Beat the Devil

While still a teenager, producer and director Tony Scott made his first foray into film with an appearance in his big brother Ridley_Scott’s first short film, Boy and Bicycle. He later attended London’s Royal College of Art, as did his brother, and proceeded to get his feet wet behind the camera, at first by directing TV commercials for his brother’s production company Ridley Scott Associates. He became a leader in the British commercial industry, directing countless ads and building up an impressive resumé over the years. By the early ‘80s, Tony Scott was ready to begin directing films, and for his first project, he agreed to tackle MGM’s artful vampire pic The_Hunger, starring David_Bowie and Catherine_Deneuve. The movie was released in 1983 to a disappointing silence at the box office, and for the next few years Scott returned to commercials as he waited for his next opportunity to come along. That project came in the form of an offer from producer Jerry_Bruckheimer to direct a fun action drama about hotshot fighter jet pilots — Top_Gun. Scott’s darker artistic sensibilities didn’t jive with Bruckheimer’s ideas at first — he had images of Apocalypse_Now and The_Road_Warrior in mind, while the producers were envisioning something poppier and easy to digest. Finally, Scott understood what they were asking for and created the rock & roll and blue-skies flick that they had in mind. The movie was a massive box-office hit, ushering Scott into the next tier of filmmakers and making a star out of Tom_Cruise.

Scott almost instantly became the man to call on for fun action romps, directing films like Beverly Hills Cop II in 1987, Days of Thunder in 1990, and The_Last_Boy_Scout in 1991. He also directed a script written by a then unknown named Quentin_Tarantino called True_Romance. Starring a top-notch ensemble cast including Christian_Slater, Patricia_Arquette, Dennis_Hopper, Christopher_Walken, Gary_Oldman, and Brad_Pitt, the film was something of a sleeper at the box office. The exuberant tribute to cinematic expressions of love, crime, violence, and rock & roll quickly became another cult hit — and a preview of things to come from the writer behind it. The movie also served as a reminder that Scott was capable of more sensitive and artistic sentiments than the testosterone-driven pictures that encompassed much of his filmography. That is not to say Scott was not quite at home in the action and thriller areas of film, as he spent the 1990s churning out popular titles like Crimson_Tide, The_Fan, and Enemy of the State. He continued with his trademark action-with-a-sense-of-humor style in the new millennium with films like Spy_Game, Man on Fire, and Domino, but by this time he was trying his hand at producing as well. Scott produced and executive produced TV ventures like The_Last_Debate, The_Gathering_Storm, and Numb3rs, as well as features such as Tristan_+_Isolde and In_Her_Shoes, and his own Man on Fire and Domino. —allmovie guide