For overacting, Gary Oldman in The Professional, as I recall him.

Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter. Tedious overacting.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Overacting only compared to Brian Cox' original. Absolutely brilliant compared to everyone else.

Kevin Spacey in American Beauty.

Shame that Jeremy Brett isn't with us any more. Still, we're lucky that a readymade replacement is on hand to take the role in an edgy, brooding remake:

Brando in The Godfather. Spoiled the film for me, which was very good apart from him.

Just, you know, speak. Words. Please.

Al Pacino in Scarface. Dreadfully overdone from start to finish.

In the 'best shouty actor' category, step forward Denzel Washington in Training Day.

I'd just like to say that (1) Denzel Washington is an excellent actor, and (2) his choice of roles that continually see him as this humourless one-note, noble, man-with-a-mission type with almost little variation is getting a little grating. I haven't seen The Hurricane or American Gangster, but roles like the ones in Man On Fire and Deja Vu are the ones I'm talking about.

Any performance that overshadows the film. If good reviews concentrate on the performance to the exclusion of all else, I know the film doesn't have enough interest to be worth watching - acting isn't that important. There's the odd exception but I find this rule of thumb generally holds true.

Re The Godfather - incredibly overrated full stop, like most modern gangster films IMO, though I do like Scarface. It's an OTT film so Pacino fits in.

Can we put all Italian-American actors in this category? I lasted about 5 seconds of The Raging Bull because the lead role was played by one of these chaps. He didn't quite say "Mamma mia" but he was dreadful. De Chirico or something his name was.

I tend to like Italian-American actors playing Italian-Americans because they can overact and somehow get away with it. Joe Pesci is the king of that.

Italians aren't known for their subtlety, in fairness.

Tubby, are you filling in for Stubbings' master these days?

Do you even know who Jake LaMotta is?

He's a boxer who lived in a cramped flat with a woman who shouted a lot, on the evidence of how much of the film I saw.

Exactly.

He also appeared not to have a script.

Tubby Isaacs wrote:

QUOTE:
Can we put all Italian-American actors in this category? I lasted about 5 seconds of The Raging Bull because the lead role was played by one of these chaps. He didn't quite say "Mamma mia" but he was dreadful. De Chirico or something his name was.

Do you mean Robert De Niro? His acting career has spectacularly shark-jumped in the last 15-20 years.

That's the bloke. He was good in