The recent run of nasty or weasely fellows Alan Alda has played in movies (The Aviator, which got him his first Oscar nomination), TV (The West Wing, as a Republican senator) and stage (Glengarry Glen Ross, as a slip-sliding real estate salesman) has gotten the 71-year-old multiple Emmy winner a new rep: the guy who's discovered his inner anti-mensch. 

Yet Alda says he's never been shy about showing the uglier aspects of his characters, including "Hawkeye" Pierce on TV's M*A*S*H. In Resurrecting the Champ, he's a hard-case newsman who chides a lazy reporter (Josh Hartnett), then sees him gain fame for profiling a former boxer (Samuel L. Jackson) living on the streets of Denver.