Vin Diesel is hot

In the preposterous "XXX," a kind of James Bond thriller for the Playstation crowd, he once again plays "the best and brightest of the bottom of the barrel." Xander Cage is a tattooed, husky underground action sports hero who likes to steal cars from senators who ban rap music; he is recruited as an expendable body by the NSA in order to infiltrate a band of anarchists who are planning the apocalypse when they aren't busy having sex with strippers. Vin Diesel's purpose in this movie, much as it was in "The Fast and the Furious" and "Pitch Black," is to deliver teen-friendly one-liners like "Don't be a dick, Dick" with a cocky expression on his face; to flex his tattoos and look macho as he jumps off the back of a motorcycle or snowboards out of an avalanche.

"XXX" is absurd -- scene after implausible scene of direct rip-offs from spy thrillers and sports videos, complete with clichéd dialogue and one-dimensional bad guys. Sitting in the movie theater surrounded by the teenage boys this movie was made for (along with, not surprisingly, a large number of gay men), I felt ridiculous. But I loved the sheer spectacle, and Vin Diesel looked great -- arresting even -- in that fur coat and sly expression.

Diesel may be a straight-ahead action hero for the 15-year-old boys who flock to his movies; but for adults like myself, who prefer more thoughtful fare but every once in a while like to indulge in a slice of Hollywood cheese, he is ultimately a camp icon. The best action movies these days have a certain self-awareness about the silliness of their endeavors. In 1985, film critic Pauline Kael wrote that "a Sylvester Stallone hit movie has the same basic appeal as professional wrestling or demolition derbies: audiences hoot at it and get a little charged up at the same time." The same could be said about Diesel oeuvre. But unlike "Rambo" or "Rocky," which took themselves very seriously -- Stallone's protruding lower lip, his drooping scowl, were somehow supposed to conjure up American fortitude itself -- films like "XXX" and "The Fast and the Furious" know exactly what they are: sexy schlock with big bangs, big boys and even bigger budgets. (To be fair, in "XXX" Xander Cage is also supposed to represent America, too; but a young, irreverent America that drives vintage GTOs and jumps from planes with stars-and-stripes 'chutes).

Vin Diesel bears some resemblance to all three of the aforementioned holy trinity of contemporary action heroes -- Willis, Schwarzenegger, Stallone -- but personality-wise he's closest to Willis (in his "Die Hard" days, as opposed to his "Sixth Sense" or "Story of Us" days). Willis had a brain underneath all that brawn, and delivered his punch lines with a wry arch of his eyebrows that made you believe that he thought action films were a ridiculous, if lucrative, lark. Like Willis, Diesel also seems to be having a fine old time in his films: He saunters through the scenes as if he were on a sightseeing tour of Paris. He rarely breaks out into a full grin, let alone a laugh (though he has a fine deep laugh), but there often is a smile just below the surface of even his silliest lines. Again like Willis, he's in on the joke too.

When, in "XXX," he is thrown out of a speeding airplane and dragged along a runway in a parachute, he brushes the dust off with a sly grin on his face: "I live for this shit," he exclaims, just like an overgrown teenager. "Let's do it again!" And you really do believe that he loves those kinds of silly stunts, both on-screen and off, simply because he knows how juvenile they are.

Or perhaps these are just the traits that I want to attribute to him, perhaps to make my own moviegoing a little more intellectually palatable. Unfortunately, Vin Diesel doesn't seem to be a great ironist off-screen; by all accounts, he has taken his stardom very seriously, and very methodically manhandled his way into Hollywood. A Hollywood friend told me a second-hand but convincing story about Diesel's arrival in town in the mid-1990s: Meeting with agents after his debut short film "Multi-Facial," Diesel would confidently growl, "You better sign me up now, while you can afford me. I'm going to be a star."

This is a man who demanded $30 million to be in the sequel to "The Fast and the Furious," and refused to appear when the producers wouldn't fork out (he said he had too many franchises already -- "Riddick," the follow-up to "Pitch Black," and a sequel to "XXX"). Ballsy as it was, he probably deserved the money. "Fast and the Furious 2" deserves to tank without him: Wussy little Paul Walker, with his curly blond hair and delicate features, was certainly not the reason that the original movie sold some $144 million worth of theater tickets.

But Diesel would be wise to save his cash while he can. He may never become a Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson or Bruce Willis -- thoughtful action heroes who aged gracefully out of their wife-beater tank tops and into grown-up dramatic roles. But he seems to have a touch more depth, and a better sense of humor, than a Stallone or Schwarzenegger, who were ultimately useful to us only as icons of muscle-bound masculinity. If Vin Diesel turns out to have one shtick, and one shtick only, he will certainly fade from the screen as our idea of an action hero changes once again.

I get the sense that my girlfriends who adore Vin Diesel wouldn't really know what to do with him if he showed up on their doorstep and actually begged to make love to them. Part of the fun of lusting after Diesel is the fact that it's just so silly to do so. So perhaps what is ultimately so enjoyable about our latest action throb is that he seems to be so very much enjoying what he does: You just can't help but get the sense that Vin Diesel's favorite role is himself. And even if Diesel is almost 100 percent artifice -- the name, the muscles, the sex appeal -- it's an illusion that goes down as easily as a pint of Cherry Garcia ice cream, with the same slight twinge of guilt.

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