Should we still love Robert De Niro?
For every Raging Bull there's a Rocky And Bullwinkle and a Little Fockers—has one of our greatest actors compromised his legacy with so many bad movies?
Film Features Robert De Niro
Every actor has worked on bad movies at some point in their career. For a long time, though, Robert De Niro’s bad films always felt like exceptions to the rule. The actor earned his place as one of Hollywood’s most acclaimed performers in the 1970s and ’80s for his turns in classics like Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, The Godfather Part II, Raging Bull, and The Deer Hunter. His desire to work with world class filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Terry Gilliam, Brian De Palma, and Sergio Leone, in turn, established him as an actor with uniquely great taste.
However, while no one could credibly question De Niro’s talent, the actor’s reputation has been seriously tarnished in recent years—and for good reason. Since the early 2000s, De Niro has adopted a yes-to-everything approach to picking projects, leaving the back half of filmography overflowing with duds. Indeed, for every The Irishman or Silver Linings Playbook, there have been multiple clunkers like The Comedian and Freelancers.
Now, in the same month that his latest collaboration with Scorsese, Killers Of The Flower Moon, premiered to rave reviews at Cannes, De Niro is appearing in the comedy About My Father. In the latter, the two-time Oscar winner stars as the stereotypical Italian father of the film’s lead (played by stand-up comedian Sebastian Maniscalco). Unfortunately, reviews indicate that About My Father is just the latest lackluster addition to De Niro’s filmography, which suggests that the 79-year-old either hasn’t learned any lessons from his many recent missteps or he knows full well the quality of his late career output but simply doesn’t care. Whatever the reason, it begs the question; how many times can De Niro cash a paycheck before he’s known more for his failures than his successes?
From Oscar winner to journeyman
De Niro has never had a totally spotless track record. For the first 30 years of his career, though, the number of great and good movies he made vastly outnumbered the bad or mediocre projects he worked on. That all began to change around the turn of the 21st century. His first film of the 2000s was The Adventures Of Rocky And Bullwinkle, which was initially viewed as an uncharacteristically bad entry in De Niro’s filmography. Twenty three years later, it doesn’t seem like nearly as much of an outlier.
Over the past two decades, De Niro has made more downright bad movies than he did throughout the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. He’s starred in everything from atrocious comedies like The War With Grandpa and Little Fockers to forgettable, low-rent genre flicks like Heist, Killing Season, Righteous Kill, and Hide And Seek. What’s worse is that De Niro, who used to be known for the extreme lengths he’d go in order to play certain roles (see: the time he had his teeth filed down for Cape Fear), has seemingly become afflicted with the same problem that hampered late-career Brando; acting came so easy to them that it often felt to audiences like they were phoning it in.
Nowadays, it’s increasingly common for De Niro to only really show up for certain filmmakers—namely Scorsese and David O. Russell. With the exception of a handful of underrated comedies (ex. Stardust, The Intern), the only truly great performances De Niro has given this century have been in Scorsese- and Russell-directed efforts, including Silver Linings Playbook and The Irishman. While it makes sense for De Niro to show up with an extra level of dedication for auteur filmmakers like Scorsese, it’s frustrating to see him continue to oscillate solely between major award contenders and mediocre VOD trash.
Why not help up-and-coming directors?
Odds are, Robert De Niro will, like Brando and several other great performers before him, always be remembered best for his most acclaimed performances rather than his many questionable late-career decisions. That said, it doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to note that De Niro’s historical standing has been shaken, at least a little bit, by his own flippancy toward the projects he chooses. Beyond the poor quality of many of his recent films, what’s been disappointing to witness is De Niro’s apparent disinterest in collaborating with the kind of exciting, up-and-coming filmmakers that are destined to one day be celebrated the way Scorsese is now.
In 1997, De Niro famously gave one of his most unusual and out-of-character performances in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown, back when Tarantino was an exciting if relatively new filmmaker with only two very good feature length movies under his belt. De Niro, nonetheless, agreed to work with him. Why hasn’t he done the same for Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Damien Chazelle, Barry Jenkins, Ari Aster, Sofia Coppola, Lynne Ramsey, or any of the other great filmmakers who have emerged since the 1990s? If Jeff Bridges, Bill Murray, Robert Redford, and several of his other contemporaries could all make time for such collaborations, there’s no reason why De Niro couldn’t have done the same.
