10 Awesome Performances From Usually Terrible Actors

By Brogan Morris /

5. Vin Diesel - Find Me Guilty (2006)

xXx. The Pacifier. Babylon A.D. Vin Diesel€™s CV reads like someone intentionally tried to sink his career before it even started. Diesel€™s brand of unsubtle, dull-headed acting also seems like a calculated attempt to win him a Razzie for Worst Actor. Find Me Guilty is an exception to the rule. If someone is going to make something of Vin Diesel€™s avalanche-inducing voice and muscular presence, it may as well be Sidney Lumet: the director makes Diesel electrifying in that most tedious of genres, the courtroom drama. Not that Find Me Guilty is tedious, or that you€™d expect Lumet to turn out anything dull €“ it€™s just that Diesel is the best thing in it. Like all great Lumet actors, Diesel is simply a joy to watch, clearly relishing the part of jocular gangster Jackie DiNorscio, with Find Me Guilty always at its best when he's centre stage. It€™s a role free of vanity, as Diesel plays DiNorscio as overweight, aged and something of a joke. DiNorscio has his own set of idiosyncrasies and Diesel uses them to hilarious effect (€œOh my God, I gotta have my chair; I can€™t SLEEP without my chair€), moreso than in any of his €˜comedies€™.