10 Established Actors Who Completely Failed At Being Action Stars

Attempts: The Numbers Station (2013), The Carrier/The Bag Man (2014), Drive Hard (2014), The Prince (2014), Reclaim (2014), Arrival (2017)

Somehow, some way, the guy from Say Anything temporarily became sort of an alt-action hero. There were some good if not great nuggets that secretly touted Cusack as an action guy hidden beneath a comedy veneer, including Grosse Pointe Blank and Con Air, but these were never straightforward attempts at action.

Those would come later. And they would come without charm or nuance.

Just about every one of Cusack's movies post-2010 featured the former geek-as-hunk on the poster holding a gun in only the cheesiest of poses. It actually represents the movies fairly well, as Cusack doesn't do much but wander around with a gun at his side for the duration of most of these movies.

Over the last few years, he's put out these direct-to-streaming action movies at an alarming rate, and the fatigue shows. To call any of his performances "low energy" would be an insult to hibernating bears. Cusack clearly isn't excited at the prospect of a career renaissance -- at least not in this genre -- and so there's no Liam Neeson-esque gusto to carry the awful scripts.