Lindsay Lohan’s Ill-Timed ‘Comeback’ Role

by Jay A. Fernandez

Poor Lindsay. She can’t catch a break.

Released early from rehab and suddenly free again to pursue personal and professional rehabilitation, Lindsay Lohan has an opportunity to re-enter the public consciousness with the seriousness of a newly clean starlet intent on sobriety. And then here comes “Machete” (check out the review here).

When Robert Rodriguez’s Mexploitation flick opens Friday, Lohan will have been out of jail and rehab for a mere 10 days. And the vision that fans, family and friends will see of her in the film is that of a rich, spoiled junkie who makes money on the side by doing homemade sex videos. With her mom.

She can kiss those Kids’ Choice Awards goodbye.

“I want my career back,” Lohan apparently told Vanity Fair in an interview last month before heading to jail. If that’s so, she’s not doing herself any favors. Unless the career she wants is Denise Richards’.

For most actors, a public image is cultivated like a rare plant that needs endless sunlight while being constantly cleaned of dirt. For Lohan the last few years, it’s been more like a Ferrari she takes straight from the car wash to the demolition derby.

Machete backseat 300x185 Lindsay Lohans Ill Timed Comeback RoleAs April, the errant daughter of a corrupt political operative, Lohan makes her entrance in “Machete” passed out on a filthy matress in a drug den surrounded by gun-toting ruffians. Rescued by her pop, she is dumped into a car and swivels her drugged-out face toward him to say, “Sorry, Daddy.”

In real life, Lohan feels she’s the one owed an apology. “I think if anyone should be looked at medically it’s him,” she said to Vanity Fair about her dad, Michael Lohan. The dad in the film does get his -- after revealing that he has an unhealthy fixation on his daughter.

Machete waterfall 300x170 Lindsay Lohans Ill Timed Comeback RoleMost of the rest of Lohan’s screen time is then spent naked, after filming a sex video that includes the vengeance-seeking Machete and her character’s mother -- and, courtesy of Machete, a large bottle of tequila. (In the film's pool sequence, April's face is obscured, so it's not clear that Lohan didn't use a body double for those shots.) When she finally covers her body back up late in the movie, it’s to put on a nun’s habit and strafe a riot of knife-wielding Mexicans with a submachine gun. (Check out the trailer with the NSFW pool sequence below.)

Granted, all of this is surely the very fun Rodriguez and Lohan were probably hoping to have with a ridiculous character that would play off Lohan’s wrecked public image. But that convent has sailed.

Lohan was cast in the “Machete” role in early August last year, a development she hinted at herself at the time via Twitter. While the entertainment business is all fun and games and roles are simply roles, Lohan had already spent the previous two and a half years rolling in the public mud.

In January 2007 she checked into rehab for the first time, but then she was arrested in May for suspected driving under the influece. More rehab and more arrests and lawsuits followed over the next two years.

In July 2009 her film “Labor Pains” gets bumped from theaters to ABC Family, and then she was in court again in October 2009 for a probation hearing relating to her DUI charges.

If during that time she or her reps were looking to burnish her image, the “Machete” role was probably not the best move. Her reps at CAA and Untitled Entertainment had no comment on the decision.

She got sprung from rehab the day of the film’s downtown L.A. premiere last Wednesday but did not show up to share the spotlight with co-stars Jessica Alba and Michelle Rodriguez. Insiders strolling the red carpet let on that reps for the studio, the filmmakers and Lohan had mutually agreed that her presence would have caused too much of a disruption were she to attend, pulling all the attention away from the film.

Reached about the premiere issue, Lohan’s mother Dina emailed: “We are in a great place and I am not commenting there!”

Lohan's next planned project is “Inferno,” an indie biopic about “Deep Throat” star Linda Lovelace. While under different circumstances this role could provide an edgy dramatic turn to burnish an actor’s resume, it will more likely burnish Lohan’s image as damaged goods adrift in the wake of her own crippling life. She’s not Charlize Theron taking on “Monster,” or Jennifer Connelly doing "Requiem for a Dream."

What Lohan needs is a quiet role as a guidance counselor on “Parenthood,” or a “Wrestler”-style drama built around her by a gifted filmmaker. Maybe a straightforward role in the ensemble of a big disaster film. But -- for now, anyway -- roles that perpetuate the perception that she has no control over herself or her life may be destined to undercut the career resurgence she claims she wants.

“I know that I’m a damn good actress,” Lohan said to Vanity Fair. “And I know that when I care about something, I put 100% and more into it.”

The question is how much she really cares about it.


Lindsay Lohan’s Ill-Timed ‘Comeback’ Role
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Poor Lindsay Lohan. She caught a very bad Hollywood bug and couldn't recover. Is it really her fault or our's?