Over the course of his career, Anthony Mackie has become a household name, stealing scenes
in everything from period dramas to romantic films to action blockbusters.
His latest high-octane adventure is in Outside the Wire, which features him playing a cyborg
soldier tracking down a terrorist.
Set in a war-torn country, the film is filled with high-tension action sequences, jaw-dropping
twists, and some powerful statements about the perpetuity of international conflicts.
Mackie is a stand-out in the film, but that's hardly surprising.
Here's a look back at some of the most memorable film scenes from Anthony Mackie's career.
It's not uncommon for a good sports biopic to make its audience emotional, but that's
especially true with We Are Marshall, McG's 2006 drama that follows the aftermath of the
1970 plane crash that claimed the lives of most of Marshall University's Thundering Herd
football team, along with the coaches and staff.
The film features Mackie as student athlete Nate Ruffin, who leads the players who were
not aboard the fateful flight to fill out a new team, with incoming head coach Jack
Lengyel.
Despite Nate's sense of resolve, he still suffers both physically and emotionally, particularly
after sustaining a serious injury during a game.
In one unforgettable encounter, Coach Lengyel confronts Nate about his injury, and Nate
insists he's well enough to play.
"You trained for hits?"
"My shoulder's fine."
"Yes or no?"
"My shoulder's fine."
"This one?" "Yeah."
"That one?"
"Take hits like that?"
"My shoulder's fine."
"Gonna be a lot harder than that, Nate."
"My shoulder's fine."
Even more affecting is the moment when he breaks down and confides to his coach that
he is experiencing survivor's guilt.
Mackie's delivery of his lines is absolutely gut-wrenching.
"That was my team.
They left it in my hands."
In Kathryn Bigelow's Oscar-winning war drama The Hurt Locker, Mackie stars as Sgt.
J.T.
Sanborn, a member of the U.S. Army' Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit serving in the Iraq
War.
During one of their final missions of the film, Sanborn and Jeremy Renner's Sgt.
First Class William James attempt to save a civilian from a bomb that's been strapped
to him.
When they're unable to get the job done, Sanborn is deeply affected by the tragedy.
He is also unnerved by how close he came to losing his own life, and in a crushing bit
of monologue, Sanborn reflects on his own mortality.
"Another two inches.
Shrapnel zings by, slices my throat.
I bleed out like a pig in the sand.
Nobody'll give a shit."
He and James then talk about the risk they take with every outing, and the scene becomes
a fascinating study in contrasts by Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie, as they both absorb
this existential realization in very distinct ways.
"I'm done.
I want a son.
I want a little boy, Will."
Few romantic dramas are quite as mind-bending as the 2011 sci-fi thriller The Adjustment
Bureau.
Based on Philip K. Dick's short story "Adjustment Team," the film centers on a congressman named
David Norris who meets and quickly falls in love with a dancer named Elise.
But in the process, he learns he has accidentally upset the elaborate blueprints of the world
that have been written by the mysterious Adjustment Bureau.
Mackie stars as Harry Mitchell, an official of the Bureau who accidentally sets David
and Elise's love story in motion by failing to complete a task that would keep them apart.
"How could a plan just change like that?"
"I don't know.
It's above my pay grade."
Though the rest of the Bureau tries to intervene and course correct David and Elise's lives,
the two fight to write their own happily ever after, and Harry decides to help them by lending
David his hat - a hat which allows him to travel to any location through doorways.
After an incredible chase lands them on top of a skyscraper, the couple is surrounded
by Bureau members.
However, Harry strolls in at the last minute to deliver the news that their steadfast dedication
to each other has changed some very important minds.
"What does it say?"
"It says that this situation between the two of you is a serious deviation from the plan.
So the Chairman rewrote it."
The scene has Mackie showing off just how well he can toe the delicate line between
gentle comedy and heartfelt drama.
"Now what?"
"Now, you can take the stairs."
In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve Rogers desperately needs a friend.
Fortunately, he soon finds one in Mackie's Sam Wilson.
Long before Sam would suit up as his superhero partner Falcon, the two enjoy a hilarious
first encounter, as Sam goes out for a pre-dawn run and gets lapped again and again and again
by the speedy super-soldier who playfully taunts him by saying "on your left" every
time he passes by.
"Don't say it.
Don't you say it…"
"On your left."
"Come on!"
Not only does this mark the start of a beautiful friendship for the two, but those three words
also mark a major turning point in the final fight in Avengers: Endgame: After Cap is beaten,
his shield is broken, and he knows he's completely outmatched by Thanos and his army, it seems
that all hope is lost.
Until, that is, Sam radios in to deliver the good news that reinforcements have arrived.
"On your left."
In the 2015 holiday dramedy Love the Coopers, Mackie needs little more than two minutes
to absolutely break your heart.
He plays Officer Percy Williams, a quiet, emotionally withdrawn police officer who catches
a woman, Emma, stealing a brooch as a gift for her sister.
Percy apprehends Emma for the theft, and in the squadcar, she uses her therapist training
to break through to him.
"How's your sex life?
How's your sex life?"
"I have...sex with...people, okay?"
"But...but you don't connect emotionally."
When Emma asks Percy about his relationship with his family and whether his mother is
accepting of him, Percy implies that his mom realized he was gay before he did.
Unfortunately, as Emma invites him to roleplay the kind of conversation they might have had
about that subject, it becomes clear that his mother was not exactly supportive and
that Percy has not yet made peace with that.
"Percy, don't gesture so much when you talk."
"Well, Kenesha said that she wanted to be…"
"Percy, stop tilting your head.
Percy, stand with your legs apart.
Percy, don't smile so big."
The overlaid images of him as a bright-eyed, optimistic child make his present-day, reserved
demeanor that much more crushing, and Mackie plays that heartbreak with quiet sophistication.
In Outside the Wire, we're introduced to Lieutenant Thomas Harp, a drone pilot who's sent to the
battlefield as a punishment for disobeying an order and getting two soldiers killed.
There we first meet Mackie's Leo, Harp's unusual new commander.
"My deployment drive, sir."
"Shhh."
Leo is an intelligent, no-nonsense officer who tells Harp that they'll be leaving the
green zone for a humanitarian mission that's secretly an intelligence operation.
When Harp reminds Leo that he may not be the best choice for the job, Leo reveals just
how little help he actually needs.
"I don't have any specialist training as a field agent."
"Don't worry, I'm special enough for the both of us."
"You're a...
"Your commanding officer, fourth generation biotech and I'm gonna give you 60 seconds
to deal with it."
Cyborg or not, Leo is still a total boss, thanks to Mackie's sure-footed portrayal of
the otherwise very human-like Leo.
Thanks for watching.
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