In fact, if he wants to clean up his track record moving forward, he’ll have to do more than just one movie every four years with Martin Scorsese. It may require greater effort on his part, but working with more up-and-coming filmmakers and helping them get their movies made could do a lot to refurbish this final stage of De Niro’s career while still providing enough financial cushion to pay for his ever-expanding brood (in April, De Niro welcomed his seventh child). His current slate of upcoming projects doesn’t suggest that he’s going to start doing that anytime soon, but it’ll ultimately be up to the Raging Bull star to decide how he wants the final chapter of his career to look. Will he continue to coast by on the sound of checks cashing in the background, or will he go out swinging?
154 Comments
This just in- working actor wants to keep working to earn money. In other news, water is wet.
Water is not wet, things that touch water get wet.
What about particle man?
It’s not important
It’s not important.
Water is not wet, things that touch water get wet.
This whole article is just a dumb read. I would like to request a refund on the time i spent reading the piece.
The whole place went to sh*t a while ago. It’s only habit that prompts me to return at all. Outrage culture has overtaken the site – along with every other social media site (I’m sure you already know this, anyway).
lol “outrage culture”
Old guy says cash is wet, dummy
Does he really need to pick shitty projects to live, at this point? In like 50 years of making movies he hasnt made enough?
Those imported marble tiles for his bathroom aren’t gonna buy themselves.
Maybe, like Christopher Walken, he just likes doing what he does.
Maybe he just likes working.
well yeah, thats what im saying, i dont think he NEEDS a paycheck at this point, he’ll take the money but hes probably been rich a long time.
I was responding to the “hasn’t he made enough” part. I thought you meant hasn’t he made enough movies. I guess maybe he’s made enough money, but who knows. Man’s got bills! Also unchecked capitalism has created a lack mentality that encourages us to hoard wealth.
Seven kids, two divorces, a film festival, restaurant investments, a non-profit and a penchant for high-end real estate has a destabilizing effect on one’s cash flow.
Could he be a little more selective picking his roles? Probably. But I’m not sure why that’s anyone’s business except for DeNiro and his agent.
Maybe he actually, you know, likes going to work? I think he’s allowed.
Imagine if people critiqued the projects you did at work? WHy would he agree to do that he should have just went without income and only chosen projects that would have bolstered his legacy lol. STFU
What do you care? Just don’t get see them if you don’t want to.
This just in: ultra-rich, superstar actor who doesn’t need any more bags of cash wants more bags of cash – legacy be damned.
Working actor or successful restaurateur/hotelier with a side hustle?
“I have never seen it, but by all accounts, it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.”- Michael Caine, when asked about his role in Jaws: The RevengeThis isn’t at all to suggest that Robert De Niro mercenarily chooses his roles. But so the fuck what if he does? As far as I am concerned, I cannot begrudge him for doing what he’s enjoyed doing for the last sixty-five years.
I was just thinking about this in terms of History of the World Part II, which some circles seemed eager to characterize as a lame, unfunny cash-grab by Mel Brooks.Even if that were true — and I enjoyed it very much, so I would argue that it isn’t — Mel Brooks is 90 years old! The time to grab cash is now.
Right? WTF is this article? Should “we” still love Robert DeNiro? You can do what you want. We don’t all need to agree. There are people who love actors who are objectively bad, so there’s no reason to question one who is pretty much objectively good but chooses to do some less good movies from time to time because he likes to work and likes money.Such a weird, privileged position to posit that actors should only work on high-brow projects. Few, very few, people in the world are in a position to only choose the most noble (whatever that means) work.
Jesus fucking Christ. I know this site has gone to absolute shit, and the current writers are barely literate, let alone capable of media literacy, but COME ON.
He’s really only great when he plays Robert De Niro.He’s like John Wayne. All his great roles are basically playing the same character. Don’t get me wrong, I love him in his great movies, but he’s got zero range. He’s a great character actor who’s made great movies in lead roles.
I love him, but he’s a one trick pony.
Out of all the big name method actors, the only one that’s managed to elicit any kind of reaction from me is Pacino. And you could slot his name and his movies into the above article easy.
It’s not that he’s a method actor, Heath Ledger and Daniel Day-Lewis were/are method actors known for their range.
Robert De Niro has made 15 movies better than any Heath Ledger movie.
I’d argue it’s not 15, but he’s made more great movies than Ledger.My point is all De Niro’s great movie’s are all him playing pretty much the same character. That’s why so many of his movies suck.
His greatest performance was Rupert Pupkin in The King of Comedy, which couldn’t be further from his range.
