The 10 most underrated Brad Pitt movie roles
Described by Quentin Tarantino as both “a different breed of man” and “one of the last remaining big screen movie stars”, Brad Pitt has evolved into something of an oxymoron in his fourth consecutive decade as one of the most famous names in all of Hollywood.
He is undoubtedly a resident of the A-list’s upper echelons, and yet his career choices for the last 20 years have been that of a character actor. Sure, he recently headlined high-speed action blockbuster Bullet Train, but he played the part of Ladybug as a highly-trained killer who was still riddled by anxieties and a desire to de-escalate conflict at any cost.
Long since beyond the point of being criticised as “just a pretty face”, Pitt makes bold, daring, and unpredictable choices that have seen him gradually become not just one of the industry’s biggest stars but also one of its most interesting.
Through the years, he’s starred in Oscar-winning dramas, box office smash hits, cult classics, and many more. However, the following ten turns didn’t get the appreciation they all warranted the first time around, to the extent they can now be called the most underrated of his long and illustrious career.
10 most underrated Brad Pitt roles:
10. Tom Bishop (Spy Game – Tony Scott, 2001)
A $155million espionage thriller helmed by one of the action genre’s foremost directors isn’t typically known as the realm of nuanced performances. However, Tony Scott’s otherwise workmanlike Spy Game is elevated exponentially by Pitt’s enigmatic performance as Tom Bishop.
Sharing top billing with Robert Redford, Pitt creates a constant sense of mystery around his character as the former’s Nathan Muir calls in every favour under the sun to try and secure his release from detention by the Chinese government. The plot might be predictable down to its final moments, but the same can’t be said of Pitt’s turn, which is a difficult thing to achieve in a twist-heavy tale.
Spy Game is far from being named among the best films either its director or two stars have lent their names to. Coupled with an underwhelming run at the box office to go along with solid-if-unspectacular critical reactions, Pitt’s understatedly complex work often goes unmentioned.
9. Mickey O’Neil (Snatch – Guy Ritchie, 2000)
Only a star of Brad Pitt’s calibre could draw their inspiration for the role from Father Ted and spout the majority of their dialogue in an accent that’s nigh-on indecipherable at the best of times. Of course, all of this is only to gradually reveal themselves as the smartest person in the room through an unhinged turn that straddles the line between comedy and caricature while still making perfect sense within the context of the narrative.
Snatch is full of wannabe gangsters and criminals nowhere near as clever as they think they are, whereas Pitt’s Mickey is the opposite. Everyone thinks that somebody who lives in a caravan and lavishes attention on their “dags” is a simpleton when he’s really one step ahead at all times. The actor’s innate charisma and twinkle-eyed showmanship marked one of the first major occasions where he’d shed his movie star baggage for the sake of giving himself completely to a part in a production the majority of his A-list cohorts wouldn’t even consider.
8. General Glen McMahon (War Machine – David Michôd, 2017)
One of many high-profile original movies lost to the Netflix algorithm after suffering from a muted reception, War Machine may not be a particularly memorable or even good movie, but Pitt’s all-out commitment to the bit makes him one of the very few standout elements.
Sporting grey hair, an accent eerily similar to Inglourious Basterds‘ Aldo Raine, a permanent squint in his eye, and his mouth perpetually curled at the corners, it’s broad without becoming scenery-chewing and parodical without winking at the audience. That’s a lot harder to pull off than it sounds, but the rest of David Michôd’s satirical war comedy failing to live up to expectations has ended up seeing both War Machine and Pitt’s work slip through the cracks.
7. Paul Maclean (A River Runs Through It – Robert Redford, 1992)
Pitt may not have been a fan of his performance in Robert Redford’s Academy Award-winning literary adaptation, but it was a pivotal moment for his fledgling career nonetheless, with his first major leading role in a movie hailing from one of Hollywood’s ‘Big Five’ studios winning him no shortage of acclaim.
In addition, A River Runs Through It also played a huge part in shedding light on the question that had dogged him throughout his career: ‘Was he just a pretty face, or could he actually act?’ That was answered, and then some, as his Paul Maclean more than shoulders the burden of knitting the close-knit clan together to serve as the backbone of a family trying to figure out their place in the world, individually and collectively.
6. Frankie McGuire (The Devil’s Own – Alan J. Paluka, 1997)
Accents have never been Pitt’s strongest suit, and it would be impossible to deny that his Irish brogue in The Devil’s Own isn’t anything more than unconvincing at best and atrocious at worst. However, if you focus strictly on the dramatic and emotional arc he undertakes in the politically charged thriller, then it’s a performance of genuine merit.
