10 Movies That Actually Benefited From Bad Acting
Starship Troopers' wooden cast only elevated its satire.
Transcript
00:00 So, even the best writing and tightest direction can be undone by a bad performance or two,
00:06 where a miscast actor or downright shambolic performance fatally distracts the audience
00:11 from the story and indeed the characters. And so, with potentially hundreds of millions
00:16 of dollars on the line, as well as their own artistic reputations, filmmakers tend to invest
00:20 a lot of time and energy into ensuring that they've got the right actors for the job.
00:25 But there are some rare occasions where an actor gives a bad performance that's actually
00:29 to the movie's overall merit. But whatever the case, we're here to chat about them today
00:32 as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 Movies That Actually Benefited
00:37 From Bad Acting.
00:38 10. The Matrix
00:41 Keanu Reeves is an absolutely fascinating human being. He's so effortlessly likable,
00:46 enough so that sheer charm alone has allowed him to shrug off a number of critically maligned
00:50 performances over the years. And surely the most consistent criticism leveled against
00:54 Reeves is that he's a bit wooden, demonstrating a lack of emotional effect which in turn
00:59 prevents the audience from fully connecting with his characters. But that flattened quality
01:04 was totally perfect for the role of Neo in The Matrix, a character who is basically supposed
01:09 to be a blank slate, more or less devoid of feeling, especially in the early going.
01:13 Now that isn't to say that Reeves is distractingly terrible in the film, but in an ensemble including
01:18 Carrie-Anne Moss, Lawrence Fishburne, and Hugo Weaving, he's certainly the weakest
01:23 link. Yet the Wachowskis were smart enough to appreciate that Reeves' malleable stoicism
01:27 actually made him a superb fit for the rather reserved computer hacker who becomes the saviour
01:33 of the human race.
01:34 9. Clerks
01:36 Kevin Smith's Clerks is one of the most iconic and beloved independent films of the 1990s,
01:41 a testament to how an inspired vision can compensate for a lack of budget or indeed
01:46 quality actors. Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson star as slacker protagonists Dante
01:51 and Randall, and given that neither of them had acted before, it wasn't terribly surprising
01:55 that the amateur quality of their performances has been consistently noted by viewers ever
01:59 since. In countless scenes, the pair are kind of robotically just speeding through their
02:04 dialogue in a way that seems completely unnatural and unconvincing, and yet this lends a certain
02:09 charm to the overall product.
02:11 That stilted quality accentuates the film's generally thrown-together kitchen sink feel,
02:16 and while it might seem to initially undermine the realism, it also reminds the audience
02:21 that we're effectively watching real people rather than movie stars.
02:25 Kevin Smith's movies have rarely been about their acting prowess or technical filmmaking.
02:29 He's a dialogue guy, and that's never been more abundantly clear than in this career-making
02:34 debut. The pair certainly improved by the time the sequel came around, but their lack
02:38 of acting experience was actually a weird and unexpected net positive for the original.
02:43 8. The Terminator
02:45 James Cameron's 1984 sci-fi horror is the movie that put both the director and the star
02:50 on the map, and in selecting Schwarzenegger to play the titular murderous cyborg, Cameron
02:55 made arguably one of the shrewdest casting choices in cinema history. There's no mistaking
03:00 the distracting awkwardness of Arnie's acting throughout this film, yet that robotic quality
03:06 is ultimately quite perfect for the role of a killing machine that is impersonating a
03:11 human.
03:12 There's something totally off about the inexperienced Schwarzenegger's performances that only makes
03:16 his infiltrator cyborg that much more unnerving to observe. Combined with some of the makeup
03:21 department's most inspired choices, such as spraying his face with Vaseline to give
03:25 an off-puttingly fake sheen and then later shaving his eyebrows, Schwarzenegger's clunky
03:30 performance is molded in just the right way by Cameron, and the rest, of course, is history.
03:36 7. Old
03:38 M. Night Shyamalan's Old was undeniably one of the most divisive films of last year.
