good movie, bad accent

Rating: 8/10 (23 December 2001)

A Beautiful Mind would have been flawless if not for one
inconsistenency: Russell Crowe's accent -- which is straight out
of the Mel Gibson School for Hunky Aussie Males Who Want to
Play Complex American Leads. To his credit, Crowe does pull off a
very complicated character -- but just barely. John Nash is U.S.
born and bred and never really strayed far from his W. Virginia
roots. So why did the filmmakers find it necessary to cast an
Australian lead? Yer guess is as g'das mine, mate. Granted,
Russell Crowe was awesome as the soft-spoken detective in L.A.
Confidential (keyword 'soft-spoken') and as the outspoken Roman
warrior in Gladiator, but as a complex leading man from a very
provincial area of the U.S., Crowe misses the mark at times. At
one point, I thought I was hearing Crocodile Dundee speaking at a
Princeton checker match. Where was Kevin Spacey when the
producers were casting Beautiful Mind? Kevin Kline? Or even Guy
Pearce -- who also is Australian but can affect a flawless U.S.
accent (ala Memento)? The best thing about the movie, other than
an amazing story about an amazing man, is Jennifer Connelly's
absolutely hands-down no-argument flawless performance as
Mrs. Nash. She even helps the audience forget the voice from
Down Under.