10 Actors Who Gave Their WORST Performance In Great Movies

Now, this entry is a bit of a cheat, since whilst Simon West’s dumb as a post action thriller Con Air is an undeniably great film, the central turn offered by Nicholas Cage therein does arguably land in the “so bad it’s genius” category where the actor so often finds himself at home.

But hear us out anyway—as the villainous Cyrus the Virus, John Malkovich is cheesy and over-the-top, yes, but like his co-stars Colm Meaney, John Cusack, Ving Rhames, Danny Trejo, Dave Chappelle (what a cast), etc, he never makes the character completely unbelievable. Yes, Steve Buscemi’s murderer is cartoonishly odd, but it’s conceivable that such a cartoonishly odd character is out there somewhere.

Compare that to Nicolas Cage’s heroic Cameron Poe, a man who goes to prison for being too good and in his inimitable bayou (deep South? Texas? Martian?) drawl, demands that a fellow prisoner “Put… the bunneh… back in the box…”

We’re not only unsure whether we can believe his character exists, we’re not even certain it’s possible that this is the same man who gave a pair of nuanced, complex turns in Leaving Las Vegas and Bringing Out the Dead only a year or two before and after this classic flick.