He’s really only great when he plays Robert De Niro. Hm. He was great in Taxi Driver, Bang the Drum Slowly, Godfather II, Midnight Run, Copland, Heat, Jackie Brown… That’s all him “playing Robert De Niro”? I guess he’s at Sybil-level of split personalities then.
I disagree with this – mainly because of the fact I can’t think of the ‘same character’ you accuse him of playing. If you mean intense man prone to violent outbursts, fine – but his character in jackie brown is massively different to his characters in goodfellas or Heat. His role in Kings of Comedy is totally against type and he’s absolutely stunning in that. Mean Streets- he has a rogueish edge. Cape Fear, he’s just pure evil. And then you have Angel Heart, which is a stunning cameo of playfulness with absolute evil lurking with every word. and pretty sure he got an oscar nomination for Awakenings. Not a performance i’ve overly fond of – but the man has range. Zero range is quite something
Said it much better than I did.
Said it much better than I did.
Yes, he was great in Goodfellas.
This is one of the more ignorant comments on the article. He hasn’t even repeated a character-type within his Scorsese films.
I do think he has more range than you give him credit for, but he is limited when it comes to comedy. He can be very funny in roles where he’s a straightman (Midnight Run) or the character doesn’t realize how ridiculous they are (King of Comedy, even Casino) but when he does broad comedy it really doesn’t work and it feels like De Niro just walked onto the set like one of those dumb SNL appearances from the 90s or 00s.
Is he really that much of a straight man in Midnight Run? He’s superb in that. So funny. ‘I’ve got two words for you, shut the f**k up’ and the scene where he spins to the camera to show the police badge is pretty broad comedy and never fails to get me
Hmm. I might be able to say this about Jack Nicholson. But DeNiro? I think he plays variations on a “persona”, but they are subtly different enough to me.
Yes.
Lemme answer your question with a question: Did people stop loving Olivier when he did shit like ‘The Betsy,’ ‘The Jazz Singer,’ ’Inchon,’ and ‘Wild Geese II’?
Olivier was up front about how he was pretty much done with good work and was just looking for paychecks before he croaked. It was definitely something people talked about and noticed in the moment, and there were jokes made about it after he passed.
Cut him some slack. He’s got a new kid he needs to put through college.
Every actor has worked on bad movies at some point in their career.
And yet, for some reason, you’ve decided to single out De Niro, widely regarded as one of the best actors of the last 50 years.
the actor’s reputation has been seriously tarnished in recent years
Has it, though?
De Niro has adopted a yes-to-everything approach to picking projects
So what? If you want to go after an actor for saying yes to anything & everything, Nic Cage is right there.
Whatever the reason, it begs the question; how many times can De Niro
cash a paycheck before he’s known more for his failures than his
successes?
You’re the only one asking that question.
seemingly become afflicted with the same problem that hampered
late-career Brando; acting came so easy to them that it often felt to
audiences like they were phoning it in.
Because after a certain point in many actors’ careers, they’re no longer hired to play a character, they’re hired to be themselves. You hire De Niro for his De Niro-ness. Same with Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Jack Nicholson, for example. They’re no longer hired for their acting ability, but for the “them-ness” that only they can bring.
it’s frustrating to see him continue to oscillate solely between major award contenders and mediocre VOD trash.
Some people enjoy what they do for a living.
Odds are, Robert De Niro will, like Brando and several other great
performers before him, always be remembered best for his most acclaimed
performances rather than his many questionable late-career decisions.
There are no odds, it’s a guarantee. Brando will forever be known for The Godfather, De Niro will always be known for The Godfather pt. 2, Goodfellas, Raging Bull & Casino.
Why hasn’t he done the same for Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson,
Damien Chazelle, Barry Jenkins, Ari Aster, Sofia Coppola, Lynne Ramsey,
or any of the other great filmmakers who have emerged since the 1990s?
Have any of them approached De Niro for a role?
In fact, if he wants to clean up his track record moving forward, he’ll
have to do more than just one movie every four years with Martin
Scorsese.
De Niro doesn’t owe you anything.
I wish I could star this three times. Just an embarrassingly awful premise.
i think folks will remember DeNiro for Taxi Driver, too, maybe…
Oh definitely. I’ve never seen it, though, so it’s not of the movies I think of immediately when talking about him.
it’s grim but it’s definitely worth the hype
So what? If you want to go after an actor for saying yes to anything & everything, Nic Cage is right there.
