Al Pacino is a great actor with an interesting dilemma. His commanding screen presence is so distinctive and so forceful that he often gets accused of overacting. Yes, he does hoot and holler profanely in just about every performance-in fact, I would say he's got the patent on eruptions of onscreen rage-but his torrents of anger are usually essential and, damn it, hugely entertaining.
Pacino started out in Broadway before landing his first cinematic role in 1971's \Panic in Needle Park"" and catching the eye of Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola had to fight Paramount to cast Pacino in the role of Michael Corleone (they wanted, among other people, Robert Redford), which inevitably made him a star.
Pacino's performance in ""The Godfather"" is quietly intense rather than explosive. For an actor known for portraying characters who throw violent temper tantrums, his mesmerizing but understated portrayal of Corleone is, in hindsight, an ironic breakthrough role. It wasn't long before he started playing characters with considerably shorter fuses-anything from desperate, gay bank robbers (""Dog Day Afternoon"") to courageous cops (""Serpico"")-and predictably unpredictable outbursts became his calling card.
The definitive Pacino performance is probably his most famous: Tony Montana in Brian De Palma's 1983 ""Scarface"" remake. As written by the notoriously unsubtle Oliver Stone, ""Scarface"" powerfully pushed boundaries in terms of violence and profanity and painted a sprawling portrait of the American Dream with a snarling, vicious Pacino at its center.
What makes ""Scarface"" a treasured cult classic is not its flashiness or shock value, but Pacino, who proved then and there that the phrase ""over-the-top"" was not in his vocabulary (he's not even remotely convincing as a Cuban, but that doesn't matter). To this day, whenever someone mentions Al Pacino randomly, I immediately visualize Tony Montana's head emerging from a mountain of cocaine.
Much of the same critics that lauded the ""cock-a-roach""-spewing Pacino of ""Scarface"" and the ""hoo-ah""-ing, Oscar-winning Pacino of ""Scent of a Woman"" have described his recent work as ""Pacino doing bad Pacino impressions."" Many of his post-""Heat"" movies, even the highly acclaimed ones (""The Insider"" and ""Insomnia"" are two of the best movies of the past decade), have failed to ignite the box office, so it's become common to criticize him for a downward spiral not unlike Robert De Niro's.
De Niro is my favorite actor, and while his career is presently at its most lucrative ever, he's hit rock bottom. Compare De Niro's ""Hide and Seek,"" ""Godsend"" and especially ""Showtime"" to Pacino's ""Merchant of Venice,"" ""Angels in America,"" ""The Recruit,"" ""Any Given Sunday"" and this week's ""Two for the Money."" De Niro's current films have been absolute shit (even two of his better flicks, ""Meet the Parents"" and ""Analyze This"" have been somewhat overshadowed by awful sequels), and the one-time method actor doesn't even seem to be trying anymore.
However unsuccessful Pacino's recent movies have been, they are more often than not near-misses rather than outright failures, and his acting is as compelling and fun to watch as ever. Pacino has also varied his intensity-he brilliantly exercised restraint in ""Angels in America"" and ""The Recruit"" in between typical show-offy roles, and his upcoming roles sound promising.
Now he's planning on collaborating with ""Sea of Love"" director Harold Becker on a remake of the 1955 French heist thriller ""Rififi,"" which I consider to be the best heist movie ever made. Whether that pans out or not, Pacino is not through kicking ass and I am confident he will make at least a few more great movies. They probably won't involve him plunging head-first into a mountain of cocaine, but Al Pacino is far from retirement.
Joe Pudas is a junior majoring in journalism and communication arts.
