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De Niro

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While I've liked Al Pacino in a great many of his movies, both "Godfather" and non, I do believe that Robert De Niro has been the better, more versatile actor.

To me, Al Pacino's most emblematic role, one that absolutely no one else could play as well as he, was that of Satan in the "Devil's Advocate." Every other role that he's played, even that of Michael Corleone in the "Godfather" movies has been, in my eyes, derivative of that role. Is Al Pacino evil? No. However, he plays Evil Men (Scarface, Tony D'Amato of "Any Given Sunday" and of course Michael Corleone, especially in "God Father II") better than anyone. But that's part of the problem. Even when he plays the "good guy" as in the thriller "Insomnia" where plays the detective Will Dormer, he plays him with "evil" (relentless) characteristics. The man is a genius, but he's stuck playing basically one role - Jack Nicholson with a thinner build.

Robert De Niro, on the other hand, has been able to play convincingly a far wider spectrum of roles. Yes, he's played mobsters, but he's also played priests (Father Bobby in "Sleepers"), an over protective father ("Meet the Parents/Fockers"), psychiatric patients (in "Awakenings"), lovable convicts (in "We're no Angels"), military officers ("Men of Honor"). Even within the role of the mobster, he's played a range, from figure of history Al Capone ("The Untouchables") to the fictional mobsters like the young Vito Corleone ("God Father II") the Jewish mobster Sam Rothstein ("Casino") the lovable neurotic mobster Paul Viti ("Analyze This/That") who served as a lighter precursor to another shrink visiting mobster Tony Soprano that made James Gandolfini's career. I do hope that Gandolfini's paid the "proper respect" to Robert De Niro for paving his way to that seminal role.

In all, Al Pacino generally plays driven, largely unreflective and as a result frightening characters, whose motivations we do not understand (and therefore fear). Robert De Niro, by contrast, almost always plays characters who we come to understand, at least in part, and often even sympathize with. Even in playing Al Capone (in the "Untouchables") Robert De Niro was able to "fun guy" aspect of his character that made the historical Al Capone as much of an item in the 1920s-30s Chicago press as he was. If "Satan" was Al Pacino's emblematic role, then the convict "Ned" in "We're no Angels" is emblematic of Robert De Niro's roles.

Al Pacino has always played Evil to its logical conclusion. Even the basest of Robert De Niro's characters almost always had some redeeming dimension to them. The sole exception that I can think of, is De Niro's "Max Cady" from the remake of "Cape Fear."

I suppose, in the end one's asked to choose between Pacino's driven fatalism and De Niro's redemptive optimism. If I'm going to spend $8-10 on a movie ... 9 our of 10 times, I'll pick redemptive optimism (yes, the "feel good movie") to the "life _does_ suck" message of unredemptive fatalism.

Learn more about this author, Dennis Kriz.
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