It’s hard to believe Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe (like Cyndi Lauper and Madonna, like Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell) were ever in exactly the same place, but both made their bones in 1997 with “L.A. Confidential,” which seemed to introduce two charismatic, talented actors with leading-man looks. Crowe has starred in a dozen or so high-profile studio pics; Pearce pretty much got one chance, with “The Time Machine,” and that was it.

Pearce is strong, as always, in his latest indie movie “The Hurt Locker,” (above) which opens this month and is an adrenaline-charged Iraq War picture about bomb squaddies. But he’s only in the movie briefly. Imdb reports he’s got a lot of other projects lined up or in the can but most of them look like either small parts or low-profile movies. Pearce was superb not only in “L.A Confidential” but in his art-house classic “Memento,” one of the most influential films of the decade, and in “Factory Girl,” in which he played Andy Warhol. He’s being underutilized by the industry.