4. Rick Deckard - Blade Runner (1982)
There are a number of great Ford performances that could have taken this positionJack Ryan, Richard Kimble, Jack Trainerbut Ford's take on Deckard is probably one of the few underrated elements of this often lauded sci-fi classic. Even as a professed Blade Runner fan-boyfor many of my teenage years it was my very favorite movieI'll admit that Ford's Deckard is not the most amazing or effective element of the film, but that doesn't mean it isn't equally as important as the work he does in any of the aforementioned roles where his performances were the main course. When you want to talk Blade Runner, what usually comes up is Ridley Scott and his immersive direction, or the fabulous and jaw-dropping production design and visual effects, or the truly emotional turn by Rutger Hauer, who poignantly captures replicant Roy Batty's desire to simply keep on living. It's easy to see Deckard as a cold, stilted turn, just a sci-fi rehash of the hard-boiled gumshoe, but I believe there's much more there. Certainly, some of Scott's various versions do that work no favors. The Original Cut has a voiceover that Harrison was reluctant to do, and so delivered it in a bored monotone, while the Director's Cut saddles the Deckard role with the baggage of Scott's insistence that the blade runner himself is a replicant. All of that aside, I find Ford's work here tremendous because of how low-key and understated it is played, while still building a compelling character, through whose viewpoint we see this world. Yes, Batty and his makeshift family are the heart, but through Rick's eyes we see this society as it perceives itself, upgraded with a growing conscience that has begun to question its practices. Those moments of awareness are often relayed not through heavy dialogue, but by a physical performance that keys into the neo-noir atmosphere and the speculative fiction elements. Ford may look plain tired in some of his recent movies, but here his constructed weariness is almost spiritual and palpable. For someone who was almost effortlessly charismatic at the time, this was a fantastic about-face. At this point in his career, Ford was often relying upon his charm; he drops that here to play a man adrift in a world that has forgotten exactly what humanity even means. Watch closer and you'll see that there's very little that's cold about Ford's work.