Tracing Morgan Freeman’s gradual descent into straight-to-video mediocrity
Making a string of movies that never see the inside of a cinema over several years is a blessing for some and a curse for others, but that doesn’t make it any less strange to see a talent of Morgan Freeman‘s calibre racking up a succession of straight-to-video thrillers with such reckless abandon.
B-tier stalwarts like Steven Seagal and Dolph Lundgren have been happy to occupy that territory for decades, Nicolas Cage spent a long time there for entirely financially-driven reasons, while the last ten years of Bruce Willis’ career have been entirely recontextualised by his dementia diagnosis. At first, it looked as though he was a jobbing A-lister slumming it for easy paycheques, but as it tragically turned out, he was working as much as he could and making as much money as he could in the knowledge his career and earning potential were going to be taken away from him.
In Freeman’s case, he’s become busier than ever thanks to his presumably lucrative side-line in showing up to inject a cavalcade of workmanlike actioners with his iconic gravitas. He’s presumably a wealthy enough man that he doesn’t need to, and his status as an Academy Award-winning living legend would offer the impression that he’s still in-demand and capable of delivering strong work when the occasion calls for it, but those moments have become increasingly few and far between.
It sounds scarcely believable since a lot of people are unaware that many of them even exist, but since the beginning of 2019 alone, Freeman has appeared in no less than 12 features, with another two in the can awaiting release. At one stage, it was an accepted fact of cinema that every now and again, he’d come along and lend distinguished support in either an acclaimed drama or a huge box office hit, but those times have grown sparse to the point of evaporation.
The only one of his theatrically-released credits that hasn’t bombed at the box office since 2016’s Now You See Me was Gerard Butler’s bullet-riddled sequel Angel Has Fallen. That’s two unqualified hits within the space of three years, which doesn’t sound too disheartening until the realisation dawns that those are just a pair of the 19 additions made to his filmography in total between then and now.
Does anyone remember the atrocious The Poison Rose alongside John Travolta? What about Vanquish, the latest failed attempt to turn Ruby Rose into an action hero? Paradise Highway, opposite Oscar winner Juliette Binoche and VOD journeyman Frank Grillo? Maybe the Cole Hauser-fronted thriller The Minute You Wake Up Dead? If not that one, then perhaps his second collaboration with Hauser in The Ritual Killer? Surely everybody knows Josh Hutcherson’s sci-fi caper 57 Seconds? OK, then, how about Gunner with Liam Hemsworth? If the answer to more than one of them is yes, then congratulations are in order for being a staunch Freeman devotee.
Michael Caine retired at 90 years old because he didn’t think there were any worthwhile parts for a man of his advancing years, which could be a factor. After all, Freeman is only four years the junior of his Dark Knight trilogy co-star, so maybe the offers aren’t flooding in like they used to. Of course, there might just be a simpler explanation, with the man himself once opining that when it comes to choosing parts, “Sometimes it’s just about the money alone.”
It’s been a very long time since the last memorable or even noteworthy Freeman performance, and based on his recent trajectory, there may not be another one for a while. Sure, he’s as prolific as ever, but quantity has gradually usurped quality altogether, a slow and steady decline into bargain basement mediocrity that he doesn’t show any inclination of arresting.
