13 Crucial Death Scenes Ruined By Terrible Acting

13. Sean Penn's Overacting Ruins Emmy Rossum's Death - Mystic River

The Scene: After his daughter Katie's (Emmy Rossum) dead body is discovered by the police, Jimmy Markum (Sean Penn) arrives on the scene, repeatedly screaming at cop Sean Devine (Kevin Bacon), "Is that my daughter in there!?", as several police officers try to restrain him. Jimmy then falls to the floor while screaming and wailing as seven cops try to calm him down by basically piling on top of him, and the scene ends. Why It Sucks: It's one of the most pivotal scenes in the movie, and though Penn somehow won the Best Actor Oscar for his work in Mystic River, it's easy to be turned off by his blatant over-acting. Though he's basically fine throughout the rest of the movie, Penn goes full ham in his most emotionally demanding scene. While it's believable that a grieving father would pretty much lose control of everything, his agitation and histrionic bleating noises in particular, as well as the number of cops required to hold him back, makes the whole thing unintentionally funny.
Contributor
Contributor

Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.