The next year he pulled a complete character 180 by starring along side Christian Bale in the fantasy dragon apocalypse movie “Reign of Fire”. Bale anchors the movie’s depth by playing the responsible leader of a group trying to outlast the dragons by hiding in a Scottish castle. McConaughey shows up part way into the movie as a ripped, bald, bearded, tattooed, American dragon slayer riding in on the barrel of a tank. He chews the scenery as hard as his cigar, big and loud and convinced that taking it on the offensive is the only choice to survive the fires from the sky. The two play great off each other but Matthew steals every scene he’s in as his crew of commandos show the survivors just how badass it is to tear a dragon from the skies and kill it with an axe.
I so wanna fight dragons with this guy.
Both of these roles made me love McConaughey and want so badly to see him in more crazy out there kinds of roles. I wanted him to stretch his acting legs and take chances. But sadly right after these two films he went right back to lame romantic comedies for year, only occasionally dabbling in better roles like “Tropic Thunder” or “The Lincoln Lawyer”. Luckily he seems to want to be taken more seriously lately, getting roles like “Wolf of Wall Street” and of course, his Oscar winning turn in “Dallas Buyer’s Club”. Hopefully his new found trophy will let him let his hair down so to speak, and he’ll give a view of the kind of awesome characters I know that he’s capable of.