Modine offered solid support as Mel Gibson's outlaw brother in "Mrs. Soffel" (1984) but fared less well in guileless roles as a wrestler in "Vision Quest" (1985) and a yuppie in "Pacific Heights" (1990). In Jonathan Demme's brightly-colored farce, "Married to the Mob" (1988), he was charming as a slightly bumbling FBI agent who falls for a Mafia wife (Michelle Pfeiffer). Derivative roles as a cocky medical student in "Gross Anatomy" (1989) and as a hesitant but aspiring yachtsman in "Wind" (1992) did not help those films' receptions, but Alan Rudolph's "Equinox" (1993) combined both aspects of Modine's persona with its dual roles of a lonely mechanic and a confident mobster. That same year, Altman cast him as an unhappily married neurosurgeon in "Short Cuts" and Modine co-produced and co-directed the short film "Smoking" (1993) with Todd Field. His subsequent feature roles, including as a recently divorced father in "Bye Bye, Love" and as a pirate in "Cutthroat Island" (both 1995), have failed to capitalize on his strengths. After years of development, Modine finally made his feature film directorial debut with the action comedy "If ... Dog ... Rabbit" (1998). In "Very Mean Men" (2000) he appeared in the framing sequence as a pestered bartender who spins a tale of warring Mafiosos, the first in a succession of minor films that Modine would headline until he snared a small but pivotal and highly entertaining role in the Merchant-Ivory production of "Le Divorce" (2003), playing a spurned and possibly unhinged husband who becomes obessed with the wife and family of his ex's new man--a character for whom Modine improvised much of his best dialogue and action.

For TV, Modine portrayed a brooding Eugene O'Neill in "Journey Into Genius" (PBS, 1988), anchored the AIDS drama "And the Band Played On" (HBO, 1993), as a stalwart caring medical researcher, and won praise for his turn in the title role of the Peter Hall-directed Biblical miniseries, "Jacob" (TNT, 1994). Modine appeared in the surprise ratings winner "What the Deaf Man Heard" (CBS, 1997), as a man who chooses not to speak, and was effective in the leading role of Charlie Gordon, a retarded man whom experimental surgery turns into a genius, in a 2000 TV movie adaptation of the classic Daniel Keyes novel "Flowers for Algernon." He also played the fairy tale character Jack in the offbeat miniseries "Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story" (2001), appeared in "Hitler: The Rise of Evil" (2003) and had an effective guest turn on a 2003 episode of "The West Wing" as a former classmate of C.J. Cregg's (Allison Janney).