Best of Russell Crowe - Choose your favorite out of these picks

[Hustler]

L.A. Confidential and The Insider are my favorites. I find Gladiator as the perfect type of character for Crowe.

[Nik]

I mean, how many of his children would have to drown before he takes his ####ing prozac? That's what I was left with. It's not an honorable story at all.

Meh, I could care less about babies. For me, the most offensive part was that the dazzling Jennifer Connelly would be attracted to this guy at all :p

[Sabin]

Not a big fan of his, but I'll cop to thinking he's pretty fantastic in L.A. Confidential. Master & Commander's my runner up.

My problem with A Beautiful Mind has nothing to do with how much the movie was rewritten. Rather it's that they rewrite it into something less intriguing; though it's not as offensive as with The Hurricane (where a potentially gripping story is tossed in favor of vanilla gravitas), I still had no idea who any of the characters were. I thought Crowe was the best thing in the film, but I still didn't know who the guy was on any level aside from the fact that I didn't like John Forbes Nash at all. I mean, how many of his children would have to drown before he takes his ####ing prozac? That's what I was left with. It's not an honorable story at all.

[rudeboy]

Woe, Damien, you're the first serious movie watcher I've known to say they didn't like L.A. Confidential. I was completely blown away by it when I saw it in 1997. It's one of the greatest films of the 1990's, maybe of the last 25 years. It's so good, even Kim Basinger turned in a solid performance.

Make that two. There are things I like a lot - the period atmosphere, Jerry Goldsmith's score, the performances of the guys (sorry, criddic, I found Basinger's performance utterly forgettable) - but I found the opening to LA Confidential painfully slow, and the 'tagged-on' ending embarassingly phony.

It is one of Crowe's better performances, although I admit he has an adequately compelling prescence in Gladiator and I quite liked him in Master & Commander. But I went with The Insider, the only one of his major films other than LA Confidential which felt like a true acting performance rather than a 'star attraction'.

[OscarGuy]

Again, you've missed the point. It's not a dislike of Ron Howard (I believe many of us liked Apollo 13).

The problem with A Beautiful Mind was that it was so vain. It took a man's story, completely re-wrote it to make it more palatable for audiences and then made it into schmaltz.

[criddic3]

Woe, Damien, you're the first serious movie watcher I've known to say they didn't like L.A. Confidential. I was completely blown away by it when I saw it in 1997. It's one of the greatest films of the 1990's, maybe of the last 25 years. It's so good, even Kim Basinger turned in a solid performance.

Russell Crowe is a terrific actor. I've liked him in nearly every film he's starred in and seems to have a good eye for the right roles.

While I agree that Gladiator was an unlikely Best Picture winner, it was an entertaining film with some fine acting in it. People still tell me they love this movie. You'd might be surprised how many people own it on dvd.

Same for A Beautiful Mind, which seems to have an unhealthy amount of detractors on this board. So many people liked it. So, I guess it's a matter of disliking Ron Howard, a popular director.

[Damien]

The only time I ever liked him was in L.A. Confidential (and I'm not even a big fan of that picture).

[paperboy]

Crowe is quite charming in 'Proof' (great film) and 'The Sum Of Us', and 'Romper Stomper' revealed his versatility.

Also during this period I saw him onstage playing Frankenfurter in 'The Rocky Horror Show' and he delivered the goods (especially as he was usually playing Eddie/Dr Scott and only understudying the lead role).

Then he went Hollywood and his personality unfortunately made its way to the forefront and it's been all downhill from there.

I voted for 'Proof'.

[Penelope]

That's no mistake, flipp525. Before Russell Crowe hit it big, he starred in a well-received Australian film called Proof with Hugo Weaving.

I voted for The Insider (he woulda been a much better choice for the Oscar that year than Kevin Spacey, and it's such a much, much better performance than Gladiator), but Proof is one of the first films I saw him in, along with The Sum of Us. Proof is a terrific little movie, well worth seeing.

[flipp525]

Ah, my bad.

[anonymous1980]

That's no mistake, flipp525. Before Russell Crowe hit it big, he starred in a well-received Australian film called Proof with Hugo Weaving.

[flipp525]

Proof (2001)? Obviously, you mean Proof of Life. I vote to abstain from voting as well. I think Crowe should follow through with his "threat" and just retire from acting and stay away from the U.S. He brings very little to the table for me.

[criddic3]

I included Virtuosity because it was one of the first films I saw him in and noticed him. Although the movie is not any great film, he was fun to watch in it, playing Sid 6.7.

I liked him in The Quick and the Dead, but I thought his role was rather small in comparison to the others I listed. That was released the same year as Virtuosity, but earlier in the year. I remember seeing it because Leo DiCaprio (who i thought was cute at the time) and Gene Hackman were in it.

[FilmFan720]

I would vote for The Insider, only because it was the only one of his performances where I sensed any remote being of real acting going on, under the masterful direction of Michael Mann, but I'm not going to vote only on the pretense of my extreme dislike of the man, and he doesn't deserve a best of thread in the least. The worst of hem all are the high-school dramatics of A Beautiful Mind, where Russell Crowe was ACTING and PLAYING A CRAZY MAN.

Tripp



Edited By FilmFan720 on 1129530174

[Sonic Youth]

Oh, yeah. He was in The Quick and the Dead, wasn't he? As I recall, he wasn't bad in that.