12 Times Terrible Acting Ruined Potentially Great Movies

3. Scent Of A Woman

Martin Brest's 1992 drama is generally accepted to be a good-if-not-great movie, being nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay Oscars, while also winning Al Pacino his long-overdue Best Actor Oscar.

This was Pacino's eighth nomination, and it really felt like the Academy just gave him the gong as a consolation prize after turning in so many better, more Oscar-worthy performances in the past, be it in the first two Godfather movies, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon or Glengarry Glen Ross.

Scent of a Woman sees Pacino go full ham with a swinging-for-the-rafters performance as irascible, blind Army vet Frank Slade, and as amusing as his performance is, it's also wholly inappropriate for the material at hand.

It's amazing there were any sets left for the movie's other cast members to perform in given how insatiably he devours the scenery, with his overly mannered and animated performance transforming his intriguing character into an absurd caricature.

It very much typifies the Big Acting that Pacino would be often derided for in the likes of Scarface and Heat, and given the gently affecting quality of this movie's script, it's a shame he went sledgehammer-subtle with his performance.