Chris Evans: 5 Awesome Performances & 5 That Sucked

1. Jimmy Dobyne - The Loss Of A Teardrop Diamond (2008)

There's probably a good reason that the Tennessee Williams play that this movie was based on had been long-forgotten by the time the filmmakers got around to adapting it; it's just not up to the standard of the great writer's other works.

The plot centres on an heiress, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, who enlists the son of her father's caretaker - our man Chris Evans - to accompany her to a bunch of Memphis parties in the 1950s (it's strictly a business arrangement, you understand).

Everything about the film is off, though, from the tone to the way the narrative unfolds in awkward, melodramatic chunks; the actors didn't have a chance, given the material, but Evans has never felt more out of place than he does here. Once again, he's lumbered with a generic hunk of a character with little to express. And Evans really goes to town on the "not expressing" stuff. His face barely changes shape.

He's never been charismatic in the way that he's supposed to be here, playing a James Dean-type character. Somebody seems to have just assumed that, because he's handsome, he was right for the part. Instead, he looks like Evans has been brought in from the wrong time period, and the bad Southern accent he adopts for the length of the film doesn't help matters. Miscast and flat, it's a career-killing turn.