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Ryan Reynolds has had an intriguing acting career thus far. He's a hugely popular and easy-to-love character, but until Deadpool came along, that "iconic role" remained elusive.
Throughout his career, he's played a variety of roles, from romantic leads to wisecracking comedic foils to, yes, superheroes. Still, he's given numerous fascinating and memorable performances that tend to go unnoticed.
Undoubtedly, Reynolds has a slew of great, humorous, yet largely underappreciated performances in his bucket. We'd like to take this occasion to highlight some of his other outstanding work.
Five Ryan Reynolds films that are quite underrated
1) Mississippi Grind
Mississippi Grind tells the story of Curtis and Gerry, two hopeless gamblers played by Ryan Reynolds and Ben Mendelsohn. They embark on a journey across the south, searching for financial salvation rather than the other kind.
The film's wounded spirit belongs to Mendelsohn, but Reynolds is a vital counterpoint, symbolizing the born gambler's anguished charm.
Rather than portraying his character's luck as a supernatural gift, Ryan Reynolds lets a lot of himself shine through in the role, the type of person who has a knack for persuading strangers and friends to open up and chat honestly.
Reynolds evinces an encompassing, gloomy vision of the capricious, unexplained nature of the opportunity, accompanied by Mendelsohn, who is silent and secretive, and pulls out a tremendous degree of compassion in a character who could have come across as little more real than a Leprechaun.
2) Just Friends
Reynolds is a perfect fit for the role of a formerly chubby, sensitive type who is now a trim, successful music producer in Just Friends. The dichotomy between his impossibly good looks and goofy comedic sensibility is put to good use.
With a spin on a Britney Spears-like pop sensation, Anna Faris also does a tremendous job, and she and Reynolds have fantastic chemistry. Reynolds' physical comedic skills are put to good use in the picture, which also highlights his knack for impeccable timing, particularly in the running gag with his character's brother.
The lip-sync to I Swear is the perfect ending to this funny, sweet, and immensely hilarious comedy.
3) Buried
Rodrigo Cortes plays a contractor who has been buried alive for unexplained reasons in this terrifying film. Ryan Reynolds creates a variety of linguistic and physical techniques to meet Cortes' sequence of esthetic tests, from the use of a flashing cellphone to the terror of a dark screen accompanied only by pants, moans, screams, and pleas, the picture is essentially a duet.
The miraculous thing about this mini-thriller is that by the end, Cortes and Ryan Reynolds have pushed the material beyond mere narrative trickery. They create a strangely effective study of dread and death that never overplays the situation's helplessness, instead focusing on the inventiveness of the human mind in crisis.
4) Adventureland
Few coming-of-age pictures can match Greg Mottola's Adventureland for intimacy, desire, and perplexity. The caustic woman who bewitches Jesse Eisenberg's character is played by Kristen Stewart, and their stumbling romance takes up the majority of the film, with Reynolds portraying one of their major roadblocks.
In this performance, Ryan Reynolds is quieter than normal. The actor hints at the life of a former high-school idol, where a fear of the world outside of one's hometown has curdled into apathy and cynicism, with little more than delivery and subtle body.
He's still flirting with other young ladies and repeating a bunko story about meeting Lou Reed when we last saw him, and this is where Mottola decides to end his story, locked in a never-ending loop.
5) The Voices
The Voices, directed by Marjane Satrapi, is a deliciously wacky dark comedy about a mild-mannered man who not only has long chats with his dog and cat but also has a habit of murdering others around him after being urged to do so by these animals.
Ryan Reynolds brilliantly balances sadness and disgust, as the film is almost entirely told from the perspective of his twisted character.
Ryan Reynolds is charming, amusing, terrible, nasty, and helpless all at once. In addition to brilliantly portraying the principal character, he also gives voice to his adoring dog and naughty cat.
Note: This article reflects the author's views.
