Joel Edgerton: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

4. Tom Buchanan - The Great Gatsby

It has to be said that there are far more problems with Baz Luhrmann's admittedly ambitious adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby than Edgerton's performance, from the inexplicably cardboard cut-out 3D sequences to the near-total absence of the novel's scathing critique of the American Dream. That said, while many of the performances waver in The Great Gatsby, Edgerton's take on Tom Buchanan is decidedly one-note, as if Luhrmann couldn't be bothered to give him any direction and, for want of anything else to do he simply maintained the same boorishness in every scene. He certainly gets this simplistic rendering of the character down pat, but while it's fair to say that blame for this simplistic rendering of a more complex character rests partially on other shoulders, Edgerton could have turned off the autopilot and upped the ante a little more.