Joel Edgerton: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

1. Barry 'Baz' Brown - Animal Kingdom

Joel Edgerton found himself in the company of some real Australian acting heavyweights in Animal Kingdom, proving that he could easily hold his own alongside the best the country has to offer, including Guy Pearce, Ben Mendelsohn and Jackie Weaver. The Aussie criminal underworld forms the backdrop for this story of a dysfunctional family, with Edgerton playing Barry "Baz" Brown, a crook with a history of violence and armed robbery who wants out of the game. As always with these kind of crime thrillers which zoom in on the low lifes which inhabit cities across the world, going straight is never as simple as it should be. Again, it's Edgerton's ability to articulate the subtleties of his character without ever feeling the need to overact which makes his performance here so compelling. We feel his fatigue in his eyes and don't need the dialogue to articulate this any further - the sign of a great actor at work. Read on to find out when Edgerton wasn't quite so awesome...