: “I just want to go up to my shack and get drunk,” says Russell (as helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady) a few minutes before all hell breaks loose in John Carpenter’s classic monster movie.
MacReady is one of twelve men stationed in an Antarctic research station that is infected by a creature that can perfectly imitate any life form. As paranoia sets in, the chain of command breaks down and MacReady takes charge of finding out who’s human. From the first time we see him sitting in his cabin with a huge bottle of whiskey, Russell's long-haired, shaggy-bearded hero is the very definition of American individualism and self-reliance.
(The only other screen persona he might get along well with is Robert De Niro’s melancholy thief in Michael Mann’s , who consoled himself by saying, “I am alone. I am not lonely.”) As the other men congregate in the recreation room, MacReady sits by himself playing computer chess; when the system beats him, his response to the “cheating bitch” is to pour his whiskey into the computer, short-circuiting it.
He’s so doggedly sure of himself that sometimes it’s comical; after the team investigates a decimated Norwegian camp, Mac's insistence on referring to them as “those crazy Swedes” becomes a running joke. But when the going gets tough, MacReady's stubbornness proves his saving grace. By the end of the movie, when the Thing has driven MacReady and his remaining crew to a suicide mission in the lethal snow, he’ll be damned if he doesn’t take the monster down with him.
If Snake Plissken is an amoral bastard who’ll only do the job if his back is against the wall, MacReady is the reluctant hero. Surrounded by first rate character actors (among them Richard Masur as reclusive dog handler Clark, Wilford Brimley as the increasingly paranoid scientist Blair, and Keith David as the volatile mechanic Childs), Russell is able to not only hold his own but become the center of every scene, many of them involving a half-dozen actors following his lead. Russell’s entire persona is blue-collar: a reliably dependable craftsman.
MacReady's like your grouchy old uncle. You need him to fix the car, and even though he knows he’s the only man that can do the job, he’d rather get drunk. : “I just want to go up to my shack and get drunk,” says Russell (as helicopter pilot R.
J.
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