Jack Black: 5 Awesome Performances & 5 That Sucked

2. Barry - High Fidelity (2000)

High Fidelity is nowhere near being a Jack Black film. He plays a side-show to the main event, whistling through John Cusack's forlorn identity crisis, but it's invariably his scenes - the Sexual Healing performance, the retail snark - that are the film's most memorable. As the obnoxious music store clerk with an agenda to push only great music to the right people, Black is a retail worker's dream: representing the perfect antithesis to the battle-worn drudge of Kevin Smith's Clerks. Which is perhaps partly why he's such an enduringly popular character. He's whip-smart and vicious, and the edge of toxicity in his demeanour rescues the film when it skirts too close to being a wimpy romance. And ultimately his performance reveals a lot more about the film's darker genetics (nobody is really all that likeable under their charm) than the surface appears to. So it's a lot deeper than just telling customers to f*ck off.