The Best and Worst of Matt Damon (2019)

“The Best and Worst of” series chronicles the career highlights and lowlights of an actor starring in one of the week's new theatrical releases. This week, I take a look at the filmography of “Ford v. Ferrari” star Matt Damon.

Films starring Matt Damon that I've seen:
Chasing Amy
Good Will Hunting
Rounders
Saving Private Ryan
Dogma 
Titan A.E.
The Legend of Bagger Vance
Ocean's Eleven
The Bourne Identity
Stuck on You
The Bourne Supremacy
Ocean's Twelve 
The Departed
Ocean's Thirteen
The Bourne Ultimatum 
The Informant!
Green Zone
True Grit
The Adjustment Bureau
Contagion
We Bought a Zoo
Elysium
The Monuments Men
Interstellar  
The Martian 
Jason Bourne
The Great Wall

Best Performance: Good Will Hunting (1997)
As cliché as it to be a Massachusetts resident and pick one of Damon's Bostonian characters as his best performance, I can't ignore how highly I regard his performance in Good Will Hunting. Hot headed MIT janitor/incognito mathematical genius Will Hunting is the perfect showcase of the raw emotional edge, smartass snark and irresistible magnetism that has made Damon one of the finest actors to enter the industry over the last 25 years.

Worst Performance: Jason Bourne (2016)
Damon had walked away from playing this pretty famous character for nine years before returning for Jason Bourne. Considering the visible lack of effort he displayed here, he should've stayed retired. Even when he's engaged in one of the franchise's famous shaky cam-aided fight scenes, Damon looks disinterested and borderline ashamed to be back playing the globe-trotting, genetically-enhanced spy. 

Best Film: The Departed (2006)
Thanks to the buzz surrounding Martin Scorsese's The Irishman, I've been thinking a lot about The Departed lately. Perfection is something that I feel is damn near impossible to achieve in art yet The Departed makes it look like the easiest thing in the world. The story is packed with detail without ever becoming confusing, the characters are vivid, the acting is astounding and the payoff of this complex crime saga hits like a god damn jackhammer. Even in a filmography that is as packed with timeless gems as Scorsese's, this remains my clear favorite work of his.

Worst Film: Ocean's Twelve (2004) 
While Ocean's Eleven is lightyears ahead of the rest of the installments, there's a sense of breezy fun that sits at the core of every entry in this heist franchise. Absolutely none of that lighthearted entertainment made into Ocean's Twelve. This labored, staggeringly dull caper flick felt like a kid having a temper tantrum in the latter stages of a great birthday party and subsequently sucking up whatever joy had been in the room prior to that unexpected outburst.   

Thank you for reading this week's edition of “The Best and Worst of”. The next victim of my praise and ire will be “21 Bridges” star Keith David.