Christian Bale: 5 Awesome Performances and 5 That Sucked

3. Shaft (2000)

Bale€™s Character: Walter Wade, Jr. While never quite falling into the €˜worst movie ever€™ category, 2000€™s Shaft attempted to bring Blacksploitation into present day, failing to quite hit the mark in terms of a modern envisioning. Bale takes on the role of whitey here, a trust fund baby who incurs the wrath of John €œtoo black for the uniform, too blue for the brothers€ Shaft, after murdering a black youth and escaping scot-free. It€™s not that his performance is terrible (is that possible for an actor like Bale?), it€™s just not particularly great either, especially when stacked up next to his mind blowing turn as Patrick Bateman that very same year. While he does get enough exposure in the film for his character to develop, Walter Wade Jr. just never develops into anything massively stirring, especially considering what we know Bale to be capable of given the right script and director.
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Contributor

Stuart believes that the pen is mightier than the sword, but still he insists on using a keyboard.