Where Have You Gone John Turturro?

If it were the year 2000, John Turturro would be considered my favorite actor. Turturro had great performances in Rounders and the The Big Lebowski, both in 1998 and what I see to be his best performance to date in Quiz Show, which was made in 1995. Quiz Show is one of my all time favorite films, and that has much to do with Turturro's performance (along with Rob Morrow's). What made Turturro so great in this role was his ability to literally become Herbert Stempel, who was a real life game show contestant on the show "21". He was fed answers to questions and then pushed out when the show found a more captivating contestant (Charles Van Doren). Now, I've never seen clips of the real Stempel, but from what I read about who he was and how he acted, the portrayal is golden. Geeky, comedic, and scene-stealing is how I would describe the performance. With lines like "You wanna be worshipped? Go to India and moo." you can't help but love and feel sorry for Stempel when everything and everybody is against him.

The year of 1998 was a big year for Turturro with roles in Rounders and The Big Lebowski. The role I am going to focus on is that of "Joey Knish" (yes, he playing a Jewish man, as he does in Quiz Show) in Rounders. Knish is a veteran poker player and mentor to Mike McDermott (played by Matt Damon), who is having struggles with the world of poker. Tuturro doesn't get as much screentime as I would like, but he certainly stands out. The speech Knish gives McDermott in the Turkish bathhouse is subtly spoken, yet very powerful, powerful enough to make me question the idiotic things I have done in life.

However, since 2000 it seems John Turturro has downshifted gears, trying for more comedy than drama in films like Mr. Deeds and Don't Mess with the Zohan. Both of these films in my opinion fizzled (perhaps because both were with Adam Sandler?). The only particularly good performance I felt Turturro gave in this decade was in "The Bronx is Burning", where he portrayed Billy Martin. Don't get me wrong, I like the movie Transformers, it's just that I didn't feel the performances in that movie as a whole were particularly strong.

I still do consider Turturro to be one of my favorite actors, because nothing can take away his past work, and I know he still has the talent to be a great actor. He must stick with what made him great, which is dramatic roles. Nevertheless, the poor script choice of Turturro has led me to ask where have you gone?