03:42 The filmmaker's latest Twilight Zone-esque genre romped that entertained as many as it
03:47 indeed irritated. Even those who enjoyed the film would have surely had to have conceded
03:51 that the performances of its central cast are, to be polite, eccentric. Talented actors
03:56 with proven track records like Gail Garcia Bernal, Alex Wolff, and Eliza Scanlon are
04:01 bizarrely unconvincing throughout this film, in which they play strangers trapped on a
04:05 beach which is rapidly aging them. Right from the film's very first scene, their performances
04:10 feel distractingly tone-deaf, with the actors struggling to make sense of Shyamalan's
04:15 characteristically obtuse and unnatural dialogue. While a charitable reading of the film would
04:20 say that Shyamalan directed his actors to give intentionally stilted performances, in
04:24 the same way that Yorgos Lanthimos does for his movies, it does seem far too inconsistent
04:29 for that. One never gets the impression that the actors aren't trying to give earnest
04:33 performances in the service of Shyamalan's off-kilter script, and yet the off-putting
04:38 result of these efforts is a parade of weird acting that only accentuates the disturbing
04:43 nature of the movie.
04:44 6. Wonder Woman
04:46 While many protested Gal Gadot's initial casting as Wonder Woman on the grounds that
04:50 her slender physique didn't quite fit with the more traditionally muscled conception
04:54 of the character, others questioned whether the inexperienced Fast and Furious star had
04:59 the acting chops to do the part justice. And in 2017's original Wonder Woman solo movie,
05:04 Gadot was certainly lucky to be taking part in a well-written, solidly-directed superhero
05:08 flick while surrounded by a strong ensemble cast. Much like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gadot
05:14 isn't actually an acting natural, and it's clear watching her performance as Diana in
05:18 Wonder Woman that she's massively out of her depth. Her line readings just feel stiff
05:22 and odd, and yet that ultimately is quite perfect for an alien having to learn to live
05:27 amongst humanity for the first time. There's a quirky charm to her misplaced fish-out-of-water
05:32 vibe that perfectly aligns with Diana's journey throughout the film, in effect disguising
05:37 the fact that she's just not a very good actress.
05:40 5. Dazed and Confused
05:42 Richard Linklater's legendary coming-of-age comedy Dazed and Confused is jam-packed with
05:47 on-the-rise young actors who then went on to become stars in their own right, such as
05:51 Ben Affleck, Mila Jovovich, Matthew McConaughey, Joey Lauren Adams, and Renee Zellweger. There's
05:56 a laid-back naturalism to most of the performances on offer, and then there's Wiley Wiggins'
06:01 toe-curling turn as awkward freshman Mitch Kramer. Wiggins was a non-actor who was "discovered"
06:07 by Linklater during production, and without getting too mean to a 15-year-old unprofessional
06:11 performer, it definitely shows.
06:13 Wiggins' performance is often singled out for its cringeworthy affectations, namely
06:18 the embarrassing sequence where he attempts to flirt with Sabrina and awkwardly touches
06:21 his nose repeatedly in an attempt to seem, well, awkward. In recent years, the director
06:27 blamed himself for letting Wiggins touch his nose so bloody much, and while it's basically
06:30 infuriating to watch, it does feel strangely authentic for a goofy, nervy weirdo like Mitch.
06:37 4. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
06:39 When ranking the James Bond actors, the almost de facto last place is George Lazenby, who
06:45 suited up to play 007 just once in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. It's a criminally
06:51 underrated entry into the Bond canon, in part because many fans weren't particularly taken
06:55 with Lazenby's off-key performance. Lazenby, an Australian model and non-actor, was an
07:00 unquestionably strange choice to take up the mantle from the legendary Sean Connery,
07:05 and his unassured performance could only ever seem massively inferior by comparison. But,
07:10 accepted on its own terms, Lazenby's lack of acting experience is actually basically
07:15 perfect for the sort of James Bond this movie gave us, which is a more vulnerable, externalised
07:20 spy. This is in large part because Lazenby's line readings and facial expressions are totally
07:25 unsubtle, rendering his 007 as an open book compared to the more suave, composed "man's
07:31 man" played by Connery. Given that On Her Majesty's Secret Service gave audiences
07:35 the most emotionally exposed and available Bond up until this point, Lazenby's over-earnest,
07:41 skittish performance actually ends up working pretty damn well.
