George Hamilton has a very piercing stare, which makes for a great character in many movies since he can pin someone with his gaze and seem extremely authoritative while doing it. In Doc Hollywood was arguably one of his best roles since he played a straight up jerk but was at least honest in the role. There have been other roles that he’s been either good or great in but this one was kind of able to top them all since it’s brief and it’s a lead-in to one of the most meaningful parts of the movie. After all it’s not everyday a promising young doctor turns down the job of a lifetime to head back to the place that he was initially so eager to leave.
Doc Hollywood was a great movie despite being slightly underrated. Michael J. Fox was at his best at this point and was able to deliver on command fairly well. George Hamilton was kind of like the topper to an already memorable film so it’s great that they managed to get him and that he was given a role that really accentuated his looks and his attitude. Throughout the films he’s been in George has always been kind of an arrogant figure, not always in a bad way but in a manner that’s definitely easy to spot. But in this film he wasn’t so much a jerk, he was just another slightly eccentric boss that played his part at the top of the heap. He was the kind of boss that would likely let an employee or a peer know just how far they were beneath him should they ever step too far out of line. Of course since that’s the part he plays best it was great to see him in this capacity.
Other films he’s done have seen him as about the same type of person, but in Doc Hollywood it was more comical than most others since he was designed to look and act like kind of a sleaze. The Doc had a choice to make boatloads of money doing something he knew how to do versus making very little money working at a job that would likely give him a lot more personal satisfaction. For some people that’s not a hard decision really since the promise of money and financial security kind of takes precedence over being happy. But for others that have the kind of idealism that says being happy is a lot more important than being rich it becomes a moral quandary as to how you can have both.
Hamilton definitely plays the role of avarice, while the entire town plays the part of contentment, or something similar. Choosing between them is never easy since one brings so much security and safety and the other simply brings clarity and peace of mind that so many people look for but few ever find. So you see, Hamilton isn’t just an awesome, arrogant jerk, he’s symbolic as well. There was a lot more to this movie than people realized.
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