Welcome to "Ranked", a weekly series where I rank a franchise or filmography from worst to best and hand out assorted related superlatives. This week, I'm profiling the work of Scott Cooper-whose latest project "Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere" is in theaters today.
Scott Cooper's Filmography Ranked:
6.The Pale Blue Eye (D)
5.Antlers (C+)
4.Black Mass (B-)
3.Out of the Furnace (B)
2.Hostiles (B)
1.Crazy Heart (B)
Top Dog: Crazy Heart (2009)
Cooper's debut feature remains his best work. Jeff Bridges' Oscar was well-earned as he brings a tremendous amount of gravitas and vulnerability to the character of Otis "Bad" Blake, an alcoholic washed-up country singer who starts to regain his zest for life after entering a relationship with a divorced journalist (Maggie Gyllenhaal)-that makes the film's pretty routine "burnout musician seeks redemption after decades of neglecting his loved ones, self-medicating with substances and letting his ego drive his career into the ground" narrative easy to overlook.
Bottom Feeder: The Pale Blue Eye (2022)
As the rankings above indicate, I've never loved any of Cooper's movies and have largely viewed him as not much more than a competent storyteller with a solid visual eye and an ability to get good performances out of his actors. At the same time, I also thought his work was steady enough on the whole that I'd never hate one of his movies. That changed earlier this week when I finally caught The Pale Blue Eye on Netflix. This period whodunit effectively serves as a tutorial on how not to make an entry in the genre as the film's central mystery is an uneventful snoozefest right up until the point where it suddenly gets deeply ridiculous when the truth comes out with 35 minutes or so left and Cooper's direction has absolutely zero gloom or style behind it despite being a gothic-inspired story that features a fictionalized version of Edgar Allan Poe as a main character (bless Henry Melling for trying, but he was woefully miscast in the role of the legendary poet). Even the typically great Christan Bale gets dragged down by the immense sleepiness and stupidity of this affair and gives one of the most forgettable performances of his career thus far. Springsteen has to be better than this shit, right? Right? Right?
Most Underrated: Hostiles (2017)
While the film is never able to match the unflinching brutality and intensity of its tremendous opening sequence, Hostiles is a solid western drama full of excellent understated performances, beautiful visuals and an honest and solemn albeit pretty obvious acknowledgement of how the ignorance of not truly knowing your perceived enemy is a crucial component in the epidemic of violent systematic hatred that has plagued humanity for centuries (in this case, it's a United States Army platoon and the Cheyenne War Chief they fought against in the Great Sioux War of 1876).
Most Overrated: Black Mass (2015)
Black Mass isn't exactly viewed as a mob movie classic, but I still feel like there's too much praise heaped on this movie (probably because I live close enough to Boston that I know enough people that feel some type of way about prolific mob boss Whitey Bulger). Nothing about Black Mass is truly bad per say, there's just only so much mileage you can get from Johnny Depp's shameless scenery chewing as Bulger (I get this was the only time he actually tried to act from the late 2000's to now, but good lord he truly hasn't done anything besides be a fucking caricature since he first played Jack Sparrow 22 years ago) and a by-the-numbers ruthless mobster emboldened by the corrupt feds vs. the honest feds plot that never quite beats its Goodfellas knock-off allegations.
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