9 Directors Who Only Made One Good Movie
3. Russell Mulcahy (In Like Flynn)
Russell Mulcahy's first movie, Highlander, is divisive cinema personified. Upon release, it was bemoaned by critics for its incoherence and dizzying pace servicing a plot that had fewer stakes than a butcher's on March 14th. Though audiences were much kinder, the scathing reviews can hardly vouch for a truly great movie.
Mulcahy's career only went upward from there, though he wasn't able to shake the spectre of incoherence. With movies such as Ricochet, Highlander II and Resident Evil: Extinction under his belt, the general reception to his movies went from bad to average. A dependence on hyper-violence and convoluted story-telling were the main factors standing in the way of something worthy of his premises.
It was in 2019, with the release of In Like Flynn, that Mulcahy was finally able to present a movie enjoyed by critics and moviegoers in equal measure. A biographical piece, it told the story of Errol Flynn's early-life adventures before Hollywood, such as opium smuggling and searching for gold. Praise was given to the movie's effortlessly entertaining set-pieces, tasteful embellishments and emotionally intelligent character work.
With his latest work coming in as a triumph, here's to the hopeful future of Russell Mulcahy's directorial output.