Bruce Willis - Underrated

Dave

Dave

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I was watching Mercury Rising and it struck me that Bruce has been in some of my favourite Sci-Fi films - Twelve Monkeys, Sixth Sense, The Fifth Element, Unbreakable not to mention some of the best action films - Die Hard 1-4 and also in Pulp Fiction. I also have a shameful secret to tell - I quiet like the Look Who's Talking films too.

We have threads here on other action heroes - Arnold Schwarzenegger - but Bruce's comedies are funnier and he's far tougher. And he's always suffered some tragedy, or has lost something or had a crisis of confidence or conscience that metro-sexual men can relate to and who women want to mother.

The only action film actor who can rival him on comedies and toughness is Clint Eastwood. And the only SciFi film I can remember him doing was Space Cowboys.

So, I think he is hugely underrated.
 
Agreed. I love Bruce Willis. The Die Hard movies are brilliant (well, the first and third, definitely), and the SF films you list are great as well. Look Who's Talking...? Well, not so much. Though my wife does love them.
 
I agree, any Bruce Willis film is worth watching.

I always remember me and the missus, accompanied by a couple or three of bottles of wine, several packets of nibbles, watched Die Hard 1 one Sat night.

At the time it was the best film we'd ever watched.

Keep'em coming Bruce.:)
 
Leave us not forget Moonlighting :)

Actually, I never saw Moonlighting, but someone evidently thought he'd served his apprenticeship well.
 
I think Moonlighting might be his problem. There is nothing wrong with an apprenticeship in a TV series. Clint Eastwood did his in Rawhide. Arny was a bodybuilder!!! People conveniently forget that, but for some reason, Bruce is forever associated with Moonlighting. I think I only saw it a couple of times; eminently forgettable; maybe it was more popular in the US than the UK.
 
But he did do the time-travel fantasy called The Kid, and was convincing in that, too. It suffered from being emblazoned "Disney's - The Kid' and at my local cinema they assumed it was for littluns, and only put it on in the afternoon...:eek:
 
My wife has the complete Miami Vice on DVD and it was a surprise to see Bruce appear as a drug dealer. Jerry Doyle from Babylon 5 was often called the poor mans Bruce Willis, and it's funny to see that his first TV role was on Moonlighting as a David Addison (Bruce Willis) Wannabe.
 
There's a really underrated Usual Suspects-style crime thriller that he's in that almost nobody saw... it's called Lucky Number Slevin. Bruce is great in it, as are Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley. Even Josh Hartnett surprised me as the lead. It's worth watching.

I must have been too young for Moonlighting luckily. I really know him from Pulp Fiction and Die Hard first.
 
I can't believe no one has mentioned Sin City! John Hartigan is one of my favorite characters from any comic, and Bruce Willis was born to play him. And the last movie he was in, Red, was awesome also. I thought it would be a typical action/edge of your seats thing, but it had a lot of comedy in it and didn't race through the plot with explosions and needless fights.
 
Yeah he was tops in Sin City and 12 Monkeys (also Brad Pitt's best performance by far), but my favourite Bruce is definitely on Friends.

"You are THE Man .. you're just a love machine"
 
Brucie is definately underrated. SF wise, he put in a really great turn in the Fifth Element and i don't think that there are many that would've done better in 12 Monkeys.

the first Die Hard remains one of the best action movies out there. (Although in fairness, Alan Rickman was superb. :) )
 
I was lass than super-impressed by Sin City, have to say. Pity cos I really wanted to love it. I don't think it taxed Willis' range too much. Twelve Monkeys is, I suspect, pretty close to a coming-of-age watershed for Bruce, though. An eye-opener. And a damned fine film, to boot :)

Fifth Element ... meh.

The Die Hard series is my guilty junk-food :)
 
Bruce Willis is one of those few actors who's movies I will happily watch. One of my favourites, which hasn't been mentioned here, is Hudson Hawk, I know many don't rate it, but I like its silliness.

The only movie of his which I did not thoroughly enjoy was Unbreakable, but that was to do with the script.
 
I own the Die Hard dvd's and Bruce Willis is always consistently good, the only movies I hated was The Whole 9/10 Yards. Those were very horrible movies. I also thought Ocean's Twelve was a load of crap.
 
soulsinging said:
There's a really underrated Usual Suspects-style crime thriller that he's in that almost nobody saw... it's called Lucky Number Slevin. Bruce is great in it, as are Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley. Even Josh Hartnett surprised me as the lead. It's worth watching.
Click to expand...
I agree with the sentiment; well worth a viewing.

Bruce Willis appears in quite a lot of the "fun" films I enjoy watching, and that isn't an accident.
 
I never really thought about it, but I guess Bruce Willis has made some pretty great movies. I've seen The Fifth Element 4-5 times and it was entertaining every time.
 
Other good ones:

The Whole Nine Yards
Death Becomes Her
Blind Date
Sunset

Not so much:

The Siege
Mortal Thoughts
Color Of Night
 
Last Man Standing (1996) was my favorite movie that he starred in, and it was a remake of Akira Kurosawa's movie Yojimbo (1961). And yes, I liked the Die Hard movies too.
 
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