Al Pacino has featured in many spectacular films. The Godfather, Smell of A Lady, Scarface, Donnie Brasco and Heat to name just a few.
He exploded onto the film scene with the cult film Scarface. He played a maniacal South American drug dealer who went out in a hail of bullets. This filmed is adored and hated both by picture admirers and critics.
The fans who adore it claim it is a tour de force, people who do not like it claim it's an over acted hammy performance. Whatever view you take, or have on Al Pacino, he is a bigger than life actor.
It looks to be his character. He does not play shy, humble, subdued character portrayals. Everything is loud, shouted, gestured, maybe very similar to his Italian American background.
The thing is when Al goes ott he doesn't hold back. Whether that makes him a good or bad actor I'm not sure. He becomes lost in the task, lost in the personality, submerged in the instant; is this not what great acting is all about?
There is a fine line between a great performance and a hammy acting job. Pacino appears to straddle this line, but always erring on the great performance side. As he has a belief in himself that much, his uber confidence appears to make the characters believable.
In the 1995 Michael Mann film Heat, he plays opposite another leading man legend, Robert De Niro. It was actually the first time the 2 actors had ever played against one another. Both are famed for giving robust, confident performances. It was fascinating to see what the chemistry was like in this film. It was electrifying.
In the famous coffee bar scene they sat across one another in a caf booth. Not one of them seemed disturbed by the other’s persona. De Niro comes out robust willed and nefarious, and Pacino exuberates calm and confidence. If it was any actor portraying his larger than life picture screen persona’s it might be either comedy or pastiche, but Pacino often plays it to a T.
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