Comments on: Grand Larceny II

By: Maureen

Maureen — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:45:51 +0000

In a bad movie, you don’t think of the actor as “stealing the show”, so much as “the actor playing that character was too good for this movie”.

If you ask people for “examples of good acting in bad movies”, you’ll probably get a lot more suggestions. Vincent Price was frequently a bright spot, for instance — even doing voice acting in The Thirteen Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, he was good.

By: smack

smack — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:38:19 +0000

Can a movie have multiple thieves? Probably not, but in the category of multiple great performances, how about Cathrine O’Hara AND Teri Garr AND John Heard in After Hours.

By: fred

fred — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 11:13:51 +0000

One bad movie stolen by a good actor: Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (or, Prince of Cheese as my friends and I called it at the time). Perhaps merely the exception that proves the rule.

By: Terry Rock

Terry Rock — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:17:09 +0000

Or:
- it’s impossible to steal a bad movie? Nothing to steal.
- most people only remember good movies.
- stealing is one element of “what makes a movie good.”

By: robert butler

robert butler — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:59:20 +0000

Two thieves playing generals: Edward Fox as General Dyer in Gandhi and G. D. Spradlin as General Corman in Apocalypse Now.

By: peter

peter — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:59:03 +0000

Another grand theft, auteur to add to the list is Philip Seymour Hoffman as Freddie Miles in “The Talented Mr Ripley”, a movie which fits your analysis — a very good movie, with very good actors.

By: Eric Nehrlich

Eric Nehrlich — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 07:36:45 +0000

I think that films are non-zero sum games, as you suggest. Good actors realize that if a film has more good actors and higher quality, the film will garner more attention. They may be getting a smaller relative piece of the film’s attention, but the total attention is much larger (smaller piece of a bigger pie).

I’ve been seeing this pattern everywhere recently. At a startup, should the founders and investors fight over the existing resources of the company (zero-sum), or find ways to grow the company (non-zero)? In the Prisoner’s Dilemma, the “rational” one-time strategy is at odds with the iterated strategy, because a one-time prisoner’s dilemma is a zero-sum game, but an iterated version is non-zero.

I really need to go back and finish Robert Wright’s Nonzero one of these days.

By: Rick Liebling

Rick Liebling — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 22:53:23 +0000

There are so many factors involved – the actors, the directors, the screenplay, the role. It does seem a shame to saddle a positive (great performance) with a negative term (stealing). As you are suggesting, the actors are actually giving something to the movie, not taking something away.

Looking at this from another direction, what about the idea of a ‘name’ actor with a small role who actually does take something away? I would call that hijacking a film. One possible example, Danny DeVito in whichever Batman movie where he played the Penguin. Just as you noted that ‘stolen’ movies are usually good films, ‘hijacked’ movies are almost always going to be bad films.