Bill Paxton: 5 Awesome Performances (And Five That Sucked)

3. Joe Keenan - Term Life (2016)

Another example of Paxton playing an out-and-out villain with no redeeming qualities and zero charm came in 2016's trope-ridden thriller Term Life.

It's usually impossible to not like the actor, no matter how bad the movie or questionable the performance, but here, everything was lifeless.

Keenan is one-note, bad for the sake of being bad, and Paxton doesn't bring anything else to the table. Maybe he was tired or just plain bored, but it seems like he didn't even attempt to make the character more three-dimensional, content with keeping things straightforward and easy.

To be fair to Paxton, he was completely miscast as the uber-serious dirty cop. He's often at his best when he's playing roles that are more light-hearted - even in serious fare like Aliens, he's still supremely enjoyable to watch, and seems like he's having a lot of fun himself - but Term Life affords him no such opportunity.

The film made many mistakes (like casting Vince Vaughn as an action hero... really?) but one of its biggest was failing to use its incredibly talented cast in the right way, causing them to suffer for it.