This is also a good point, because all Cage had to do to wash off the stigma of being the guy “tarnishing his legacy” with all the shit was… star in a couple of good films worthy of his talent. He still gets into drek occassionally, but guess what: turns out that all those Mandys, Pigs or Unbearable Weights do erase the crap.What a shit article, holy fuck.
The whole premise that we should worried about the ratio of good to bad movies/roles, rather than the number of quality roles is so obviously bogus.100 crappy paycheck movies don’t somehow cancel out Taxi Driver, Midnight Run, Goodfellas, Raising Arizona, Adaptation, etc…
And yet, for some reason, you’ve decided to single out De Niro, widely regarded as one of the best actors of the last 50 years.Yeah. I mean……is right there.
This article reads like a recycled Film Studies 101 essay.
It must have been a survey course.
Oh it’s not that good….
There’s only one thing worse than a whole article about how Robert de Niro isn’t the actor he used to be (which has literally been a topic for the past two decades) is a long series of block quotes with a one-sentence response under each of them. What does it say that the unengaging post provided more than half the substance of the first reply?
Good points, especially the last one. There’s an awful lot of cheek to this article that speaks to how the public exert ownership over celebrities.
Thank you for saving me the trouble of reading this. I will do wonders with the extra 20 minutes I have now.
i’m not a de niro fan, but this author went for him while jared leto exists and gets paid to act?
You hit every reaction I had reading through the article. Glad to know I wasn’t the only one feeling this way. Bravo.
Argument completely derailed by somehow suggesting that Sofia Coppola is someday going to be celebrated like Scorsese…
“Whatever the reason, it begs the question; how many times can De Niro cash a paycheck before he’s known more for his failures than his successes?” A trillion. It’s Robert DeNiro and this article is silly.
right? they’re acting like he’s Adam Sandler, who despite a few stunning performances will always be remembered more for the heap of garbage he’s committed himself to.
It’s almost like Robert DeNiro figured this out a few decades ago and decided to get paid. He’s stainless steel. He’ll do Uncle Fucky 2: Pants Optional and Killers of the Flower Moon in the same year.
What a stupid fucking premise for an article. Good job. Good effort.
Yes, I can still love him. But it would be nice if he would love me back. Stop leaving me on read, Bobby!
“has one of our greatest actors compromised his legacy with so many bad movies?”
Nope!
Moving on…
John Cazale never acted in a bad film, but his career was cut so tragically short that who knows what would’ve ended up happening.
Daniel Day Lewis may have appeared in up to a handful of interesting creative failures, or at least maybe films that didn’t quite gel as intended/hoped for (definitely a minority of his filmography) but it doesn’t look like he ever did anything for a paycheque or attempt something that was obviously straight up trash from the get-go. It looks like everything he accepted at least tried or had the potential to be a good film.
Was this article written by AI? Does Mark Keizer actually exist? Very poor prose.
And premise.
Mark Keizer?
I’ve noticed for a while now. Doing cash grab roles in trash movies is really common for prestige actors, as long as they’re British (see Anthony Hopkins, Patrick Stewart, Ben Kingsley, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Helen Mirren). For whatever reason, taking work where you find it is just an accepted practice across the pond. But for some reason this philosophy doesn’t seem to be as accepted with American actors. Like we can’t accept Meryl Streep in something unless it’s Oscar worthy and will be discussed by film historians for decades.Robert DeNiro can do whatever he wants and if he’s enjoying himself (or profiting from it) then good for him.
The Big Picture podcast has a great segment about De Niro’s career and his choice of roles, and they pretty much conclude that being rich and famous is expensive, and why wouldn’t he take big money for easy roles in mediocre movies whenever he wants to? He can do whatever the fuck he wants! Zero fucks to give.
Some of these are probably like a week’s worth of work, for that big-star paycheck (that can then be put towards redoing the kitchen or whatever). Why wouldn’t he take a role like that?
What?
De Niro successfully took the kind of performances that made him famous and kept his career going by having fun with them.
He’s easily one of the most successful American actors that ever lived and since success is treated as being so important, especially in the US, he deserves your respect for that at the very least.
Yeah, I can’t even say that I love De Niro, or that I think about him often when I consider great actors, but he has had some great roles and is a successful performer and this is just a ridiculous article. But they got the clicks and the comments so, here we are.As for him having fun, his role in Stardust is stupid and I love it because it’s the kind of fun that jumps from the point in time he was filming it to…basically inside my giddy bones.
