Hey, this is educational. I had yet to hear a single person come to Keanu Reeves’s defense. Personally, I think he’s incredibly hammy, but weirdly enjoyable. He’s an awful actor, IMHO, but part of me enjoys his attempts at serious drama.
The Defense calls “About Schmidt”, “The Pledge” and “Something’s Got To Give” to the stand, please.
John Barrymore and Kay Kyser in Playmates.
(And let’s not have any of that “John Barrymore was a ham” stuff–I’ve been watching a lot of his movies lately,and he was vastly under-rated because of his personal problems. He was a ham, sure, but top-quality, delicious deli ham!)
Something’s Got To Give was Jack just being Jack (and interestingly also starred Keanu)- I didn’t beleive him in that part at all. I didn’t see About Schmidt or The Pledge, so I cannot comment on those
Wasn’t Judi Dench in a movie with Vin Diesel? Ugh.
I’ll give you About Schmidt. I didn’t see The Pledge. I concur with anyrose on Something’s Got to Give.
One acting job in two decades.
Perhaps I’ve missed it, but has Kevin Costner done anything worth watching since his pair of baseball movies?
GOOD one.
No. Unless you want to see pore-level close ups for 3 hours in the Postman. Definately on my Top 20 Most Painful Movies Ever list.
Might want to give “Reds” a try: he plays it low-key and detached, a little hesitant and a little disappointed – but mostly just quiet and sincere. Got him a Best Supporting Actor nomination.
I have almost never* seen a Keanu Reeves film I did not enjoy, from Mnemonic to Constantine, Much Ado to Idaho. Knowing Keanu’s in a movie will often motivate me to see it (like Constantine, for example). I’ve never** been served wrong by following this tack.
The same could probably not be said for a lot of other actors. For instance, I enjoyed The Devil’s Advocate in spite of that overacting ham, Pacino. This may have had more to do with Charlize than Keanu, but certainly he didn’t ruin it for me.
Another on that list of so-called great actors who do nothing for me would be Nicholson (yes, I’ve seen Easy Rider, Cuckoo’s Nest and The Shining)
*The last Matrix movie was underwhelming to me, but not because of Keanu, rather because of the plot.
** OK, except for the last Matrix movie…
Everybody needs to give Vin Diesel a break. He’s good at playing certain types of characters. He can’t carry a movie as the leading man, but the same could be said for tons of great character actors. Diesel fills a certain role that Hollywood presents again and again, the stone cold tough guy, and fills it well.
You didn’t believe him in that part? He was Jack Nicholson as himself - except instead of a famous actor banging young women he was a famous record producer banging young women!
-Joe
Agreed. And as far as The Chronicles of Riddick goes, it wasn’t Diesel’s acting that made that movie crappy, it was the script.
that part I believed - it was the redmeption that was far from convincing
Boom. You could replace Juliette Lewis with a dazed-looking marionette in any role. I firmly believe the two are indistinguishable.
Whenever people talk about casting, I recall when Robert Altman’s movie Nashville came out. The two movie critics at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch disagreed vehemently – one thought it was brilliant, the other thought it stunk. The newspaper printed their reviews side by side.
I was particularly struck by one review: “Henry Gibson, stunningly cast against type…” while the other said “Henry Gibson, woefully miscast…”
While I’m no great fan of Keanu’s acting, he was perfect for his role in the underrated campfest that was Dracula. I fully believe he was cast because Coppola knew his accent would be horrid.
Jean-Claude Van Damme was in Sudden Death with Powers Boothe…
J-C also had a cameo in The Last Action Hero, in which Sir Ian McKellan appeared, but I’m not sure cameos count in the view of the OP.
Casting against type (or even actor pigeonholding) can produce some interesting and intriguing results as long as the actors have the guts and chops to pull off the role reversal. Michael Keaton as “Batman.” Bill Murray as a mob boss, Robert De Niro as a hapless wimp in “Mad Dog and Glory.” Sylvester Stallone as a washed out law enforcer in “Copland.” Mel Gibson in “Hamlet.” De-glammed Halle Berry and Charlize Theron in “Monster’s Ball” and “Monster.”