My continuing countdown of the Top 5 Most Underrated Actors Today

Drum roll please..... My NUMBER 1 PICK!

Sam Rockwell

So yes I do know this guy has done very few movies where he was a major actor in them. He is mainly known for being a character actor. But guess what? He is HUGELY underrated and has been in some excellent movies and he himself always brings a lot to the screen with his performances. So without further ado I am going to jump right into this one.

The first movie I want to talk about with this excellent actor is a film called Choke, based on a book by Chuck Palahniuk (the author of Fight Club as well). This one is kind of an odd choice for me to put on here, or to even mention I liked really. In fact, when I first heard about it, I thought I'd hate it. First of all, before even getting into this one, if you've read the book Choke and expect this to be an exact translation of it, skip to the next movie. Nothing I can say can make you like this movie if you want it to be exactly like the book. It is very little like it, sorry Palahniuk fans. The premise of this one is weird, but I'll do my best to explain it without giving away anything. Rockwell plays a man who is a sex addict who works as a "historical interpreter" (thats tour guide at one of those crappy places schools take trips to to learn about colonial times). By night though, he goes to restaurants, makes himself choke, and tricks the person who saves him into sending him money when he needs it. Kind of like that old adage of if you save a persons life you are responsible for them forever. As if this wasn't enough to entertain you, he also has a mother who has alzheimers in a very expensive hospital who lets it slip that he may or may not have divine heritage. That is where the movie gets a little weird, but a lot more interesting. The reason this movie is so great is because Rockwell starts off as this character that you couldn't care less for honestly. He is a liar, a con man, mean, and a degenerate. However, as the movie goes along, you start to see a different side of him, and he begins to become endearing, and actually have some depth in him. You start to not only care for him, but actually root for him to become this changed man that he is trying to mold himself into becoming. So check this one out, you might enjoy it.

Next up we have probably his most famous film to date, Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind. This one is just plain great. It is about the infamous Chuck Barris (played wonderfully by Rockwell), based on his autobiography. It starts off with a shot of Rockwells ass, unfortunately, and with him narrating. It goes on to shine some light onto his childhood, his middling years, and than his early years as an NBC page. Than it goes into how he got into TV and game shows in general. It goes through each of his various game shows and how he created them, how he became this legend in television and how he sort of disappeared. Oh, and it also gets into him being an assassin for the CIA. Did I forget to mention that? Yes, this movie goes on the assumption that that rumor is true, and that Barris was a killer for the government. This is really where the real meat of the film is in all honesty. His career in television is definitely expanded upon a lot more than I ever knew about it, however, it is just a background for the rest of his escapades. He was a womanizer, he cheated on his girlfriend for years. He also lied to everyone around him constantly, became extremely paranoid that everyone was going to kill him, and finally ended up leaving that end of things after everyone around him was killed. There is a great performance brought in by George Clooney (the director of the film as well) as Barris' handler. But Rockwell is the one who shines all throughout this movie. He never once fails to steal the scenes he is in, and always successfully makes the scenes that other actors may have made tragic or boring into comedic pieces and makes them work better that way as well. With the scenes that may have otherwise been farcical and boring he brings life and a certain level of tragedy to them. This movie never fails to stay interesting, and always brings you back into it when you might have started to lose interest thanks to Sam Rockwell's wonderful performance. Definitely a must see for anyone who is a fan of the spy genre, the black comedy genre, or remembers when Chuck Barris was releasing all of his insane gameshows.

Well now its time for my honorable mentions. The Heist (fantastic heist movie, Rockwell has a small part, this one is really Gene Hackman's movie though), Gentlemen Broncos (this one really defies explanation, just watch it and enjoy it especially if you ever wanted to write a science fiction novel), Galaxy Quest (just a great comedy that does for Star Trek what Sean Of The Dead did for zombie movies), and Safe Men (great little indie flick with Rockwell and Steve Zahn as inept thieves that have more luck than brains, just a great comedy). Thats all for now folks, hope you enjoyed my list and perhaps you'll agree with me after seeing a few of these films I've mentioned in this one and the others that these all are extremely underrated actors. You keep reading them, and I'll keep writing them.