Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe are one of Hollywood's most notable director-actor collaborators, but in addition to their universally praised masterpiece movies, they've also made critically panned, instantly forgettable duds. After receiving some of the best reviews of their respective careers for Gladiator, Scott and Crowe reunited and received some of their worst for the romantic comedy A Good Year.
The director and star were woefully mismatched with the schmaltzy rom-com genre. Scott is known for tackling dark, cynical material and Crowe is known for playing brooding antiheroes. They both stepped outside their comfort zone for A Good Year and the gamble didn’t pay off. On top of that, the listless, uneventful narrative of the book didn’t translate too well into the more lively and energetic medium of film.
Unfortunately, Robin Hood’s star-studded cast is let down by a weak script and a joyless tone. Movies that are driven by action like this one need to have fun with it. There are some masterfully crafted action sequences – Scott is a master of building tension, as famously seen in Alien's intro, and covering the geography of his set pieces – but they’re too dull and dreary to elicit real excitement from viewers. Both critics and audiences were underwhelmed by Robin Hood.
2 American Gangster Scott’s biopic of drug kingpin Frank Lucas, American Gangster, earned an impressive 81% approval score on Rotten Tomatoes and an admirable 7.8 rating on IMDb. This is Scott’s captivating take on a rise-and-fall gangster saga like Goodfellas or Scarface. American Gangster charts Lucas’ rise to power, from working as the right-hand man to a Harlem mob boss to smuggling heroin into the United States aboard American service planes on their way back from Vietnam.