It’s probably just me, but I thought his campy and deliberately over-the-top performance in Devil’s Advocate was darkly comic.
Also, although technically not a comedy, his outrageous turn in Dick Tracy was menacingly comic.
And, although I haven’t seen it, Pacino a few years ago was in S1m0ne which was at least supposed to be a comedy.
I just saw him in Merchant of Venice and was surprised by how much I liked his performance. Normally I do not seek him out. I find him to be super grating on my nerves…He was also great in Dog Day Afternoon .
Ha! Didn’t realize it until you mentioned it, but you are right!
Eh… it’s not very funny, and he’s not doing jokes in it anyway.
Pacino’s still the man, but since Scent Of A Woman he’s been phoning in that whole Hoo-hah! schtick a little too much. I liked it in Devil’s Advocate, but then if you’re going to play Old Nick you might as well have fun and show up Keanu.
When he gets a decent director to rein him in, he’s still fantastic: some of his best roles were quite recent, and very underplayed - the guilt-racked insomniac cop in, well, Insomnia {which also featured that rarest of things, a decent showing from Robin Williams}, and the mob footsoldier in Donnie Brasco: the scene where he silently takes off his jewellery before he leaves the house knowing he’s going to his death is just heartbreaking.
He’s still less of a self-parody than De Niro’s become: God knows he used to be great, but most of the characters he’s played in the past ten years might as well have been wearing signs around their necks reading “I’m only in this for the money.”
I saw S1mOne – was that a comedy? Yikes. A bad movie, whatever it was, and he gets no points for playing comedy in it.
I did keep cracking up during Devil’s Advocate, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the director’s intention.