Does Hollywood hate Wesley Snipes? He’s good looking, he’s not a bad actor, and he isn’t a bad draw at the box office when he’s in the right movie. Yet he keeps ending up in horrible movies. Either Hollywood hates Snipes or he has terrible career sense.
For a fun, crime caper movie, you’d be better off seeing Oceans 11--the original or the remake. For a tense crime drama that really pulls you in, you’d be better off renting Heat.
There are a couple of attractive women in evidence. That’s kind of nice.
Wesley Snipes is the good bad guy in the movie, having been double-crossed by the bad bad guys. The difference being that Snipes, while in the commission of a robbery, doesn’t shoot a cop when he has the chance; the bad bad guys show no such restraint.
That, of course, is supposed to buy our sympathy.
Don’t tell that to the two motorcycle cops who he catapults through the windshield of a cop car. Or the police that are blown up trying to apprehend him during an extensive chase scene that leaves property destroyed, lives ruined, and virgins de-virginized.
Okay, I was kidding about that last bit.
Torture scenes. Creepy, yet underwhelming.
The direction, with its constant flashbacks, is tremendously distracting. Maybe “pathetic” would be the right word.
Some more completely ‘tuitous nudity would have improved this one tremendously.
Movies like this make acting, directing, and scriptwriting look easy. Not good, mind you, just easy.
Direct to video, right? I think this one went direct to video--or, at least, it should have. That’s all you really need to know.
I’ve always felt that many great actors aren’t much better at acting than most of their peers. They’re either great script readers or they’re great at picking agents that are great script readers (or maybe they’re really good at interviewing directors). It’s my guess that reading a bunch of scripts and predicting which one will be a good movie is much, much harder than acting like someone else in front of a camera.
So I’d blame Snipes’ career on poor predictive powers. He’s just not one of those guys who can see how the written word will translate to the screen.
That might be true--and, I suppose, it probably does take a pretty specific kind of mind to read a script and understand how it will translate to screen. If so, both Snipes and Cuba Gooding, Jr need new agents fast…
Of course, there are exceptions, but they tend to prove the rule. Brando had terrible taste in scripts, but he manged to get luckly three or four times (The Godfather, Last Tango in Paris, On the Waterfront). The man turned down The Godfather II, which is just insane.
Some actors seem to just say yes to everything and then we remember the good stuff. How many movies do Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson do a year, anyway?
Okay, after much experimentation, I had to take out the italics tags around “terrible.” Why? Because the Gods of Expression Engine demanded it, that’s why.
I’m trying to figure out who did the most movies last year. So far Stiller and Jude Law are tied at six, but you have to count Jude doing the voice of Lemony Snicket and Ben’s small part in Anchorman.
I can’t believe someone doesn’t keep track of this already. I’m gonna have to write a script that scans IMDB and creates a database of every actor that had a role in 2004.
In my opinion, Snipes isn’t all that good of an actor. He seems to play the same type of character in every movie. Perhaps that goes back to his choices?
I agree. But he showed a lot of promise and a bit of range at the beginning of his career. Major League, Mo’ Better Blues, and White Men Can’t Jump were from very different genres, and each character was pretty unique. The only thing they had in common was a lot of cockiness.
Which I think is probably true of Snipes himself, so maybe he’s not much of an actor. But that kinda makes my point for me. If he’d spent his career making good movies about cocky characters we’d all think he was a genius.
Snipes was hilarious and fun in Major League. He fit the role perfectly in New Jack City. He had some great moments in White Men Can’t Jump. Of course, I balance that with To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, which was, to be charitable, not good.
Still, I think that his better movies proved he could act, but the worst proved that he didn’t always bother.
Matt, you’re going to write the script, aren’t you? C’mon, we won’t tell…
Steven Barnes, the science fiction author and screenwriter, has talked about black male actors and the roles they (can) get, and Wesley Snipes specifically, on his blog.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t have easy access to his archives, and this was the only article I found in a quick Google search. Scroll down to A gloomy prediction for “XXX”. It’s not the article I remember reading, though.
Gee, I almost hate to point out that Steven Barnes characters are part of the problem. Every story he writes seems to have the “Black Super Man” in it, the man stronger and smarter than anyone else, with the ability to absolutely control women through sex...Okay, that applies to “Nigel Bishop” more than any of his other characters, but they all have that aspect. Which, incidentally, is exactly what’s wrong with Wesley Snipes, IMHO: he seems to carry his superiority/condescension like a burden.
