The Toronto-born Wincott had appeared in a number of Canadian films during the late-’70s and early-’80s, and popped as the doomed, mobbed-up owner of a literal spaghetti factory on the “Bread and Roses” episode of “Miami Vice,” but it was his unsettling turn as the deranged fan of Eric Bogosian’s shock jock Barry Champlain in “Talk Radio” that put him on the map as a character actor.
Champlain courts disaster when he invites Wincott’s Kent into the studio for a live, on-air appearance. The DJ’s been receiving death threats, and this unvetted lunatic is all over the map. Wincott plays Kent as a psychotic Steven Tyler. He’s a harmless goof when waxing rhapsodic over Bruce Springsteen’s model wife Julianne Phillips, but turns volatile when he rages about corporate control of the populace. Champlain hurls nonstop, condescending insults at Kent, and due to Wincott’s unpredictably manic energy, we can’t tell if or when he might snap and attack his trash-talking hero. Director Oliver Stone frames him so unnervingly tight, that the acrid scent of stale cigarettes and cheap booze wafts off the screen.
Wincott dominates every second of this encounter. Unsurprisingly, Stone brought him back for “Born on the Fourth of July” and “The Doors.”
