I’m late to this. I was going to post this yesterday and got sidetracked and so it’s today. Whatever. Anyways, I keep seeing the trailer for the movie ‘Broken City’, which I posted here a few months back. For those of you who haven’t seen it, here it is:
Here’s my thing; this trailer once again reminded me that Mark Wahlberg shouldn’t be working so much. I mean, there are just some actors who rub you the wrong way and Wahlberg is one of them. I’m baffled as to his career and why it possesses such longevity. The man has zero range and has an embarrassingly arrogant personality. I’m sure to his friends he’s a great guy, a chum, and fun to be around, but from his interviews he comes off as an arrogant prick who is far too full of himself to think twice before he says something stupid. Add to that the fact that he plays essentially the same character in every film he’s in and you have two reasons why Wahlberg’s career should have ended when The Funky Bunch parted ways.
I’m probably being harsh, but he’s just one of those actors who I never ‘got’ and continue to not ‘get’.
Now, I’m not negating the fact that he has been very good in certain roles. I consider his performance in ‘I Heart Huckabees’ to be sensational and one of the biggest snubs in Fisti Awards history (more on that in another post) and I feel that he was exceptional in ‘Boogie Nights’, but even reflection on that performance highlights the lack of range in Wahlberg’s acting.
So here’s my challenge; watch five Mark Wahlberg performances back to back and tell me I’m wrong. Tell me that he doesn’t use the same mannerisms, same accent, same overall approach to each character. Tell me that he doesn’t play the hotheaded Boston wise guy in every movie. Tell me that he doesn’t play himself. Prove me wrong and I’ll be happy, because I hate hating on someone without merit, but Wahlberg just seems ripe for my hatred. Even his joke of an Oscar nomination stems from a variation of the SAME PERFORMANCE HE GIVES IN EVERY MOVIE!
Maybe the world loves him because they know he could have single handedly prevented 9/11 from ever happening.