Actually, a very valid question, if we add that history is only as relevant as the youngest among us allow it to be.The further we get from De Niro’s classics era, the more vulnerable his reputation will be, as far as the younger generation forgetting all the work that we used to highly value him for.Of course, he’ll be dead by then, and so will we (or at least, so old that no one will care when we shout from the nursing home how great “The King of Comedy” was…)
That assumes the “younger generation” is watching any of the so-called garbage movies he’s putting out now, which don’t seem to be getting watched by much of anyone. If DeNiro is on their radar at all, it’s because they’ve gone back to watch some classic cinema.
Orson Welles did a bunch of garbage (he was voicing pea commercials, for heaven’s sake), but Citizen Kane is still the first thing anyone thinks of when he comes to mind.
Exactly. The more time passes, the more all the late-career crap evaporates from memory and only the classics remain. That’s how it works with music, with authors, with artists, everything.
But he promised to sell no wine before its time.
Jesus Christ, that headline had me worried about sexual assault allegations.
While a lot of the movies DeNiro is derided for making now are comedies, he actually started out in comedy before he shifted to drama with Mean Streets. DePalma’s early movies like Greetings & Hi Mom! were edgy comedies, The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight was a very broad mob comedy, and even Born to Win is a (bummer of a) comedy. I wouldn’t say all those films demonstrate DeNiro’s great taste either, rather both DePalma & Scorsese would go on to have big careers after initially working with him.
Why hasn’t he done the same for Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson,
Damien Chazelle, Barry Jenkins, Ari Aster, Sofia Coppola, Lynne Ramsey,
or any of the other great filmmakers who have emerged since the 1990s?
If Jeff Bridges, Bill Murray, Robert Redford, and several of his other
contemporaries could all make time for such collaborations
Bill Murray has worked with both Wes Anderson & Sofia Coppola, but I don’t know about the rest. Barry Jenkins in particular I don’t think of as working with big established stars. Mahershala Ali had never been nominated at the Oscars prior to Moonlight, and Kiki Layne was even less established when she made If Beale Street Could Talk. For Lynne Ramsay it’s mostly just Joaquin Phoenix in You Were Never Really Here who counts, and he’s a weirdo willing to do things like Beau is Afraid.
Funny there is no mention either of the dozens directors and other creatives DeNiro’s Tribecca Film Festival has provided visibility to since the festival started in the early 2000s
What a pointless question. Meanwhile, look at YOUR “body of work.”
Shame on you. As if you have some kind of moral authority to sneer at working artists who manage to survive in a tough biz for half a fucking century!
Fucking hell, why not just make this a “13 Times Robert De Niro Let Us Down” listicle while you’re at it? If you’re going to fish for engagement you might as well use a net rather than a rod.
I’m surprised by the venom being directed at the article’s writer. Is Robert De Niro your collective Dad? Get a grip, people.De Niro’s name isn’t a draw for me anymore; I just assume he will give yet another lazy, phoned-in performance. Sure, the man has a right to make money in his golden years, but we have the right to criticize him for those choices. He doesn’t just get a pass because of Raging Bull.Luckily for Rob’s legacy, his current crop of movies are deeply forgettable. When he’s dead, we can all praise Taxi Driver and pretend Dirty Grandpa never existed. In the meantime, The Irishman is overrated. Fight me.
While other comments have more than adequately flamed the author into oblivion for such an inane article, I would like to do a bit o’ reaming on account of ye olde English language here.
The following is not correct usage of ‘begging the question’. It does not mean, nor has it ever meant, ‘raises the question’. It means to obviate the question; that is, presuming the answer of the question it purports to raise without demonstrating that that answer is true.
“Whatever the reason, it begs the question; how many times can De Niro cash a paycheck before he’s known more for his failures than his successes?”
sorry that’s not what begs the question means
Yes.Dick.
No one has mentioned this yet, but I thought that one reason DeNiro has worked so much in the last twenty years is to help fund his other interests, like his restaurants, his production company and the Tribeca Film Festival
Should you still love your mom? What a dumb fucking question. Actors age. They want to keep busy. Sometimes they make a few bad films. Sometimes they make them by the droves. At least DeNiro hasn’t been schlepping DTV trash for decades like some folks. And those people? I still love their old classics too. Embrace the good stuff and ignore the ones you disdain. There’s no need to wallow in such shitty takes.As for every actor working on bad movies at some point: Daniel Day-Lewis never succumbed to that possibility. I’m sure there are a few others who decided to be picky.
