Won For: Scent of a Woman, Best Actor in a Leading Role. Better In: Heat. It's pretty unthinkable that Al Pacino's only Oscar win came for his ultra-hammy, over the top, frankly mad performance in Martin Brest's distinctly average Scent of a Woman, but that's how it stands. (Which is even more unthinkable when you remember that he beat out Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven and Denzel Washington in Malcolm X). Yes he's hilarious in it, yes he's entertaining, yes the film gifted us "Hoo Ha!", but compared to his best work (The Godfather, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon) it palls, the win serving as another honourary type award from the Academy. A far superior late-Pacino performance (one in which he's still pretty shouty) is this, Heat, Michael Mann's slick, stylish heist thriller. Pacino plays Lt. Vincent Hanna, a cop on the trail of bank robber Neil McCauley, played by Robert De Niro to finally set up the two iconic actors in the same film, at the same time (they share no screen-time in The Godfather Part II). This is a much more tempered Pacino-in-over-the-top-mode role, rendering his outbursts more effective (not to mention hilarious) because they're filtered through some serious, great acting. Pacino didn't disappoint in Heat, and his iconic scene in the diner with De Niro was every bit as good as people had hoped it would be. Neither the film nor the performance were nominated for any Oscars, but they remain high-points in Pacino's career, far more so than Scent of a Woman, which is rarely cited as anything other than the film Pacino finally did win an Oscar for. Do you agree with this list? Share your own assessments below in the comments thread.
