Nominate the Great 'Could Have Been' actors/actresses of all time!

I pretty much agree with everything you say, Holden, in the opening paragraph, except that when I saw D.B. Cooper at a sneak preview, I liked it. I think I've only seen it once since though and that was over 20 years ago. Williams and Laura Dern were a superb team in that scene in Smooth Talk, especially where he literally performs the title and tries to get her to open that screen door. He could have just kicked down the door, but then he wouldn't have been so smooth or so scary.

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I hadn't seen it since it played on cable TV in the early 1980s, but I rented it a few months ago: not good. You would think D.B. Cooper + Treat Williams + Bobby Duvall would = a good time, but it's really a flat, wasted opportunity. I found, anyway. Roger Spottiswoode is the credited director, but apparently only after both John Frankenheimer and Buzz Kulik were fired/quit/whatever at various stages of the production. It has that feeling of too many cooks in the kitchen throughout, and since it was being played as a sort of satirical comedy it really required a delicate touch and unified vision - both of which I found severely lacking in the finished project. Had somebody like say Michael Ritchie had this from script through editing, the raw material and cast could have made for a keeper. As is...notsomuch.



In any event, it was a bomb financially and critically, which is the real point in regards to Treat's hopes of becoming a movie star.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

Emilio Estevez was mentioned earlier but his role in The Breakfast Club was surely overshadowed by Judd Nelson. After that performance many people thought that he was going to be a great actor in the years to come but it never happened again; he performed perfectly, reasonably well in the movies which followed but never got anywhere near the standard of his role as John Bender. Maybe he was just given the perfect role for his particular acting abilities.

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Michael Madsen is already very famous, and still working to this day. You should see the number of films he has under his belt right now...

Michael Biehn. He never really made it big, even though he very well should've. Fantastic acting. I'd like to see him make a comeback.