James Gandolfini: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

4. Ben Pinkwater - Terminal Velocity (1994)

Actors like James Gandolfini don't trade much in bad performances €“ rather, it's their poor choice in films, or else being lumbered with entirely ordinary parts unlike their usual fare, that really hampers them. Nowhere is that more obvious than this mostly-forgotten and god awful popcorn flick from the summer of 1994, starring Charlie Sheen as a skydiving instructor who somehow gets mixed up with Russian spies trying to recover a shipment of gold. Yes, this is an actual film that was made. To be fair to Gandolfini, he doesn't do a bad job in the role of Ben Pinkwater, a seemingly mild-mannered insurance man who turns out to be a violent Russian gangster. The twist is handled surprisingly well, he doesn't butcher the accent too much, and he's obviously the right sort of build for a mob enforcer. But he's also appearing in Terminal Velocity, an absolute turkey of a film, in a part that's even more underwritten than your average Bond henchman. You know, the ones who are usually mute.