I think I might be ready to call Domhnall Gleeson my favorite actor. That's not to say I think he's the best actor or that I think he should lead every movie I see. I don't have a clear definition for "favorite actor". For about a decade, that title belonged to Heath Ledger. In his short career (only 23 credits on IMDB), he had an incredible hit rate. His three year run of 10 Things I Hate About You, The Patriot, and A Knight's Tale put him on my radar. Work in Monster's Ball and Brokeback Mountain gave him prestige appeal. I didn't even need his iconic Joker in The Dark Knight to esteem him so highly. An argument could be made that his Brokeback Mountain costar, Jake Gyllenhaal is my current favorite actor. He really blew me away in Nightcrawler. That's the only movie of his that I've loved. More often, he's the best thing about movies that I'm more mixed about. I'll see movies just because he's in them. That's certainly part of the criteria for determining a favorite actor.
I think it's Domhnall Gleeson though. He's the sole lead of one of my 5 favorite movies ever (About Time). He's got Ex Machina as a lead too. He's part of the Star Wars franchise. That's a big plus. He works a lot and in very different types of movies: quirky indie movies (Frank), period romance movies (Brooklyn), war movies (Unbroken), brutal man vs. nature movies (The Revenant), auteur pet-projects (mother!), dumb comedies (A Futile and Stupid Gesture), family friendly comedies (Peter Rabbit), Hollywood character studies (American Made). And, this is all since 2013. I wasn't even aware of him when he showed up in movies like Never Let Me Go, True Grit, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Parts 1 and 2, Dredd, and Anna Karenina. He's even managed to show up in my TV viewing with roles in Black Mirror and Catastrophe. The crazy thing is how often he shows up in movies that I was going to see anyway. In that large list I just offered, I didn't watch any of these things solely because he was in them. Crash Pad is actually the first thing I've watched only because I saw his name in it.
And Crash Pad isn't a great movie. It's one of those comedies with more funny ideas than jokes. Something like Stensland's (Gleeson's) obsession with Dawson's Creek never made me laugh out loud, but it is a funny recurring gag. Gleeseon is having a great time being a slovenly mess. I don't think the character works, because I'm never sure how much the film is on his side. I like Gleeson and I like Thomas Hayden Church playing his Thomas Hayden Church character. I could've used a little more of Christina Applegate and Nina Dobrev's side of things as well*. This movie reminds me of about a dozen movies I've seen before and can't think of the name of. It oddly reminds me of What If?. Both of them are small movies, I believe both are set in Canada, and feel more comfortable as 1997 releases than 2017 releases. That's not a knock on them, really. I really liked What If? and I enjoyed Crash Pad more than I should've. The beats of the movies though feel kind of dated, like the script had been sitting on the shelf for a decade and a half before being produced.
*Side note: How has Nina Dobrev not gotten a bigger shot at movies? She's talented and she's pretty. Many actresses have done more with less. Is she just bad at picking roles or has she been runner-up a lot? Is she having trouble washing off the CW and Degrassi stink? She's like Alison Brie. I don't get how there hasn't been more room for her in this business.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
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