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Scarface is on IFC right now and honestly the time has come to rewrite history where Michelle Pfieffer is the Acting Legend of the 1980s and Al Pacino is a flailing hambone who co-starred with her once— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) April 22, 2018
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It's been a very long time since I've done one of these posts - wherein I choose three roles I do like from a performer I tend not to like at all - but I tweeted the above the other day after the brouhaha out of the Scarface reunion at Tribeca, and today I see that it's Pacino's 78th birthday... and so let's do this.
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First things first: listen, I know people like Al Pacino. He is a living legend who's starred in some of the most important movies ever made. I get it. I am not here to take your precious Pacino away. I just find him... let's just say he is not to my tastes. I mean there exists in this world a Greta Gerwig movie I haven't been able to make myself watch, and it's because it's really an Al Pacino movie. That said if you were holding a gun to my head I could come up with more than three performances from him I do admire. But you're not. My head is gun free. So I'm keeping it to three...
Michael Corleone, The Godfather -
What, I'm not insane. (But Part II is overrated.)
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Steve Burns, Cruising - He's not actually "good acting" in this, he's ridiculous, but I like the ridiculous and I love the movie and think his strutting nonsense makes this a better movie, so I'll take it.
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Sonny, Dog Day Afternoon- Easily far and away by leaps and by bounds my favorite performance of his. It actually might be the only performance of his I actively "like" and don't just admire as "good acting." He's very moving here.
.Runners-up: Frankie & Johnny, Dick Tracy,
So what are your favorite Pacino performances?
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