Total Recall: Johnny Depp's Best Movies
We count down the best-reviewed films from the Public Enemies star.
5. Donnie Brasco
The mid-to-late 1990s were an uneven period for Depp; although he scored a medium-sized hit at the box office with 1995's Don Juan De Marco, it isn't one of his best-reviewed performances (and it allowed Bryan Adams back into the Top 40, too). Other releases during this period ranged from the willfully non-commercial (1995's Dead Man) to the just plain unpopular (Nick of Time, released the same year). 1997's Donnie Brasco, a dramatization of the FBI's late '70s investigation into the Bonanno crime syndicate, wasn't an enormous hit, but it earned respectable grosses -- and more importantly, it allowed Depp to work with a director (Mike Newell) and legendary co-star (Al Pacino) who brought out the best in him. Depp plays Joe Pistone, the FBI agent assigned to infiltrate the Bonanno gang by pretending to be a diamond expert named Donnie Brasco and ingratiating himself to a low-level foot soldier named Lefty Ruggiero (Pacino); since Pistone's situation (as well as Paul Attanasio's script) keeps much of his true self hidden beneath the surface, the part required an actor capable of communicating very subtly, and Depp rose to the occasion. His between-the-lines performance was matched by Pacino, who dialed back the high-volume bluster he'd become known for, earning the pair praise from critics like the Houston Chronicle's Jeff Millar, who wrote, "Depp is as good as I've seen him, and Pacino is simply astonishing."
4. What's Eating Gilbert Grape
Not counting the delayed Arizona Dream, Johnny Depp released two movies in 1993, both of them handling themes of mental illness with a relatively gentle touch. Of the pair, Benny & Joon arrived in theaters first, but it was What's Eating Gilbert Grape that ultimately held a firmer grip on critics' hearts, earning a 90 percent Tomatometer rating and an Academy Award nomination for Leonardo DiCaprio, who laid the groundwork for his post-Growing Pains future with a breakout performance as the mentally handicapped younger brother of the small-town grocery clerk whose inner conflicts are reflected in the title. Torn between familial obligations and a need to establish a life of his own, Gilbert gave Depp another opportunity to perfect the "sensitive misfit" archetype he'd been drawn back to repeatedly since making Edward Scissorhands. It was a type of role he'd soon branch out from, but in the meantime, Gilbert Grape entranced critics like Susan Tavernetti, who wrote, "with an eccentric charm that falters only in a few places, the movie makes a strong statement against conformity and the franchising of America by celebrating a cast of characters and a storyline that don't fit into a mold."
3. Edward Scissorhands
21 Jump Street made Johnny Depp a household name, but heck, the show did the same thing for Richard Grieco; to really become a star, Depp needed to carry a film that really got people talking -- and he found that film in Edward Scissorhands, the December 1990 release that was the first of what would become many collaborations with director Tim Burton. He'd been in a handful of movies already, but Scissorhands was the one that really launched Depp's career; in fact, he embodied the role of the titular blade-fisted misfit so thoroughly that it's difficult to imagine how it could have been pulled off by any of the actors previously floated for it -- a list including famous names such as Robert Downey, Jr., William Hurt, Tom Cruise, and Michael Jackson. A critical as well as commercial hit, Edward Scissorhands set the tone for much of what was to come from both Burton and Depp, and won high marks from writers like the Washington Post's Desson Thomson, who noted, "Depp is perfectly cast, Burton builds a surrealistically funny cul-de-sac world, and there are some very funny performances from grownups Dianne Wiest, Kathy Baker and Alan Arkin."
2. Ed Wood
These days, you almost can't be an outsider artist of any real renown without having at least one reverent documentary to your name, but in the early '90s, it would not have been unreasonable to assume that any biopic about Ed Wood -- director of Plan 9 from Outer Space and other classics of unintentional humor -- would arrive on the screen drenched in irony and coated in arch wit. Not so 1994's Ed Wood, a loving tribute rendered by the hand of Tim Burton, whose reunion here with Johnny Depp helped the Edward Scissorhands star get over a boredom with acting that had begun to seep into his work. Burton's version of Wood didn't hew religiously close to the reported facts of the director's life -- and neither did the black-and-white production entice many filmgoers, racking up an appropriately Wood-sized $5.9 million gross -- but critics appreciated the silver lining Burton saw in a frequently derided career, not to mention the relentless (albeit blind) optimism with which the director and star imbued their subject. Rolling Stone's Peter Travers echoed the opinions of a majority of his peers when he wrote, "outrageously disjointed and just as outrageously entertaining, the picture stands as a successful outsider's tribute to a failed kindred spirit."
1. A Nightmare on Elm Street
Before he broke hearts as Tom Hanson on 21 Jump Street, Johnny Depp was one of Freddy Krueger's original victims, getting his first big break as Glen Lantz, the well-meaning but ultimately doomed boyfriend who tries to save Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) from the steel-tipped clutches of Springwood's least favorite resident. He was one of a handful of actors (including Kevin Bacon and Crispin Glover) to get a leg up in the '80s by taking an early paycheck for enduring a grisly on-screen demise, but Depp's Nightmare exit was particularly gruesome, ending with his perfect hair and cheekbones crushed into a horrific fountain of blood and guts. A Nightmare on Elm Street's legacy has been tainted somewhat by the downward spiral of sequels that followed it, but at the time, it was really a breath of fresh air for a genre that desperately needed one -- something Depp tacitly alluded to when he made a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo in 1991's alleged series-ender, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare. Despite subsequent installments' inability to recapture its gory glory -- and no matter how the pending reboot turns out -- the first Nightmare, in the words of ReelViews' James Berardinelli, "still stands on its own as an intrigui3ng and chilling example of how horror works best when the characters and the audience don't have to be lobotomized."
Take a look through Depp's complete filmography, as well as the rest of our Total Recall archives. And don't forget to check out the reviews for Public Enemies.
Finally, here's Depp in his breakthrough role on 21 Jump St. getting a motorcycle lesson:
Walken The Park on 07-2-2009 12:04 PM
Although it's a horror classic, I'm a little surprised "A Nightmare on Elm Street" scored as high as it did on the aggregate meter. It must have something to do with Robert Englund's holdover popularity from both "V" miniseries and his guest starring turn on a craptacular episode of "Knight Rider."