The worst performance of Keanu Reeves’ career wasn’t his fault
Saying that Keanu Reeves isn’t a great actor is one of the easiest and laziest shots to fire in his direction, but he couldn’t care less when he’s become more successful and a lot wealthier than the majority of thespians who could easily blow him off the screen.
There’s a difference between an actor and a movie star, and Reeves has always been considered the latter. That’s not to say he’s incapable of emoting or showcasing new sides of himself, but neither will he be the guy who signs on for a prestige drama to try and prove a point.
He was excellent at playing against type as a violent and scornful redneck in Sam Raimi’s The Gift, My Own Private Idaho was a statement to show the world he was nothing like his Bill & Ted character, and none of his classic action flicks like Point Break, Speed, The Matrix, or John Wick would be the same if it wasn’t for his screen presence and stoicism.
Obviously, because he’s not the most technically gifted performer in the business, he’s been terrible on quite a few occasions. The most obvious would be Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula, where Reeves’ combination of being stiff and wooden while sporting a horrendous accent would make it easy to pinpoint it as the nadir of his career. He was crap in Replicas and Generation Um…, too, but it’s his dismal attempts at an upper-crust English brogue that tend to steal the spotlight.
As awful as he is in Dracula, though, it’s not his worst-ever turn. There’s a film where he’s even worse, but it wasn’t his fault. Reeves is one actor nobody would ever be able to buy as a serial killer, but he played one anyway. At no point during the narrative does he come across as somebody interested to be there or an actor remotely happy with their work. He’s utterly abysmal in The Watcher, but there’s a very good reason.
Miscast to a mind-boggling degree, Reeves’ David Alen Griffin is a bloodthirsty serial killer who preys on young women in Los Angeles. James Spader’s federal agent, Joel Campbell, made it his mission to apprehend the murderer, but when he failed, he quit his job and relocated to Chicago. Unfortunately, so did his nemesis, for the sole purpose of taunting him and continuing their game.
It’s a decent enough setup, but the execution is woeful. Reeves never gives off the impression of a man who can be arsed because he couldn’t. He didn’t want to be in the movie, and he certainly wasn’t interested in contributing much more than a cameo, but some skullduggery and subterfuge took that decision right out of his hands.
Director Joe Charbanic was a friend after helming several music videos for his band Dogstar, and he was hoping roping an A-lister into his movie would give it a boost. A major roadblock appeared when Reeves said he didn’t want to do it, which led to Charbanic forging his signature on a contract and effectively duping his so-called buddy into the gig.
Wary of being dragged into a long and financially draining legal battle, Reeves opted to grin and bear it. Whereas Spader and co-star Marisa Tomei earned at least a million dollars apiece for their efforts, the biggest star of the three worked for scale. Why didn’t he tell everyone he’d been tricked? Because the studio convinced him not to.
When Universal scooped up the distribution rights, a deal was agreed where Reeves would be forbidden from disclosing details on The Watcher until 12 months after its release. When that moment came, he immediately cleared the air. “I never found the script interesting, but a friend of mine forged my signature on the agreement,” he revealed. “I couldn’t prove he did, and I didn’t want to get sued, so I had no other choice but to do the film.”
Reeves didn’t take part in the press tour, he didn’t promote The Watcher at all, and he was barely shown in the marketing. He did eventually earn $2 million due to an increase in his profit participation levels, but even when he read the script he didn’t sign in the first place, the part was little more than a glorified cameo that somehow snowballed into the second lead during production.
The Watcher is a lamentable movie that deservedly earned Reeves a Razzie nomination for ‘Worst Supporting Actor’, but nobody had any inkling until a year later that at no point was he planning to put in any graft. It’s the worst performance he’s ever given, but at least he had an excuse.
