20 Best & Worst Movies From 2017 Oscar Nominees
18. Dev Patel
Best: Lion (2016)
The plot may arrive at its uplifting conclusion with undeniable lashings of contrivance, but it is a film that deserves its accolades chiefly because of the characters and their chemistry, which more than compensate for the occasionally insubstantial material.
Patel offers a thoughtful, deeply empathetic performance, which is easily his best work, capturing the necessary intimacy that transcends the story above Lifetime fare, and never allowing the material to stifle him. This is finally the performance that confirms Slumdog Millionaire was not a fluke.
Worst: The Last Airbender (2010)
The Last Airbender is a catalogue of tragic errors: first, the name was an unfortunate second choice after James Cameron stole Avatar, and then the material is so ludicrously off-base that it would be easy to completely forget how talented everyone once thought M Night Shyamalan was.
As villain Zuko (not related to Danny of Grease, presumably), Patel is entirely lost, lacking any real sense of threat and twisting his face into a look of perpetual disgust to compensate. It doesn't work at all.