Looking for something new to binge-watch, my wife and I gave the Apple TV+ series “Dope Thief” a try. It had an interesting premise: longtime friends Ray (Brian Tyree Henry) and Manny (Wagner Moura) pretend to be DEA agents while they rob small-time dealers, taking their money and drugs.
That was enough to hook us in the first episode, with both actors (especially Henry) a pleasure to watch. When Ray and Manny get a tip about a house outside the city where somebody’s cooking meth, even though they’d never pulled a job in a rural area, they go. And find themselves in some big time trouble.
Again, good premise, well executed. So far.
Unfortunately, from that point on, the show consists almost entirely of characters yelling at each other. Not just Ray and Manny. Ray and his mother (Kate Mulgrew). Ray and his incarcerated father (Ving Rhames). Manny and his girlfriend (Liz Sierra). None of them has a calm, rational tone. They’re always shouting.
When this headache-inducing trend continued into the third episode, we gave up on “Dope Thief.” It’s too bad, because there’s apparently a subplot involving the gifted character actress Marin Ireland, who was so good in “Sneaky Pete” and “Hell Or High Water.” But it had barely been developed by the time we threw in the towel.
The bellowing and screaming in “Dope Thief” reminded me of the 2020 Adam Sandler movie, “Uncut Gems.” In my review, I wrote:
The good news about “Uncut Gems” is that it’s not a comedy, so Sandler can’t rely on his usual immature schtick. The bad news is that, without that safety net, his only apparent acting option is to deliver every line at top volume. So does most of the rest of the cast. I can’t remember hearing so much shouting in every scene of a movie — to the point where it overwhelms the plot and gives us no one to root for, least of all Sandler’s character.
I said something similar last week in my review of “Anora,” in which more than half of the movie has Mikey Madison either yelling at someone or being yelled at.
This is not a modern phenomenon. Movies like “War Of The Roses” and “Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?” were uncomfortable shout-fests that were no fun to sit through. We recently watched (and disliked) 1948’s “Sorry, Wrong Number,” in which Barbara Stanwyck (who was so good in so many other movies) overacts dreadfully, screaming her way through much of it.
Being loud is not the same as acting well. Think of great performances in which actors stayed calm, never raised their voices, used measured tones, and were still as intense and intimidating as hell. A half-dozen examples: Kathy Bates in “Misery,” Javier Bardem in “No Country For Old Men,” Anthony Perkins in “Psycho,” Louise Fletcher in “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,” Anthony Hopkins in “Silence Of The Lambs.” Just thinking about them makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
I’m reminded of a story Jack Lemmon told about one of his first film jobs, in which he was anxious to learn from the great director George Cukor. At some point, after a take, Cukor called Lemmon over. Anticipating some brilliant note, Lemmon was surprised when all Cukor said was, “Less, Jack, less.” Lemmon nodded his head, thought about it, went back and did another take, after which Cukor called him over again with the same instruction: “Less.” After the third or fourth time, Lemmon said, “George, if I do any less, I won’t be doing anything at all!” Cukor replied, “Exactly! That’s what I want!”
If only contemporary filmmakers would offer the same acting tip to their casts, and add one more word: “Quieter.”