The Top 5 Pre-Breakdown Charlie Sheen Movies

With his "tour" underway, it's easy to see Charlie Sheen as just being another Hollywood actor who completely lost his grip on reality. It's easy to see him that way, because that's precisely what his behavior would indicate. As much fun as I've had watching this train wreck, it does also sadden me. After all, Sheen used to be considered just a fine actor in a family of fine actors. Here now are five of my favorite pre-breakdown Charlie Sheen movies.

5. "Rated X" (2000) - Co-starring his brother Emilio Estevez, this biopic tells the story of another set of brothers, Artie and Jim Mitchell. The brothers Mitchell were the directing team behind "Behind the Green Door," one of the first mainstream adult films. Also directed by Estevez, this film gave both brothers a chance to play some more grown-up material but without taking themselves or their characters too seriously. I was actually quite surprised the first time I watched this movie at just well crafted the movie was, right down the performances put on by Estevez and Sheen. I'm sure there's some cute line we can draw from Sheen's role as a porn director to his current lifestyle which includes paying adult film stars thousands of dollars to "party" with him too, but that wouldn't be fair to this nice little gem of a film.

4. "Hot Shots" (1991) - A spoof of "Top Gun," "Hot Shots" featured Sheen as Topper Harley, a character in the archetype of Tom Cruise's Maverick in the aforementioned "Top Gun." Unlike the recent run of spoof films like the "Scary Movie" series, this film actually had some pretty good spoof material, and it actually treated the subject material with a little respect, which makes the viewer respect the efforts put in to make the film look and feel like "Top Gun" and "Iron Eagle." Sheen is able to show his fairly large comedic range in this film as well, proving that underneath it all, the man has a pretty great sense of humor. The only question is whether it's still there or not.

3. "Major League" (1989) - The tale of the hapless Cleveland Indians before their return to competitiveness in the early 1990s, "Major League" is perhaps the funniest movie revolving around a terrible baseball team, better even than "The Bad News Bears." Sheen plays Rickie "Wild Thing" Vaughan, a rookie pitcher with a blazing fastball and even hotter temper. Sheen's performance is almost understated in a really nice way. He doesn't come off as an over-the-top kind of bad boy. If there's one thing you can say for him as an actor that you can't about his recent personal affairs it's his ability to be really subtle. While there were definitely obvious choices in his hair and wardrobe to make him the Bad Boy character, Sheen himself showed very few bursts of temper, and actually relied on a much more subdued behavior and delivery of his lines that lent the character a more sympathetic streak.

2. "Wall Street" (1987) - Maybe Oliver Stone should write every role that Sheen plays. In this film, and the film in the top slot on this list, Stone hand-delivered Sheen a meaty role playing against two veteran actors (Michael Douglas and Charlie's father Martin Sheen). Sheen in both instances was able to hold his own and deliver solid performances. "Wall Street" is the story of corruption run amok on the stock exchange. It's a great piece now, more than twenty years later given all the chaos and tumult the financial sector is again experiencing. While the strongest performance of this film belongs to Douglas, Charlie Sheen manages to match Douglas scene for scene.

1. "Platoon" (1986) - This Oliver Stone written and directed film about the Vietnam War and the struggles of Christ Taylor, a young enlisted man played by Sheen. Widely considered his breakout role, this film gave Charlie the ability to play a very complex role, and Sheen certainly rose to the challenge.For me, this was actually Charlie's best acting performance of his career. Strangely Sheen was not nominated for Best Actor, though his two co-stars Willem Defoe and Tom Berenger were both nominated for Best Supporting actor, and the film itself won four Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Picture.