r/movies • u/shopdog • 24d ago

Question What happened to John Cusack?

Looking at his IMDB page and he's in a bunch of crap (rated 5.0 or lower) movies and a Chinese produced movies (judging from the original titles and posters).

He was in a lot of my favorite movies from the 80s until the teens and then just seemed to disappear.

Did something happen to his career? Self inflicted?

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u/Historical_Leg5998 24d ago

I think two things happened simultaneously:

1) He took up activism more full-time/seriously

2) He aged out of his 'niche' which was "attractive but intellectually-neurotic leading man"

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u/WySLatestWit 24d ago

Yeah, I think aging out of his niche is really the biggest issue. His career, with a few notable exceptions, is almost all some variation on romantic comedies, and guys in their late 50s don't tend to get rom com roles regularly and he didn't really have the range to do much else. Even when he tried to do something else he was basically playing the same character he played in his Rom Com roles just in a different genre.

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u/AlienScrotum 24d ago edited 24d ago

He is the perfect guy to pull off Grosse Pointe Blank though. To me he has always and will always be a “I’m getting too old for this shit” actor. Even when he was young. Crazy shit would happen and he would take it in stride. So much so, I would love him in a Leathal Weapon remake with a race swap.

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u/10before15 24d ago

Top notch fight scenes.

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u/Margali 24d ago

popcorn!

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u/doctor_7 24d ago

They really are. Rewatched it recently and it was amazing to see how well they were done for a film coming out when it did. Most fights were just these laughable exchanges of the most telegraphed punches known to man.

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u/peacefinder 24d ago

If I recall correctly the other actor for the locker hall fight was Cusack’s trainer and maybe the fight coordinator? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benny_Urquidez

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u/IndyO1975 24d ago

Yeah. That’s Benny “The Jet.”

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u/Unofficial_Officer 24d ago

Fuck yeah it is! Dude has been in a ton of kung fu movies.

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u/DrJDog 24d ago

His fight with Jackie Chan in Wheels On Meals is my all time favourite.

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u/AdorableSobah 24d ago

A man of culture

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u/pnmartini 24d ago

“Kickboxing, sport of the future”

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u/gogul1980 24d ago

yep benny is noted for being in 2 of jackie chan's top ten fight scenes of all time. A real rarity for a westerner in Asian cinema. He went above and beyond for the sequences in Grosse Pointe. Love that film.

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u/Vast_Professor7399 24d ago

More like the top 2 fight scenes.

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u/I_want_chicken 24d ago

Cusack mentions Benny "The Jet" Urquidez when he meets John Mahoney in Say Anything!

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u/doctor_7 24d ago

It's a Bourne quality fight, really well done.

I did not know this fact, thanks for posting it!

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u/Grit-326 24d ago

Check out Benny The Jet vs Jackie Chan.

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u/lurker512879 24d ago

he also was a fight coordinator with Chuck Norris in some training videos

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u/Fever_Rain 23d ago

He also plays the homicidal axe weilding ghost in Room 1408.

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u/oswaldcopperpot 24d ago

Try watching tv from countries without any gun education. Like S korea. They still use lots of guns in their tv but its so dumb. Like the one guy will defend himself with a mini-fridge door from an AR and other nonsense.