Aaron Eckhart: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

5. George - Erin Brockovich (2000)

Last week, Simon Gallagher took us through the highs and lows of Julia Roberts' career. We begin our countdown with one of the films that he singled out, a film which won Roberts an Oscar and which still holds up at the better end of Hollywood biopics. But for all the praise lavished on Roberts or her seasoned co-star Albert Finney, Eckhart deserves his fair share of the plaudits. Erin Brockovich follows the fiery title character (Roberts), an unemployed single mother of three who begins the film by losing a court case through bad behaviour. Having been given a job by her lawyer (Finney) out of sympathy, she comes across evidence that Pacific Gas and Electic (PG&E) have been poisoning the water supply of Hinkley, California with the carcinogen hexavalent chromium. The rest of the film concerns Erin's fight against both the corporation and the nay-sayers who don't believe she's qualified enough to take on the case. While there's no denying that Brockovich is Roberts' film, her character wouldn't be anything like as memorable without a range of (mostly male) characters to bounce off. George is to all appearances an unlikeable character: he's a scuzzy biker who tries to apologise to Erin by offering to buy her dinner, and then leaves when the case starts hotting up. But Eckhart holds our attention throughout, charming us at first and then bringing out the restless elements of the character as his relationship with Erin develops. If nothing else, it's a good solid base from which to start out countdown.