The top 5 actors of the 21st century

Great acting is everywhere in film. You’d be hard-pressed to find a bad actor in today’s movie landscape. The hard part is separating the great from the special, but that’s what I’m going to do.

Here are the top five actors of the 21st century.

5. Keanu Reeves

After dropping Speed in 1994 and The Matrix in 1999, Keanu limped into the early 2000’s. Although he would return as Neo in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, they didn’t have nearly as big of an impact as the original masterpiece. It had seemed that Reeves had lost his groove. That was until John Wick dropped from action-movie heaven in 2014. John Wick is an ex-hitman that gets sucked out of retirement after a group of Russian thugs steal his classic mustang and his dog, which was a final gift from his dying wife. It’s fast paced, R-rated in every way, and it will go on to join The Matrix as one of his career-defining moments. After releasing John Wick: Chapter 2 in 2017, John Wick: Chapter 3 arrives in 2019 to wrap up what some critics might end up calling the best action movie trilogy of all time.

4. Leonardo DiCaprio

After winning the ever-elusive Oscar for The Revenant (2016), Leonardo DiCaprio seems to have finally hit his stride. But that’s the thing: he’s always been this good. He’s just finally getting recognized for his talent. From Django Unchained to Inception to Wolf of Wall Street, DiCaprio has rarely missed during this century. Although he won a well-deserved Oscar for his stellar performance in The Revenant, it should have happened even earlier with his flawless performance in the movie about heists of the mind: Inception.

3. Jake Gyllenhaal 

Jake Gyllenhaal was somewhat of a dark-horse candidate when I was sifting through possible actors for this list. But you can’t argue with a resume that includes the triple threat of Prisoners, Enemy, and Night Crawler, there was no way he wasn’t making this list. zero. After delivering an incredibly impactful performance in the crime-thriller Night Crawler, Jake is just getting started.

2. Matthew McConaughey

“Alright, alright, alright.”

25 years after this line was said in Matthew’s 1993 hit Dazed and Confused, it can be used again to celebrate the state of his career. After starring in Dallas Buyers Club in 2013 and Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar in 2014, his stock is at an all time high. Both movies couldn’t be more different. The former is about a man who has 30 days to live after finding out he has AIDS, and the latter is about a NASA pilot who has to enter a wormhole in order to find a new home for the people on earth. Both movies are so different, but if one thing ties them together, it’s the emotion that McConaughey conveys. He’s as versatile an actor as there is in movies, and he’s just getting started.

1. Tom Hardy

Possibly the most talented actor in the business, Tom Hardy has starred in huge roles in the following movies since 2010: Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant, and Dunkirk. Let that sink in. There is not one resume in the movie business loaded with more hits than Tom Hardy’s. He has proven that you can deliver an award-winning performance even while wearing a mask. He did this in The Dark Knight Rises as Bane, in Mad Max: Fury Road as Max, and in Dunkirk as a pilot. He acts with his eyes in these movies more than anything, conveying emotion, rage, and focus armed with less than the majority of actors, but it doesn’t matter. He’s just that good.

Prisoners review

Hugh Jackman (Keller Dover) plays a traditional American father in Prisoners, ditching the claws and sideburns that continue to define his career. But after his daughter and her friend are kidnapped on Thanksgiving Day, Jackman is filled with no- less rage than the iconic Wolverine. In a bid to uncover the clues and find the two missing girls, esteemed detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) is thrown into a massive statewide search. Prisoners is not a fun movie. It’s real, its raw, its terrifying and you’ll feel its punch long after you finish watching it.

Director Denis Villeneuve never misses, it seems. Arrival, Sicario, Enemy, and, most recently, Blade Runner 2049 all showcase what film was made for: to make us feel. In every one of his films, he hits different buttons and tugs at different heart strings that really make you think and analyze. He challenges us to piece together the puzzle. Denis’ best trait as a director, in my eyes, is his respect for his viewers. He doesn’t dumb down the plot or the message for the sake of accessibility. In typical Denis fashion, Prisoners is unpredictable in its plot setup, and powerful in its message. Your heart won’t stop racing, and your goosebumps won’t cease. And by the end of it, you will most definitely have more sympathy for the families who suffer kidnappings. It really sheds light on the nightmares that families endure when a tragedy like this strikes. The movie takes place over the course of about a week, but it feels like an eternity. Every second matters. If you’re a parent, Prisoners will hit you hard. But you don’t have to be a parent for this film to have an impact on you. You just have to be human.

Every character here is acted flawlessly, but Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal easily steal the show. Detective Loki plays the calm, cool, and collected police officer while Keller is more of a loose cannon. Keller is more desperate, and its understandable considering the fact that its his daughter that’s gone missing. Keller and Detective Loki each have their own idea of how to race to the kidnapper to uncover the truth. Throughout the film, these two characters travel two different paths that eventually converge in a brilliant way that you won’t see coming. There is no point A and point B in Prisoners. The path to the kidnapper is complex, unpredictable, and constructed in a way that makes every scene a surprise.

Prisoners is as dark visually as it is thematically. You won’t see one bit of sunshine or blue sky all throughout, and it really sets the tone well. Dark, muted colors make up the clothes, cars, and sets, which helps the film nail the (very) dark tone it sets out to achieve.

Johann Johannsson, the award-winning film score composer who would later go on to do the sountrack for Arrival, creates a bone chilling and dark score here that ramps up the intensity even more. The film’s soundtrack is easily one of its strong points, and one of the greatest I’ve ever listened to.

Prisoners is dark, brutal, and gut wrenching. Sitting through its two-and-a-half-hour run time is like getting a root canal of the most painful degree. And that’s heavy praise. You truly feel like your child has been kidnapped. And for some, maybe that’s not why they watch movies. But if you want to be incredibly immersed in the terror that goes into kidnappings and the manhunt that follows, this is a must watch.

   You can pick up Prisoners by Denis Villeneuve here: Amazon.Com/Prisoners