Don't you think Brad Pitt's is the worst actor ever ??

[Laura PourMeADrink]

18. One critic's take on Pitt in 12 Years.

15) The character, on the other hand, that stands out most in Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave is Bass, played by Brad Pitt. I saw somewhere that Brad Pitt suffers some disease where he can’t remember people’s faces and from the way his face looks in 12 Years a Slave (lost, blank, zero) I can totally believe it. Even most of the film’s most glowing reviews set aside a caveat for the “misstep” of casting Brad Pitt (one of the film’s co-producers) as Bass:

“The one flaw with “Slave” comes in the form of Brad Pitt’s character, Samuel Bass, and you sense screenwriter John Ridley struggling to further the story along with Pitt’s abolitionist from Canada. While Pitt is fine, his dialogue is stiff, intended to be the bridge for the next development. Fortunately, it doesn’t diminish the film’s overall effect” (Randy Myers in the San Jose Mercury News).

16) Okay, I’m sure you’ll be relieved to hear, now, that I’m joking about Brad Pitt (Bass) being the most memorable character in a movie made of such an ensemble of skillfully-realized characters who either inflict or endure such horrors and evils. (This is a movie, after all, about Slavery). I mean, c’mon, I must be joking. Well, I am not joking. Up to the Pitt debacle 12 Years a Slave had built up quite a bit of gravitas (a kind of dark ice itself) which then gets smashed to pieces by the awkward and laughable Brad Pitt character.

(Pitt is listed as one of the film’s co-producers and how ironic to see the star of the movie, Chiwetel Ejiofor, quoted as follows: “I think the truth is we wouldn’t have been able to make this film without Brad Pitt, because of what he brings.”)

17) Yes, the Brad Pitt/Bass deal is a complete fiasco. As the movie looks to wrap itself up, looks to move Solomon back to his family up North, any continuity of immersion within the narrative (strained at times anyways) is wrecked by Pitt, like a teddy-bear landmine. And most critics are aware of the Pitt disaster (aware also of the movie’s problems as a “movie”) but in an amazing trick of double think (a strange binary) they don’t allow any of this to dull the movie’s Oscar glow at all. (on the contrary, the community of critics as a whole are actively buffing up its Oscar glow).