It's embarrassing," he says, making a squeamish face. "You ever kill anyone?" he asks the middleman who's setting up the murder. Scruffy, with greased-back hair and a leather jacket, Pitt's character is ruthless, but uneasy doing a hit at close range. It's another of Pitt's smartly-pitched sweet-spot moments, balancing concern for a blind old man with an easygoing charm and an awareness of the situation's absurdity.Īnd in Killing Them Softly he infuses a sometimes graphically bloody drama with wit. When Cliff visits a ranch where the Manson family is squatting, he suspects they're taking advantage of an old friend (Bruce Dern). Pitt gives the character such charisma that he almost steals the film, just as Raine steals Inglourious Basterds. Bruce Lee tells Cliff, "You know, you're kind of pretty for a stuntman." With that bemused smirk, Pitt replies, "That's what they tell me."Īlthough Pitt won the Oscar in the best supporting actor category for that film, his role and Leonardo DiCaprio's as the nominal lead, Rick, are nearly equal. He casually dismisses his looks in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as well, to meta and comic effect. Her first words to him are a stunned, "Why are you so handsome?" Pitt answers matter-of-factly, "My dad was a weatherman," which may be the funniest line in the entire film. In his scene-stealing cameo in this year's adventure rom-com Lost City, he plays a fixer who arrives on the island Sandra Bullock's kidnapped character has been taken to. Showing up in Bullet Train with the silly hat and big nerdy glasses, as if he isn't one of the world's best-looking faces, is a strategy he has put to good use before. In recent years he has come to mock the pretty-boy image without turning his back on it, a disarming tactic. With no single on-screen persona apart from looking like Brad Pitt, he can avoid being typecast or becoming stale. In the last decade or so he has appeared in World War Two dramas and contemporary satires and chosen some sly cameos. But Pitt, 58, has picked roles that are all over the place. Matt Damon, 51, has gone from Jason Bourne to earnest dad in films like Stillwater (2021). Tom Cruise, 60, clings to his action past, with this year's Top Gun: Maverick and an apparently endless string of Mission Impossibles, turning a static image into box-office hits. George Clooney, 61, hasn't given up acting but has increasingly turned to producing and directing socially conscious films. It was a clever career turn, different from the paths of most major stars of his generation and stature. Watching it, you could almost make the case that Pitt is a very good dramatic actor, but even better at comedy. Bullet Train is an action extravaganza, but the movie's distinguishing feature is its sardonic tone, shaped and carried by its star's performance. "Let this be lesson in the toxicity of anger," Pitt says with deadpan precision after one violent encounter. Between fending off assassins on a high-speed Japanese train and trying to steal a briefcase full of cash, Ladybug is trying to become a calmer guy, sincerely spouting self-help lines. Pitt plays a character as goofy as his code name, Ladybug, a hitman in an unflattering bucket hat. His new action-comedy Bullet Train says a lot about that career. Is Tom Hanks part of a dying breed of moving stars? With performances that range over multiple genres and three decades, and a savvy public relations strategy, his is a model of how to manage a movie-star career. Brad Pitt has built a body of work that most actors only dream of. All the while, his looks and his marriages may have overshadowed something else. He famously became half of Brad and Jen while married to Jennifer Aniston, then half of the tabloids-can't-get-enough-of-them "Brangelina" during his years with Angelina Jolie. Then he was the heartthrob younger brother of lookalike Robert Redford's off-screen narrator in A River Runs Through It (1992). First he was the hunky boy toy in Thelma and Louise, a small role that made viewers wonder, "Who is he?" back in 1991.
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