Everyone seems to still be OK with Michael Caine (and Ben Kingsley and a LOT of other celebrated British actors).This is a terrible take.
Brits get to be actors, Americans have to be stars. A Royal Shakespearean will get offered a role as a puppy-murdering serial killer, and go “Eh, it’s a job, and an interesting role.”An American will get offered that role and go “Oh, my heaven, no: think of what it will do to my branding.”
C’mon, it’s really hard to write an article in under 6 minutes.
‘Specially when five of those minutes were waiting for edibles to start kicking in.
Did we forget Once Upon A Time In America where he plays a block-headed rapist? And setting Elizabeth McGovern against him as the female lead was a casting disaster. Actually, she didn’t belong in that mess at all.
I don’t know about “tarnished,” but there’s no harm in reviewing an actor’s worst performances. Hopefully they do that themselves. I don’t see why folks are so butt-hurt about it. Calling any one actor the “best” of the last [how many] years or “of all time” is just silly. It is all relative.
Probably because the premise of the article isn’t “Robert De Niro sure starred in some stinkers – here are some the worst,” it’s “IS ROBERT DE NIRO’S CAREER IRRECOVCABLY TARNISHED BECAUSE HE ONCE STARRED IN LITTLE FOCKERS? IS IT TIME TO STOP LOVING HIM NOW?!?” People are reacting to the asinine, hyperbolic premise, not the objectively true observation that he’s been in some bad movies.
Yes. He’s somehow doing better than Pacino.
stand-up “comedian” Sebastian Maniscalco.You forgot the quotes
He stopped moving. Great kinetic actor, lousy still actor.
maybe de niro has always been a shitty actor and its the scripts and directors that made him look good
Um, should we still love Michael Caine? Yes, yes we should.
“Why hasn’t he done the same for Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Damien Chazelle, Barry Jenkins, Ari Aster, Sofia Coppola, Lynne Ramsey, or any of the other great filmmakers who have emerged since the 1990s?”Lynne Ramsey has made one film in the last decade. Barry Jenkins has made two, both with predominantly black casts and relatively small/lesser known actors. Ari Aster has made three films, one of which is driven entirely by Joaquin Phoenix, one of which had a young cast, and one of which was his small debut. Of Damien Chazelle’s four films, has there even been a role De Niro could play? Same goes for Coppola, whose older man roles have all been played by Bill Murray.PTA or Wes Anderson on the other hand, I would love to see De Niro collaborate with. Especially Wes Anderson, who I think would get a great performance out of him.
Maybe they haven’t made a lot of movies because they’re having trouble getting projects greenlit. Having a name like De Niro’s attached to them could fix that.
You seem to be under the impression that Robert DeNiro owes you something.
Even if he wasnt famous and rich, he’s 79! He could die TOMORROW. I doubt hes worried about impressing critics anymore.
Is a 79-year old still considered to be at death’s door these days?
i wouldnt describe it as “at deaths door”-he seems healthy, but at almost 80 i feel like you could die at any time. Its certaintly well past the age where you have to give a fuck what people think, or people saying it was a shock, if you go. People die in their 50s for no reason.
De Niro said yes to rocky and bullwinkle, and you said yes to writing this article.
Looks like you’ve got something in common with Bobby.
Yes, we should “stop loving” Robert De Niro because he once starred in Rocky and Bullwinkle and various other paycheck movies. This is a healthy way of relating to actors and people in general.
Maybe it’s about the acting and not about the success of the film itself. There are plenty of great players in sports that don’t have championships or played on great teams. An oscar winning film or box office hit isn’t a prerequisite for being considered a good actor. The guy loves to act, and maybe he loves doing or he sees a challenge of a certain character. Great scripts are the exception not the norm. So i find this article a bit ridiculous.
De Niro will always get a pass for Midnight Run.
and like 20 other movies. Bad Grandpas doesnt cancel out Goodfellas, Casino, Taxi Driver, Deer Hunter, Heat, etc
He’s having a blast and making lots of money. Also a guy you don’t see shilling for underwear (we’re looking at you other super rich famous Bob).
It doesn’t seem to cross the mind of the author of this article that maybe, just maybe, the offers have somewhat dried up a little after he crossed a certain age, and that if DeNiro still loves the feeling of being on a movie set (which he must, if he is still working at his age) than he has to accept being in movies he would have previously turned down.
