MovieChat Forums > The Fan (1996) Discussion > DeNiro's Acting

DeNiro's Acting

posted 7 years ago by janX9 (446)
6 replies | jump to latest

I saw this once 20 years ago in theaters (maybe on SuperChannel too). I remember DeNiro's acting to be crap. Was it? Should I bother watching this again?

[–] captainbucky (15252) 6 years ago

It was a bad idea

[–] janX9 (446) 6 years ago

I went ahead and watched it a while back and yup, he wasn't as high caliber in this as his other movies. Too bad. The fan could have been so much better. He was a little off on this one.

[–] captainbucky (15252) 6 years ago

Honestly it just kind of reminded me of how much better of a psycho he was in cape fear . And I felt like del toro wasn’t given much to do

[–] Ismailov (163) 3 years ago

To be fair, De Niro was playing a relatively "normal" character in this movie. He's already rather screwy at the start (anger management problems, unhealthy obsession with baseball, delusional about his life), but he feels he's ruined after he loses his job and has a restraining order limiting access to his son. Only then does he plunge off the deep end mentally.

His character in Cape Fear is a horrible human being even before entering prison. By the time he left prison he's a hardened criminal. It makes sense he'd give off a more threatening and psychotic vibe.

[–] DracTarashV2 (4493) 6 years ago

I always found his performance nothing but convincing. He couldn’t have been more true to his “fanatical” character i.e. he acted just the way many sports fanatics/fanatics do (murder and stalking tendencies *possibly* aside). All in all, I think it’s one of his most underrated performances from the 90’s, don’t see anything wrong with it.

Should you bother again? The choice and opinion is ultimately yours

[–] kuatorises (7467) 4 years ago

I think his performance is the only reason this movie is fun to watch. It's not a good movie - it's really quite over the top - but it's entertaining; and he's the reason why.