Nobody could accuse Val Kilmer of being a workshy fop.
Just two days ago, we announced that he was starring in a thriller called Fake Identity, to go along his other projects, Silver Cord (announced in July) and the currently-filming Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans. And now he’s added another film to his roster.
Kilmer will star in The Steam Experiment, an indie suspense thriller set in a Turkish baths. No, really.
In fact, Kilmer will play the movie’s bad guy – a college professor who traps six people in said Turkish baths and turns the heat up on them, to prove a theory he has about humans devolving under the effects of global warming. Which seems a little extreme to us, but then again, scientists in Switzerland are about to conduct an experiment that has a tiny chance of wiping out the universe, so who are we to quibble about how far scientists are prepared to go for results?
The six people getting all sweaty in the name of science are a former pro football player (Eric Roberts), an ex-actress (Megan Brown), a male nurse (Patrick Muldoon), a waitress (Eve Mauro), a restaurateur (Quinn Duffy) and a writer (Cordelia Reynolds). Armand Assante plays a newspaper editor who holds the key to the group’s survival: if he prints a headline declaring Kilmer’s theory correct, then Big Bad Val will release the location of the hot hostages.
Although the film could turn out to be a boiling hot Hitchcock homage, we have to confess to a certain sadness that Kilmer is now taking on bad guy roles alongside the likes of Eric Roberts who, while utterly ace in The Dark Knight, has seen his career dip to the extent that even his holiday videos go straight to DVD.
After all, it wasn’t so long ago – three years, in fact, with the magnificent Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – that Kilmer seemed set for a career renaissance. Still, fingers crossed that our pessimism is unfounded and that The Steam Experiment will blow away our doubts and provide the proper vehicle (and if not, there’s always the Werner Herzog-directed Bad Lieutenant remake, with Nic Cage, to provide critical kudos) for Kilmer to make a comeback once and for all. And, hell, let’s give Eric Roberts a seat in the car as well.
Philippe Martinez will direct The Steam Experiment, which has echoes of mind-bending, group dynamic thrillers like Cube and Kilmer’s own glorious Mindhunters, from a script by Rob Malkani. Filming is ongoing in Grand Rapids, Michigan.