Alan Rickman: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

2. Phil Allen - Blow Dry

I'll admit, there's a clear pattern here: it isn't that Alan Rickman is necessarily that bad in Blow Dry, but rather it's the film itself that's the problem.

The Full Monty screenwriter Simon Beaufoy attempts to create a similar crowd-pleaser by telling the story of a national hair-dressing contest set in West Yorkshire, with a cast of actors from elsewhere putting on mostly unconvincing accents, amomg them two young pretty Americans (Josh Hartnett failing abysmally to sound Yorkshire, and Rachel Leigh Cook not even trying), for no discernible reason but the hope of selling more tickets. All things considered, Blow Dry is indicative of everything that was wrong with the British film industry in the early 2000s (and it has by no means completely redeemed itself since).

Still, as Rickman was always a risk-taker, it's not entirely surprising he'd be up for playing a Yorkshire hairdresser caught up in a bitter rivalry with a flamboyant Bill Nighy, but it all just comes off as a rather tepid retread of innumerable similarly themed movies, from the aforementioned Full Monty to Strictly Ballroom and countless others.

But at least Rickman got the accent right, which is more than can be said for most of his co-stars. (I'm from Yorkshire myself, which might explain why I'm particularly picky on the subject.)