07:44 3. The Godfather
07:45 The role of Don Corleone's enforcer Luca Brasi in The Godfather was played by Lenny
07:50 Montana, a non-actor and real-life mob enforcer cast in the part after the original actor
07:55 died of a stroke. Montana is clearly nervous during the iconic scene where he congratulates
08:00 Vito on his daughter's wedding, a result of his lack of acting experience and anxiety
08:04 over performing opposite an actor of Marlon Brando's stature. But, quite ingeniously,
08:10 director Francis Ford Coppola decided to lean into Montana's mumbly performance, having
08:14 him shoot an additional scene where he's seen practising his speech to Don Corleone.
08:18 In the hands of a lesser filmmaker, his strained performance might have come off as amateur,
08:23 and a bit of ill-advised stunt casting. But the director had the good sense to roll with
08:28 it, instead emphasising his neurosis as a character trait of Brasi himself. All in all,
08:33 it helps make him a more memorable and believable character, while underlining Don Corleone's
08:37 standing in this world by having even a brutal mobster be very, very nervous around him.
08:43 2. Starship Troopers
08:45 You can get away with a lot of undisciplined acting in satire, and Paul Verhoeven proves
08:49 that beyond any doubt in his terrific sci-fi war film, Starship Troopers. Verhoeven's
08:55 film is lauded today for its political satire with regard to American foreign policy and
08:59 the monstrous military-industrial complex, with the use of hilariously unsubtle propaganda
09:04 videos within the movie to hammer home that it is a mockery of a fascist, warmongering
09:09 global government. Nevertheless, Starship Troopers is often criticised for the performances
09:14 of its lead actors, especially Caspar Van Dien, Denise Richards and Jake Busey, who
09:18 many have suggested were cast more for their looks than their rather lacklustre acting
09:22 abilities. But that's exactly the point. Verhoeven himself admitted that he cast the
09:26 lead actors based on physical appearance over acting skill, in an attempt to approximate
09:31 the style of Nazi propaganda films, where the main actors were typically impossibly
09:35 attractive examples of the allegedly superior race. And so, it makes sense that a film about
09:41 humanity exerting its own will over aliens is led by beautiful young people who are,
09:46 ultimately, empty vessels where acting is concerned.
09:49 1. The Wicker Man
09:51 The 2006 remake of the classic horror film The Wicker Man is one of the strangest pieces
09:56 of cinema you'll ever see. Panned by critics and audiences upon release, it additionally
10:01 received five Razzie nominations, including a worst actor nod for Nicolas Cage. Cage's
10:06 performance is definitely something, for sure. It's as though he took one look at the script
10:10 and just said "yeah, f**k it", delivering a bonkers madcap performance that completely
10:15 uncouples the film from any sense of reality or genuine suspense. And yet, The Wicker Man
10:20 remake is also a terrible movie that would have quickly been forgotten were it not for
10:25 Cage's campy trainwreck of a performance. Instead, his cartoonish work has effectively
10:30 allowed the film to live on as a trashy disaster piece, and indeed, a long-standing internet
10:35 meme. Years later, Cage admitted that the film was "absurd", and claimed that his
10:39 performance was intentionally over the top to that effect. Is it good acting? Not a chance,
10:45 but to the same token, it's a performance that basically transcends traditional markers
10:49 of quality acting, and thus, makes sure that we bloody well remembered it.
10:54 And there we go my friends, those were 10 movies that actually benefited from bad acting.
10:57 I hope that you enjoyed that, and please let me know what you thought about it down in
11:01 the comments section below. As always, I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on Twitter
11:04 @RetroJWithAZero, or you can swing by Liv and Let's Dice, where I do all of my streaming
11:09 outside of work, and it'd be great to see you over there. And I'll speak to you soon.
11:12 Bye.