he tends to overact when the movie tone actually requires it. I think he's one of the few actors that perfectly catches the tone of the films he's in, most of the times, and let the other performers breathe and their moment to shine... this is specially evident in "Hairspray", "Primary Colors", "Get Shorty", "Pulp Fiction", and also in even some of his lesser films like "Broken Arrow", "Swordfish" or specially, "From Paris with Love", in which his overacting actually saves the film from mediocrity.
Yes, he has some duds, but the acting range of this man is quite amazing, from the calm menace that he plays in Swordfish, to the silly hitman in Pulp Fiction, through the clueless disco dancer of Saturday Night Fever, to his Bill Clinton spot-on spoof in Primary Colors... and to play Edna Turnblad as a real, femenine woman, rather than a man in drag, as every other performer before him.
I think he's not only on the league of Hoffman, Pacino and de Niro, I think he's actually one step over them, when he gets the right role.
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