Matt Damon as Bill Baker wearing a hat and speaking to someone in Stillwater – Focus Features
Even if you’re an incredibly talented actor, it takes a remarkable amount of luck to become a bona fide movie star. So, it’s astonishing that childhood best friends Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, who grew up down the street from each other in Cambridge, Massachusetts, wound up becoming two of the biggest film stars in Hollywood.
It’s been almost 30 years since they won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for “Good Will Hunting,” and they’re as in demand as ever. Even better, after decades of working separately, they’ve re-teamed three times over the last five years between Ridley Scott’s “The Last Duel,” Affleck’s “Air,” and Joe Carnahan’s “The Rip.” It’s the filmmaking bromance of our time! And while they seem to take great pleasure in ribbing each other, they can also be quite earnest when praising one another’s performances. Damon, for instance, is on the record as being a huge fan of Affleck’s superb portrayal of a vengeful Wall Street attorney (opposite an equally great Samuel L. Jackson) in “Changing Lanes,” as well as his harrowing turn as an alcoholic high school basketball coach in “The Way Back” (via Entertainment Weekly).
As for Affleck, he told USA Today he’s a fan of Damon’s work in three underrated movies: He loves his buddy in Steven Soderbergh’s “The Informant!” and Robert De Niro’s “The Good Shepherd,” but he thinks he was especially “incredible” in Tom McCarthy’s surprising drama “Stillwater.” As he put it:
“Matt in ‘Stillwater’ is incredible. ‘The Informant!’ isn’t always talked about, and ‘The Good Shepherd’ is a really exquisite movie. It’s a very subtle, very quiet but really piercing examination of the intelligence service in American history. I find it really beautiful. I’m a fan.”
Affleck’s assessment of Damon in “Stillwater,” in particular, is spot-on.
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Matt Damon deserved an Oscar nomination for Stillwater
Matt Damon as Bill Baker walks down a Marseille street in Stillwater – Jessica Forde/Focus Features
I consider all three of the films that Ben Affleck mentioned to be great movies, but Matt Damon playing a down-on-his-luck roughneck trying to exonerate his daughter of murder in “Stillwater” is the star at his rawest. The film is loosely based on the Amanda Knox case (much to Knox’s chagrin). Abigail Breslin co-stars as Damon’s on screen daughter, who has already served five years of a nine-year prison sentence in France for having killed her roommate/girlfriend when the film picks up. Damon’s character, Bill Baker, has come to believe in his daughter’s innocence, however, and he winds up investigating the case by himself.
Tom McCarthy, a true actor’s director (he’s probably the closest thing we’ve got to a Sidney Lumet these days), elicits a finely shaded performance from Damon; he’s a red-state Christian out of his element, but the righteousness of his mission, and his need to receive assistance from unlikely allies, leaves him emotionally vulnerable. You might think you’ve got this guy pegged early on, but Damon finds unexpected levels of sophistication and grace in his character. I’m not sure the actor will ever top his portrayal of the sociopathic protagonist in “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” but he comes close here.
You should also add “The Informant!” and “The Good Shepherd” to your viewing queue. I’m still stunned that the latter failed to catch on during the 2006 awards season. And “The Informant!” is a fascinating, queasily hilarious tale of a troubled corporate whistleblower who wrecks his life after doing the right thing. It’s infuriating that Damon somehow failed to earn Oscar nominations for any of these movies.
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