Another production that didn’t leave him thrilled on a personal level, the simmering tension and heavyweight chemistry between Pitt’s Frankie McGuire and Harrison Ford’s Tom O’Meara work brilliantly. Each of them plays someone fighting for a cause they believe in, regardless of how they set out to achieve it, making for great narrative dynamics.
Reducing The Devil’s Own to “Brad Pitt does a dodgy accent” is admittedly true, but it does a disservice to one of the most overlooked turns of his career/ The fire in his eyes was every bit as important to building out the role as the questionable way in which he vocalises it.
5. Floyd (True Romance – Tony Scott, 1993)
A noted proponent of cannabis, Pitt probably didn’t have to try too hard to embrace the mindset of Floyd, the accidentally inept roommate of Michael Rappaport’s Dick. It was also the first time he spoke dialogue written by Quentin Tarantino, something that would eventually prove to be a winning combination two decades later.
Floyd’s heart is in the right place, but almost undermining Dick’s acting career and then answering the mob’s questions about the whereabouts of Clarence and Alabama get everyone around him into hot water. All of this happens while he does nothing but sit around and get high all day.
Barely in the movie long enough to even qualify as a supporting performance in a thriller that’s packed to bursting point with so many memorable background players, Pitt manages to imbue Floyd with heart. His portrayal of humour, warmth, and idiocy through a thick haze of smoke offered an early glimpse into his abilities as a character actor, and this came before he’d even cracked the A-list.
4. Roland (By the Sea – Angelina Jolie, 2015)
The romantic drama about a struggling marriage written and directed by then-wife Angelina Jolie and produced by the two of them regularly devolves into self-indulgent navel-gazing. However, the film’s lacklustre reception barely saw Pitt get a mention for a staggeringly raw and stripped-back performance.
Skirting the self-referential line given the tabloid glare the Jolie-Pitts had lived under ever since they first went public with their relationship, Roland losing his temper and displaying barely-contained bouts of aggression all while occasionally letting his eye wander flirts with the metatextual. Unfortunately, the experimental nature of By the Sea proved so polarising and alienating that his turn hardly gained any attention whatsoever.
3. Early Grayce (Kalifornia – Dominic Senna, 1993)
In addition to his questionable ability to appropriate accents that aren’t rooted in some form of Americana, another common criticism of Pitt’s career is that he’s virtually unable to project any sort of tangible menace. As much as that’s true to a certain degree, despite being something he barely even attempts these days, Kalifornia endures as the exception that proves the rule.
Of course, it helped that the road trip thriller arrived prior to his ascension to the top of the industry ladder and saddled him with excess baggage. Early Grayce becomes more and more deranged as the story moves forward, peeling back layers of eccentricities to reveal something even more frightening lurking underneath.
It’s been a long time since Pitt even tried to be “evil” in the broadest sense of the term as it applies to cinema. However, Kalifornia was a ferocious showcase that displayed a brand new weapon in his arsenal that’s very rarely been dusted off in the 30 years since.
2. Richard Jones (Babel – Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2006)
Alejandro González Iñárritu’s interweaving drama may have failed to live up to the sky-high expectations placed upon it as his follow-up to Amores Perros and 21 Grams. However, the multi-layered story of four disparate groups of people being tied together across three continents remains a powerfully acted rumination on fate and consequence.
Pitt’s Richard Jones and Cate Blanchett’s wife Susan are vacationing in Morocco, only to be left on their own when their tour bus refuses to wait with them for an ambulance after she’s been shot. The minimalism of their circumstances doesn’t affect Pitt’s ability to exact maximum emotion and tension within their segment of Babel, with the anguish etched across his face outlining the gravity of the situation.
Fear, grief, and despair aren’t easy emotions to convey to an audience in the space of a single scene. Of course, Pitt manages all that and more when being updated on his wife’s condition by a local doctor in the most heartbreaking moment of the film.
1. Jackie Cogan (Killing Them Softly, Andrew Dominik, 2012)
Andrew Dominik and Brad Pitt were no strangers to seeing their collaborations fail to get the flowers they deserved following The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. In addition, Killing Them Softly suffered a fairly similar fate, albeit on a lesser scale, after it avoided bombing at the box office.
Darkly funny but still visceral in its violence, Pitt’s enforcer is drafted in to try and eliminate the various – and increasingly incompetent – players in a sprawling criminal scheme. Few modern cinema superstars have proven as adept at jet-black comedy as Pitt, and that’s precisely why he excels in the crime thriller.
Jackie looks cool with his slick-backed hair and leather jacket, but he’s also a force of nature that’s not to be trifled with, as well as one who harbours a unique philosophy and worldview they strive to live by. He also happens to be terrifying and someone not to be trifled with, demystifying and re-mythologising the boilerplate “mob-hired killer” archetype at once.
