Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Second Bananas   [Jonah Goldberg]

Kathryn's reader asks to list five movies where the second banana was funnier/better than the lead actor. This shouldn't be so hard. Very quickly off the top of my head:

Tommy Lee Jones overwhelmed Steven Seagal in Under Siege.

Bill Murray stole every scene in Kingpin.

Harrison Ford crushed that guy who played Luke Skywalker.

Jonathan Winters outclassed Robin Williams in later seasons of Mork & Mindy (not a movie, I know, but Winters's genius never gets enough respect). But this dynamic is actually common in sitcoms (think the Fonz in the early years, Benson on Soap, Dietrich on Barney Miller, etc).

Personally — and I know this controversial — I think James Caan was better than Al Pacino in The Godfather.

Almost every movie Schwarzenegger was in he was outperformed by his sidekicks, most notably Tom Arnold in True Lies.

Deniro in Angel Heart.

Brad Pitt in True Romance? (okay maybe not, but it was close).

Pacino in Dick Tracy.

Etc.

11/27 04:04 PMShare