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I’ve always felt that many great actors aren’t much better at acting than most of their peers. They’re either great script readers or they’re great at picking agents that are great script readers (or maybe they’re really good at interviewing directors). It’s my guess that reading a bunch of scripts and predicting which one will be a good movie is much, much harder than acting like someone else in front of a camera.
So I’d blame Snipes’ career on poor predictive powers. He’s just not one of those guys who can see how the written word will translate to the screen.
Oh, and from the title I would have guessed this movie was about a bull rider who’s just not quite good enough.
That might be true--and, I suppose, it probably does take a pretty specific kind of mind to read a script and understand how it will translate to screen. If so, both Snipes and Cuba Gooding, Jr need new agents fast…
Of course, there are exceptions, but they tend to prove the rule. Brando had terrible taste in scripts, but he manged to get luckly three or four times (The Godfather, Last Tango in Paris, On the Waterfront). The man turned down The Godfather II, which is just insane.
Some actors seem to just say yes to everything and then we remember the good stuff. How many movies do Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson do a year, anyway?
I’m not sure what happened to those italics tags. Fix, please?
Okay, after much experimentation, I had to take out the italics tags around “terrible.” Why? Because the Gods of Expression Engine demanded it, that’s why.
Your blogging software is totally lame, gosh!
Oh, and Stiller did six movies in 2004. He was one of the leads in five of those.
I loved Dodgeball.
Just to help prove a point.
I do remember that he showed up in Anchorman. Loved it. Starsky and Hutch. Solid.
Ummmmm.
Meet the
Needless SequelFokkers. Yeah, that’s all I can remember.Envy and Along Came Polly. Polly was just barely ok.
Oh, yeah.
I was disappointed in both of those--especially Envy. How can you screw up a comedy with Ben Stiller and Jack Black? How does that happen?
I’m trying to figure out who did the most movies last year. So far Stiller and Jude Law are tied at six, but you have to count Jude doing the voice of Lemony Snicket and Ben’s small part in Anchorman.
I think you need to do a three year running average. From that point of view, I’m sure that Stiller would come out ahead.
Surprisingly Stiller only did one real movie in 2003, and had only one (uncredited) part in 2002.
Really?
That doesn’t sound right. I am now being forced to go to IMDB--against my will and on work time--to verify the information.
I can’t believe someone doesn’t keep track of this already. I’m gonna have to write a script that scans IMDB and creates a database of every actor that had a role in 2004.
I’m not really going to do that.
In my opinion, Snipes isn’t all that good of an actor. He seems to play the same type of character in every movie. Perhaps that goes back to his choices?
I agree. But he showed a lot of promise and a bit of range at the beginning of his career. Major League, Mo’ Better Blues, and White Men Can’t Jump were from very different genres, and each character was pretty unique. The only thing they had in common was a lot of cockiness.
Which I think is probably true of Snipes himself, so maybe he’s not much of an actor. But that kinda makes my point for me. If he’d spent his career making good movies about cocky characters we’d all think he was a genius.
Snipes was hilarious and fun in Major League. He fit the role perfectly in New Jack City. He had some great moments in White Men Can’t Jump. Of course, I balance that with To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, which was, to be charitable, not good.
Still, I think that his better movies proved he could act, but the worst proved that he didn’t always bother.
Matt, you’re going to write the script, aren’t you? C’mon, we won’t tell…
I’d do it, man, but what a waste of fucking time. All to find out that some Bollywood starlet was in 16 musicals.
I can’t believe no one has laughed at my bull rider quip yet.
Steven Barnes, the science fiction author and screenwriter, has talked about black male actors and the roles they (can) get, and Wesley Snipes specifically, on his blog.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t have easy access to his archives, and this was the only article I found in a quick Google search. Scroll down to A gloomy prediction for “XXX”. It’s not the article I remember reading, though.
Gee, I almost hate to point out that Steven Barnes characters are part of the problem. Every story he writes seems to have the “Black Super Man” in it, the man stronger and smarter than anyone else, with the ability to absolutely control women through sex...Okay, that applies to “Nigel Bishop” more than any of his other characters, but they all have that aspect. Which, incidentally, is exactly what’s wrong with Wesley Snipes, IMHO: he seems to carry his superiority/condescension like a burden.