It's jarring to see River play an alpha male bastard

I wholeheartedly agree! Thanks for posting this! His roles were indeed a unique combination of trouble and sympathy, almost like an antithesis in person, and I loved that! River was part of a golden generation of young actors (80s-90s) who had tremendous acting jobs in iconic movies, as opposed to nowadays' shallow 'blockbusters generation'. I was lucky to watch River's 'Dark Blood' and I thought his role as Boy was unlike anything he'd done before, so dark and frightening and crazy, but he did so well! He would've excelled at acting if he had lived longer. He will be forever missed and adored!

Yes, he did talk about how he thought James Wright was kind of a jerk and how different the character was from him. But while the character he played in this film was quite a departure from his personality, he still had aspects of River's disposition and some redeemable qualities. The only character he ever played that was entirely far removed from who he was was Jimmy Reardon. That was a character who was a complete sleazy douche, and River said afterwards that didn't think he was the right person to play that character. I don't think he even wanted to be in that movie in the first place, and his father was vehemently opposed to it, but his mother pushed him into it because they needed the money at the time. He described it as the first time his family had ever had financial security, so that's the only good thing that came out of it for him. But as for the role he played here, I liked him in it. It's a bit different from what he usually portrayed, but there's still a vulnerability about the character. And I guess he took the role to challenge himself more as an actor. He continued challenging himself with his next film, Dark Blood, playing the bad guy, quite a crazed/deranged character, but he still brought sensitivity and vulnerability to that role too.