with. He’s not all aloof like DeNiro, and he’s not covered in scary tattoos like Danny Trejo. A regular guy. The bad news is this emotional connection with the audience, combined with a lower billing, really means that the filmmakers are setting us up for a big emotional gut-punch when Cheritto gets killed near the end of the second act. Sure, we all know he’s not really gonna hurt that little kid he takes hostage as he attempts to flee the failed bank robbery, but we also all know that the LAPD are not shy on the trigger-finger. See you on the other side, Slick. Odds of Five-O death: 25 to 1.
- Saving Private Ryan (1998)—Oh, boy. No one’s getting out of this one alive. Well, except for the title character, which we could tell from the title itself. It’s not called Almost Saving Private Ryan, after all. Sure, the title coulda been ironic, like Waiting for Godot. But this isn’t mid-20th century absurdist theater, it’s a damn war movie, and the higher the body count, the more tears jerked out of the audience. TSgt. Mike Horvath almost makes it, but as soon as the Germans come storming in, we can count most of these guys out, except for Upham, who needs to live with the guilt of being merciful, and Reiben, who needs to be the surviving New Yorker. So again, the likeable, stoic second-in-command takes one for the team. At ease, Sarge. Odds of Five-O death: 10 to 1
- Bringing Out the Dead (1999)—Finally, a movie about people who are to save lives, not take them. But then again, it is a Scorcese flick, so let’s not assume this is going to be like a very special episode of E.R. In fact, the whole movie revolves around death and the declining sanity of Frank Pierce, played by the declining sanity of Nicolas Cage. Sizemore plays an EMT who is also a violent nutjob(!) named Tom(!!). Tom is not interested so much in helping save lives as he is beating the hell out of guys with baseball bats. So like with Scagnetti, we have a man in a role of a trusted pillar of the community who shouldn’t be trusted left alone with your wife for more than five minutes. Unlike Scagnetti, though, Tom lives to see the dawn, able in the better light to vandalize his own ambulance. So, here we have an unlikeable character played by Sizemore who lives. This does not set a comfortable precedent for Sizemore characters who are not shitheads.
Overall odds of Sizemore’s character on Hawaii Five-O getting killed: Well, I wouldn’t bother unpacking my suitcase, Cap’n Fryer. If you were a crooked thief with a gambling problem and a key of coke under your hotel mattress, you might live to see season 3. But as it is, a likeable moral sort of a guy, if you make it past the All-Star break, we’ll all be surprised. Criminal Complex line: 2 to 1.