NWI Awards: Worst Performance

With all this positivity and praise that's going on right now, I feel that it is only fair to acknowledge what was truly shite in the acting of 2008. Look below to see who gets trashed...

Worst Performance

6) Thandie Newton, W.

She may have only had screen time that added up to about 5 minutes, but that doesn't excuse Ms Newton's unapologetically awful impression of Condoleeza Rice. She plays it like she were doing a drunken imitation at a barbecue, which in fairness maybe she was. Bad show.




5) Robert De Niro & Al Pacino, Righteous Kill

This movie played like an inferior episode of Dexter. Except without the complexity or sense of fun. Seeing these two reunite should have been a great experience. Instead it was along the lines of watching two has beens collecting paycheques. They may have been the greatest of all has-beens, but on the evidence of this has-beens is what they most definately are.




4) Uma Thurman, The Accidental Husband

I pains me to right this. I am a huge Thurman fan and am waiting for the day she gets to be in a good film again. But in the spirit of critical fairness she deserves to be here. In this truly dire romantic comedy, she is totally and utterly lost, like a kid who wanders into a cinema half way through a movie. Except its their movie. And its horrible.




3) Mark Wahlberg, Max Payne and The Happening

This was a rough year for the great Marky Mark. Anyone who's seen The Departed or I heart Huckabees knows he has a secret good actor hiding under this sheen of sub Sly Stallone woodenness. Maybe one day he'll set him free.




2) Zac Efron, High School Musical 3


Yes, everyone's favourite teen pin-up made the list, to surely no-one's surprise. Every second he's on screen he does the acting equivalent of kicking you in the junk and not in a positive connotation. The day he comes out of the closet only to be shunned by the conservative America is surely coming soon.




1) The Female Cast of Death Proof, Grindhouse


You'll never feel more sorry for Kurt Russell. Forced to work opposite a bazaar of female stunt-people, nobodies and girls who happen to be the daughter of Sidney Poitier, the onslaught of bad acting sent his way is phenomenal. A genuine contender for cinema's all time worst ensemble.