Amber Heard ‘s career has been overshadowed by her personal and legal conflict with her ex-husband Johnny Depp, the most followed legal battle since the Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee tapes.
A career that she would begin in the video clip industry and later in secondary roles in titles such as Superfumados, Bienvenidos a Zombieland, Magic Mike XXL, Machete Kill s or La chica danesa .
In addition to being a luxury secondary in some popular titles of the past decade, Amber Heard has also starred in feature films such as the horror film All Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006).
After trying her luck on television, with The Playboy Club canceled after her third episode, Amber Heard starred with uneven fortune in film titles, of which we select here the ones that could be most representative.
Amber Heard in ‘Locked Up’
‘Closed’ by John Carpenter (The Ward, 2010)
Coincidences of Life, the first title as a leading actress for Amber Heard is the latest feature film directed by the master of horror John Carpenter. And unfortunately it is not one of the best works of the director of classics like Halloween night, The thing or They are alive. Quite the opposite.
Partly a precursor to Zack Snyder ‘s pop frenzy Sucker Punch (in its fusion of the real and the fictional and both being set in a mental hospital), the film is almost a humorous, straight-for-video version of a contemporary of his: Shutter . Island by Martin Scorsese.
Both films are a kind of exercise in style through a psychological thriller with touches of terror with a twist and a final explanation that gives a supposed meaning to the plot. If Scorsese emerged unscathed from said act of archeology due to his stylized and careful staging, this minor title in Carpenter’s filmography, with a script in need of several rewrites, never manages to take flight.
Nor does the inexperience of Amber Heard and her status as the absolute protagonist of the story, in the role of Kristen, help the film. But in honor of the truth and recognizing that it is possibly one of the worst (if not the worst) work of Carpenter’s entire career, it must also be recognized that the title is barely saved, due to the director’s skill in the use of subjective point of view and the creation of gothic and dreamlike atmospheres (especially the death of Sarah’s character) making the film look affectionate and a certain nostalgia for the past of the genre.
Amber Heard in ‘Blind
‘Blind Rage’, by Patrick Lussier (Drive Angry, 2011)
Of the five titles selected from Amber Heard’s filmography, perhaps this is the most outstanding. An exercise in a multi-generic and multi-referential style that could have been directed by a Russ Meyer on top of narcotics. A truly pop work, heir to that nostalgic duo that was the Grindhouse of Robert RodrÃguez and Quentin Tarantino, but without the skill of both filmmakers.
Its director, Patrick Lussier, delivers a work that feels and believes itself to be a comic from DC Comics’ Vertigo line ( with its fusion of Satanism, high-voltage action, raunchy and lewd sexuality) in the style of Garth Ennis ‘ Preacher mixed with Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, but closer to Rob Liefeld ‘s marvelous Image Comics disasters.
With Nicolas Cage more over the top than ever (if that’s possible) and Amber Heard turned from final girl to bombshell (her character almost seems to have emerged from a space-time gap in the second half of Death Proof) , this diarrheal perversion but fascinating in its supine idiocy of David Lynch’s Wild Heart manages to bring trash and bad taste to sublimation. Above all thanks to a William Fitchner aware of the delirium in which he has gotten himself involved and the protagonist of the most WTF and brilliant moments of his footage.
The film’s biggest problem occurs in its second half, when the takedown mythology begins to take itself too seriously. But its lack of pretensions, its absolute lack of prejudices and its impossible mythology built on pop culture debris make it an entertainment that works as a perfect double session with another title as crazy and contemporary as Shoot ‘Em Up.
Amber Heard in ‘The Rum Diaries’
‘The Rum Diaries’, by Bruce Robinson (The Rum Diary, 2011)
Directed by the functional Bruce Robinson (who, except for his debut Whitnail and Me, has no noteworthy work beyond the forgotten thriller Jennifer 8) it is possibly the most important role for Amber Heard from a personal point of view, since in this shooting was where she and Johnny Depp met. An adaptation of the novel The Rum Diaries by gonzo writer Hunter S. Thompson and located in Puerto Rico in 1960, which serves as a metaphor and representation of the convulsive future of the United States after the presidency and assassination of JFK.
Depp recovers a lookalike of the writer, after his work thirteen years earlier with Terry Gilliam in the risky and fascinating Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. But Gilliam’s ability to translate Thompson’s lysergic and hallucinogenic prose here is hampered by the correct but conventional staging of a biopic that is as correct in its execution as it is hardly memorable.
It is true that Depp tries to translate the elements that built the Raoul Duke of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas into the Paul Kemp of The Rum Diaries. But the way of adapting Thompson’s story in Robinson’s hands fails to raise the bar. The reason is that transferring the imagery and language of the beatnik generation is not to show or represent what is told, but rather to transform the verbose, broken, lysergic and amnesiac torrent of his prose into images.
Amber Heard in ‘London Fields’
‘London Fields’, de Mathew Cullen (2018)
Possibly the worst film of this selection of five titles. A hyper-stylized neonoir, Nice to Meet You, directed by videoclip maker Mathew Cullen. A director who has worked with renowned musicians and singers such as Beck, Katy Perry or Green Day, but who hits the bone at his premiere as a filmmaker.
Surrounded by an impressive cast in which, together with Amber Heard (Nicola Six, the femme fatale of the story), we can find both Johnny Depp and Billy Bob Thornton, Cara Delevingne, Jim Sturgess or Jamie Alexander, Mathew’s debut feature Cullen is nothing more than a regurgitated reinterpretation of the worst Guy Ritchie, filtered through a suburban Tarantino and topped off with pseudo-arty pretensions.
The result, an attempt to deconstruct neonoir close to the disasters perpetrated by Joe Carnahan who thinks he is more intelligent than he is and whose excessive stylization the only thing it covers up is an absolute lack of ideas. But the disaster is such that, like witnessing a train crash, it is as horrendous as it is tremendously attractive.
Amber Heard en ‘Aquaman’
‘Aquaman’, by James Wan (2018)
Of all the films starring Amber Heard (here in the role of Mera, the sentimental and adventure partner of Jason Momoa’s Aquaman) this is possibly the most popular and successful of her entire career. Directed by the great James Wan and part of the irregular and rugged DC cinematic universe, Aquaman is an extravaganza that oscillates between the camp, the kitsch and the epic unleashed.
Emotional and sentimental heir to Mike Hodges ‘ Flash Gordon , James Wan ‘s Aquaman is as excessive and overwhelming as it is brilliant. Though uneven and unbalanced at times, he is able, thanks to Wan’s expertise and his ability to compose memorable action set pieces, to deliver an absolutely captivating and thunderous spectacle.
Even more important is Wan’s ability to address an overexploited genre and most of the time excessively corseted, but transfer the fascination and courage of the cartoons in a hypervitaminated show that does not take itself too seriously. This lack of prejudice makes it possibly one of the most interesting and playful adaptations of the comic to the cinema that the spectators have been able to enjoy on the big screen.