It’s also very plausible that the very cool young actor of the 70s’ has turned into an old man that struggles to connect with young filmmakers on the same level he once did with directors of his own generation. For DeNiro, Scorsese isn’t Scorsese; he’s Marty, his friend he’s known for decades. It’s easier to connect with him.
Years ago I swear I saw a commercial where Robert De Niro was just…. playing a character in the commercial. Not as himself just a character… I was so confused. Just loves working I guess.
Yes, let’s cancel him!
You’re looking at this the wrong way Alex. Are those “bad movies” bad because of him or inspite of him? This article might have more weight if you had brought forth examples bad performances within those bad movies. But the worst thing you could come up with is a generic accusation of “phoning it in”.
Here’s the thing: He’s Robert De-Fucking-Niro.He can literally do whatever the fuck he wants, and his legacy will remain in-tact.Because he’s Robert De-Fucking-Niro.No amount of AV Club clickbait bullshit will ever change that.
Yeah, this is definitely an article from the same bunch of bastards who spoiled Succession for everyone.
There’s a bit of difference between being in bad movies and being bad in movies. Pretty sure De Niro’s reputation is doing fine.
This is like freaking out over Patrick Stewart phoning in a terrible performance as a Russian general (with equally terrible fake accent) in Wild Geese II.
Could this have been a slideshow?
Could the slideshow have been a podcast?
Could have pivoted to video.
DeNiro loves working, and he is good at his job.He has raised and supported 7 kids and a few ex-wives.He has started and owns a few restaurants, which are expensive, not-guaranteed businesses. More to the point, though, he remains one of the few, valued “A-List” actors, which literally means that his acting attachment *will get a feature financed*, and therefore actually *made*. This status – and the fact that he uses it – gets more films made by “no-name” and first-time directors ALREADY than all your fulsome “here’s how he should be handling his career” mealy-mouthed “advice” would.He silently underwrites a few acting schools and ventures. He literally saved, underwrote, and has made viable the Tribeca Film Festival, supporting so many film projects under its aegis, and forging it into a landmark & inspiring piece of NYC culture – no mean or inexpensive feat at all.Christ, what an insulting, know-nothing, cheap-seats, snot-nosed, *obnoxious* article this is.
Seriously stfu and find a new career. Robert Deniro has more talent in his pinky than you’ll demonstrate in your entire fucking life. If you were here right now I’d beat you into a coma. You’re less than worthless and less than trash and I don’t even care about Deniro. Just “Shut The Fuck Up” and go do what you should be doing, dishes, janitorial work, jerking off horses, or whatever life’s worthless fucks like you end up doing.
I still think Eric Roberts is a great actor and he has been in movies so terrible that you’d beg to watch Dirty Grandpa instead.
…a yes-to-everything approach to picking projects makes me think of Lawrence Olivier at the end of his life. He’d remarried and started a family with Joan Plowright, and had school fees to pay.
What’s worse is that De Niro…has seemingly become afflicted with the same problem that hampered late-career Brando; acting came so easy to them that it often felt to audiences like they were phoning it in.Brando is the right comparison. Here is something Pauline Kael had to say about him back in 1966, long before the dopey depths of his late late career: “Almost without exception, American actors who don’t accept trashy assignments make nothing, not even superior trash. Brando accepts the trash, but unlike the monochromatic, ‘always dependable’ Clark Gable, he has too much energy or inventiveness or contempt just to go through the motions. And when he appears on the screen, there is a special quality of recognition in the audience: we know he’s too big for the role.”This is perhaps the sentiment that the article is paraphrasing. But, having read this little paragraph, why would you write this article?
If you’re concerned about the quality of his recent filmography, you’ll worry for his sanity when you hear that apparently he’s anti-vax and has thrown in with nutcase RFK Jr.
Well judging by the lazy weakness of this article I guess ChatGPT has officially taken over the AVClub. The upside is at least an AI learns and improves
I know this is a desperate attempt at garnering controversy and clicks—props to you, it’s working—but yes, we should still love Robert De Niro. News flash, someone working in the film industry for decades is allowed to get a quick paycheque by phoning in a performance for low-tier comedies because they want a little bit of fun and cash. De Niro doesn’t need to aspire to work with fresh, new directors because maybe in his mind, if he wants to do serious work again, he would rather do it with Martin Scorsese which is where he is most familiar and comfortable. His mid-tier comedies will never ruin his legacy – mind you, not every older working actor needs to prove a point up until their retirement for pretentious film fans like yourself because his history speaks for himself. I don’t care if he’s only in mediocre films for the rest of his remaining career; he’s established himself as one of the most legendary stars in Hollywood and will be remembered as such.
