the young actors were more convincing, imo.. I'm not saying the older ones were bad but they didn't convince me as much as the kids.. especially Brad Pitt didn't fit his role at all
I absolutely could not agree more!!
You want to play the game, you'd better know the rules, love.
-Harry Callahan
well, the adult actors do have the challenge of being the adult versions of the kids, who went through all the crap in the movie. This is definitely different from other movies where the kid version is usually in it for like 10 to 20 minutes. Here, its almost split 50 50 between the child and adult actors.
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I thought they were all great, but it took me a few minutes trying to figure out which kid was supposed to be which adult because I didn't pay enough attention to everyone's names and they weren't exactly dead ringers.
shareI might agree with you a bit about Renfro and Perrino being a lot more convincing than Pitt and Patric, but as far as the John and Tommy parts go, Ron Eldard and Billy Crudup did just as great a job as their young counterparts, Geoff Wigdor and Jonathan Tucker. The scene where Nokes is shot in cold blood is so mesmerising because Eldard and Crudup were completely outside of themselves. It's like a lot of people who commit crimes of passion or kill someone who has tortured or traumatized them. "It's like someone else did it." Crudup in particular even looks sad as he speaks to Nokes before they kill him. is just this side of Oscar worthy.
The adult actors had some great moments but the kids were better. This seems to happen in a lot of these types of films that are flashback driven; the older actors, no matter how talented they may be, seldom measure up to the chemistry and presence of their child counterparts. Now And Then (1995) and Stephen King's IT (1990) are also excellent examples of this.
I do agree that Billy Crudup and Ron Eldard fared much better than Jason Patric and Brad Pitt. Patric and Pitt are good actors but their performances were lacking in conviction, IMO.
I think the bigger problem is not so much that the adult actors were better but more that the child actors had much better material to work with, the fist half of the film is outstanding but after the murder the film becomes just another courtroom drama and is nowhere near as engaging or intense as the first half of the movie was imho.
''Billy Crudup and Ron Eldard fared much better than Jason Patric and Brad Pitt. Patric and Pitt are good actors but their performances were lacking in conviction, IMO.''
In short all the action takes places before brad Pitt appears or the adult narrator appear so yea it's that too which one would think they are not great in the film.
I felt there was a mismatch between the younger and older actors.
It's that man again!!