Great actors who blow it/awful actors who nail it
 

Despite the unfortunately suggestive title, I think you get what I mean. Every now and then, even the best in the business can drop the ball. Whether it's because they were going through personal stuff during the shoot, were just mis-cast for a completely inappropriate part, didn't really 'get' what the character was about, or just decided to phone it in, once in a while a truly great actor can come out and absolutely embarass themselves with a piss-poor performance. This can be a black mark on careers, and sometimes even end them entirely.

On the other side of the coin, occasionally the stars will allign, and an otherwise godawful actor can catch everyone off-guard with a really great performance. Nine times out of ten, they immediately revert back to being utter crap, but it's still nice to see.

I don't necessarily mean good actors who were in shitty movies and vice versa, but more of just their individual acting in the movie.

For instance, I'm a huge fan of Paul Giamatti, but watching him try and be a villain in Shoot 'Em Up was just embarassing. The way he delivered of his snarky one-liners (combined with the way he looks) just reminded me of the guy from Mythbusters.

On the other hand, I've always been a staunch supporter of dragging Hayden Christiansen out into a field and beating him to death with a baseball bat like Joe Pesci in Casino. However, I gotta hand it to him, I actually enjoyed the hell out of his performance in Awake. That doesn't excuse him for mumbling and whining his way through the Star Wars prequels, but at least he can show some chops when he's got a halfway-sane director on the helm.

Anyone else?

Keanu Reeves sticks out to me as an awful actor who has managed to pull his weight as the lead actor is some decent to good movies.

Harrison Ford is a great actor who has spent the past 15 years of his career blowing it (with the exception of Indy4 imo).
That long string of bad movies could just be a combination of poor role choice, and losing his edge like Deniro and Pacino have too.

How about Tom Cruise in Valkyrie. I've always been a fan of Tom Cruise as an actor, and he's rarely put on a bad performance or even a bad movie until that.

Jack Nicholson in The Departed.

Terrible performance.

I think Paul Giamatti played it exactly right in Shoot 'Em Up. He wasn't trying to be your stereotypical villain, the way he looked just contributed to the character because their's this guy who wouldn't think would be the bad guy.

Really? You think?

For me:

Good actor's who miss it:

DeNiro with exception of comedy work, has been the shits since 1995 in more or less everything


Bad Actors who nail it:

Julia Roberts - Erin Brocko....That one she got the Oscar for

As already stated, Keanu actually hit the mark in quite a few: The Matrix, The Devil's Advocate, Constantine (IMO)

Is this sarcasm?

But yeah he was the worst part of a great movie.

Vin Diesel is terrible, but isn't too bad when he has a part pretty much handmade for him.

Like The Pacifier

I usually hate Ryan Reynolds, but I loved him in Smoking Aces.

^

I was gonna say, replace Van Wilder with Ben Affleck, and the same applies.

Affleck is in the movie for like 6 minutes.

Affleck was good in Boiler Room, even though he was just quoting movie lines.

I've found Clive Owen to be really hit and miss personally, but felt like he nailed the role of 'initially sympathetic but ultimately despicable' in Closer.

Al Pacino in almost everything since 1990.

HEat was post 1995 and was probably the best movie since 1990 for Pacino, Deniro and Kilmer.

I don't think Pacino blows it, I just think his character that he's been playing for 15 years is wearing thin. Kinda like Hulk Hogan.

Oh also Kiera Knightly, again not a big fan but thought she was pretty damn good in Atonement