I once heard someone say if the only thing Elizabeth Taylor did was National Velvet she’d still be great.I’ll say if the only thing Robert DeNiro ever did was Mean Streets he’d still be great.
Silver Linings Playbook is the Crash (2004) of Manic Pixie Dream Girl movies.
He’s not her to please some writer at some random website that has seen better days. He has turned in some of the greatest acting performances in history. Ever. If he wants turn out paycheck movies, ha can do whatever he wants. He is and will always be one of the benchmarks in cinema. Why do you feel the need to write divisive churn like this?
Dude wants to make money and doesn’t give a shit about what his “legacy” is. Also, have you considered that he genuinely likes acting and doesn’t want to sit around and wait for these “accomplished” Directors to come up with an awards bait film for him?
Alex, you speak of The Irishman as some kind of recent highlight, instead of a nigh-unwatchable game-cutscene-level uncanny-valley monstrosity. I do not trust your viewpoint.
Outing yourself as a dipshit, in other words.
Embarrassing, entitled bullshit. What have *you* done? Written some crappy articles for the AV Club?
Something tells me Mr. De Niro isn’t going to be swayed one way or the other by this blog post.
An analysis of De Niro’s career is an interesting idea. This article, from its inane headline to the clumsy metaphor-on-metaphor ending, is not interesting at all.
Will De Niro be remembered for the movies that everyone remembers, or for the ones that everyone forgot about? I suppose only time will tell.
I’ve got no problem with an actor working to make money or have fun.He should be crapped all over for choosing to have a child at 79 though. Nobody is guaranteed to still have both their parents when they reach adulthood but this is just betting against it. Tony Randall had children in 1997 and 1998 then died in 2004 at 84. People shouldn’t have to be burying their elderly parents before they even reach adolescence.
When the author of this article dies, what body of work will they be recognized for – is it this article? They could only dream of a 1/16th of the body of work De Niro has created. The arts will be no poorer for this authors passing, but De Niro’s legacy will live on long after his.
This is why Jack Nicholson is my favorite of the 70s class of leading men (him, De Niro, Pacino, Hoffman, etc.). To the end I never felt like he was phoning it in. No one would say that The Bucket List is a masterpiece, but he gives a genuinely committed, nuanced performance.
Why are you putting all of this on De Niro’s shoulders?? So weird to me that people hold actors accountable for entire films, when they are just a cog in the wheel with a big name. Hundreds of people are often involved in making films, and the majority of them have to be on the top of their game in order for it to work out. A script can look great at first, but after you sign on, it can be fully changed, and directors can be fired, and producers can force them to do stupid shit or pull the plug, and then you’ve got the editor, who can take an excellent film and still destroy it. If you have a great actor with a shitty director/editors/producers, the movie is probably still going to suck, and the actor takes most of the blame for just doing what they were told whilst under contract. Most films suck these days because studio execs and producers are out of touch power hungry monsters with REALLY stupid ideas. They don’t care about the art, they care about the money, and they think they know what everyone wants to see, because they are so far up their own asses. Actors don’t even know what exactly the film is going to be like until after it’s finished. They spend most of their time on set waiting around in their trailers, and most movies are filmed out of sequence. They can’t know for sure that it’s going to be awful. Look how many interviews are out there with actors saying they thought something was going to be a dud, but ended up a huge hit, and vice versa.
Also, why cant he just have fun? Why can’t this old ass man, who has done so much work, just enjoy himself? He loves acting, so let him act. He doesn’t owe anyone a good film, he’s just doing his job.
De Niro is the greatest actor. EVER. (not ironic)
I don’t know what the fuck you are trying to say in the article, but it sounds stupid petty for some reason. How did De Niro hurt you? Like seriously, what the fuck did he do to you?
I think in retrospect, we have identified peak DeNiro. It’s the 1990s! From Guilty By Suspicion (well, and Goodfellas) to Ronin, he was amazing. And in almost all the roles (certainly not Cape Fear), the secret to his success was how understated and throttled-down his performance was. DeNiro in his late 40s and 50s could do no wrong. I knew he was super special when he agreed to appear in Brazil (1983-85) as a supporting character and then knocked it out the park in The Untouchables (1987) and The Mission (1986). He showed us that he cared about his performances. So he earned the right to fuck around after 2001.