Kevin Kline: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

5 Performances That Sucked...

5. Luc Teyssier - French Kiss (1995)

We've seen already that Kline has had success playing the Italian-American and the American who can't speak Italian. The actor is an aficionado of French, too, and among other roles plays a convincing old recluse in 2009's Joueuse (or "Queen to Play", by the English title), a role in which almost all of his lines are in French. His turn as Frenchman Luc Teyssier in Lawrence Kasdan's 1995 film French Kiss is less convincing, but it numbers among Kline's worst performances for another reason: he's just plain unlikable. We meet him on a plane, seated next to Meg Ryan's character Kate, and soon discover the slightly-crass Parisian to be a petty crook. What follows is a fairly predictable if not altogether unenjoyable romantic comedy, as Luc's smuggling operation demands the unwitting cooperation of Kate. There is little to no chemistry between the two leads, and every now and then you get the sense that Kline may even be aware of this. In the opening scene on the plane he is cold and detached, and he hardly warms as the plane lands and the movie plods through Paris. While Kline's French accent is actually quite good, his outward appearance almost undoes everything his voice works to have us believe, as if we would nod amiably and note that he has not shaved, his jacket is made of leather, and his shirts are free-flowing around his neck, and so he must automatically be French. For an actor who is usually engrossing and not unbelievable for a moment, Kline really struggles to make Luc Teyssier into a sympathetic character.