Since the release of Pirates of the Caribbean, I’m sure we’ve all heard jokes about Johnny Depp salvaging Hollywood films that might otherwise…sink. This is a little unfair to PotC; it probably would have been no worse than the usual effects-laden summer action fare without Depp. Still, I don’t think there’s any denying that his performance pulled the movie ahead of the pack. I’ve never considered myself a particular fan of Depp’s before although I have always enjoyed his work, but the more I think about it the more I think that he really could save other movies from themselves.
Let us consider Gigli. (I hope you aren’t eating.) I was not one of the brave or foolhardy souls who dared to see this film, but I’ve read the reviews with perverse glee so I know what it’s all about. Would it have been any better with Depp in place of Ben Affleck?
I think a large part of Depp’s charm in films comes from the way he always seems a bit off from everyone else. It’s as if his character knows that he is in an absurd situation, but also knows that these things happen to him all the time and no one else ever notices so he might as well carry on regardless. This is not a quality that would be suited to all roles. It is, however, the only quality I could think of that would make the role of a hapless hitman stuck shepherding a developmentally disabled kidnapping victim while trying to win the favor of a woman who is both out of his league and a lesbian remotely tolerable.
Heck, it doesn’t even sound like foreign territory for Depp. What’s Eating Gilbert Gigli? Donnie Gigli? With the addition of The Depp Factor, Gigli begins to sound…well, maybe not “good”, but perhaps not “the biggest turkey of our young century” either. I’ll bet I even know lesbians who could sleep with Depp without having to slip something in their own drink first, which is more than I can say for Affleck. Of course, Gigli would still suffer from bad dialogue, a bad plot, and Jennifer Lopez. Maybe Christopher Walken’s cameo could be rewritten to allow him to ride in on a big horse and chop a few heads. That would be cool.
Seriously, though, I saw Pirates yesterday (the day after it came out here in Europe) and I wanted to start my own Johnny Depp thread. Maybe I still will. The man is a genius, and I don’t think there’s any sort of film that wouldn’t greatly be improved by him in an appropriate part. I see team him up with Lopez and watch the sparks fly.
He certainly saved Don Juan DeMarco. Without him it would have been a very bad movie but he brought such zest to the role that I was completely able to overlook the lousy job Brando did and enjoy the movie.
Ooooh, Robin Hood.::::::::drool::::::::::::
I have to say the despite being totally awestruck by Jack Swann :::drool:::: that he has to be the most vivid character on screen in a long, long time.
He’s up there instantly, I think, with Martin Riggs in the crazy-cool factor.
I loved him in chocolat, Edward Scissorhands and in Sleepy Hollow. These are really well written, directed, and casted movies with such an element of fantasy surronding normal life. I felt in these his characters brought the reality and stability into the movies. Did he ever play a roll badly? 21 Jump Street? I can’t judge that fairly (raging teen homones at the time)
He was great in Ed Wood. The insane glee with which he put his montages of leftover stock shots, bad special effects and bad everything made the movie fun to watch.
If you want to see an amazing Depp performance, go find The Dead Man (or just Dead Man). It came out early to mid-90s, I think. It’s a b/w western. Fantastic movie, and he was great.
Johnny Depp is one of the more underrated actors in Hollywood. Although maybe now he’s not so underrated anymore.
I am compelled to join in this Johnny Depp admiration page. Since (as I have noted in another thread) I apparently live under a rock, I had never seen and barely heard of this actor before Pirates…
Now, I’m one of his biggest fans - rented lots of his movies this past month and simply astounded by how he disappears into a role. There’s no better way to put it - he is a very, very good actor.
It’s important to note this, because I’ve read some very ignorant things in reviews, like saying Johnny Depp was overdoing & should learn that less is more [my reply - of course less is more when appropriate. see Benny & Joon, Gilbert Grape, Donnie Brasco, even Blow. Sometimes a more broad acting style is quite appropriate.]
Anyway, hope Mr. Depp continues to make interesting, non-Gigli, choices and gives us many more wonderful movie experiences.
Hey, that would be great! Much better than Costner, I’m sure.
Ah ah ah, Battlefield Earth was technically a movie of the last century. And it’s just as well. Wouldn’t want to set the bar too low right away in the 21st.
Brown Bunny may well be the worse film, but it’s not going to lose a major studio millions and millions of dollars so I wouldn’t consider it the bigger turkey.
Great movie, and talk about an out-of-place character stuck in an absurd situation! Also well worth the price of a rental for a truly memorable cameo by Iggy Pop.
Wow, and I thought my younger sister was late coming to the fold. After seeing Sleepy Hollow (1999), she told me “I never realized before how talented Johnny Depp is…or how good looking! The man’s gorgeous!” Where she’d been for the past decade I don’t know.
I thought Johnny Depp would have been much better cast than Brad Pitt in Meet Joe Black. As Lamia says, Depp has an aloofness and eccentricity that would have made “Death” a much more memorable character.
I’ve a Depp fan since Edward Scissorhands and my wife has a crush on him so we’ve seen pretty much everything he’s been in. (I have to add to the recommendations for Dead Man, an overlooked but very entertaining film. It features a very strange scene with Billy Bob Thornton and Iggy Pop that’s just hilarious).
One thing that I admire about Depp is that he has always made interesting choices in movies. He has never gone the Ben Affleck/ Freddy Prinze Jr. route of just hacking out romantic comedies and fluffy Hollywood tripe although he easily could have. He’s eye-candy, yes, but he hasn’t let that define him. He actually has talent and intelligence. I think part of the reason that his Jack Sparrow character works so well is that he is self-effacing in the role. He doesn’t make himself into just another vain action hero. He injected a silly vulnerability into the character which made him charming and likable rather than simply “heroic.”
I can’t believe he’s forty. He looks like he’s twenty-five.
Nobody’s mentioned one of my favorite Depp roles: Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. It’s a great Terry Gilliam movie, weird and wacky and funny and unsettling all at the same time. But Depp really disappears into this role, playing the “gonzo journalist” like Groucho Marx after taking way too many drugs.
Another overlooked Depp movie is Nick Of Time, one of his closest forays into a “mainstream” action movie. He plays a normal working guy, and Christopher Walken kidnaps his daughter to force him to assassinate someone, a mayor or a governor or something. Aside from having two fantastic actors, this movie is cool because it’s set in real time, because he has a time limit of 90 minutes (IIRC) to kill this person. When I kept hearing the hype about the series 24, I couldn’t help but think of this overlooked movie.
I have to agree on how good Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, and the depressing Gilbert Grape are. (But I ought to see Donnie Brasco and Blow, eh?)
The scary thing is, if you watch interviews with H.S. Thompson in them, you realize that Johnny Depp plays the role almost flawlessly, acting, and talking like Thompson almost flawlessly. The man is brilliant!
(I should also mention, the first time I saw Fear and Loathing, I dind’t even realize it was Johnny Depp. The shades and hat/bald head really threw me. Also, I didn’t realize his co-star was Benicio Del Toro at first…the beergut REALLLY threw me there.
Maybe if we just put a little box in the corner of the screen with a picture of Johnny Depp. Like picture-in-picture on a big TV. Every once in a while, the picture could change to reflect what was going on in the movie. And the critics could be like, “On one hand. the acting. direction and cinematography in this movie made me want to go back in time and kill Thomas Edison before he could invent the movie camera. On the other hand. the pictures of Johnny Depp were very nice. Two stars.”
