10 Ridiculous Performances That Actually Improved Movies

9. Jack Nicholson - The Departed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxKVdugfU-U&feature=fvwrel To be fair, The Departed was already an excellent film, driven by William Monaghan's electric script, Scorsese's fantastic direction, and basically excellent performances all around. However, it's Jack Nicholson's turn as Frank Costello, Boston's mob boss, who steals the show, with a ludicrously pitched performance that fleets between quietly, playfully mad and full-out psychotic. The above clip perhaps provides Nicholson's best moment of overacting, but there's a bunch throughout; note how during one scene, DiCaprio's character is talking to him, and while acting, Nicholson lights a piece of paper on fire before putting it out with his hand, an entirely unscripted tic of mania that nevertheless adds some animation to the dialogue-driven scene. This feels like Nicholson holding his hands up, aware that he's one of the best actors alive, and just having fun; but it does add to the film, and it makes what could have been a fairly generic boss-type character a lot more intriguing and entertaining.