Adrien Brody seems to show up wherever and whenever he pleases, sometimes in supporting roles and others that are meatier. Meaty enough to blag him an Oscar. Although he's never since reached those dizzying heights of 2002, he is more often than not a continuously-satisfying screen presence. Considering his caliber as a character actor, there's not much to suggest why he's been mostly slumming it the past few years; embracing everything from swing-and-a-miss foreign films, to middle-of-the-road indie horrors, to 'meh' television adaptations (that's you, Houdini). That said, he has a fairly consistent batting average, wherein for every one of those unwise straight-to-DVD choice he makes, an old director friend will throw him a small supporting role where he clearly just gets to show up and have fun. It's a given at this point that Wes Anderson will drop him a text every time he's gearing up for a new film. With his new film Backtrack about to be released - an Australian film about a psychotherapist who realises his patients are all ghosts (no, it's not a comedy) - it's an apt time to measure the good against the bad, and for you to decide whether Mr. Brody should perhaps be sentenced to some sort of movie jail or not.
Cinephile since 1993, aged 4, when he saw his very first film in the cinema - Jurassic Park - which is also evidence of damn fine parenting. World champion at Six Degrees of Separation. Lender of DVDs to cheap mates. Connoisseur of Marvel Comics and its Cinematic Universe.
