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15 Most Atrocious Movie Accents

Cinema's worst serial accent offenders

BY Dan Goodswen Jul 16th 2009 23:23PMFILED UNDER: Features

 

Gerard Butler - 300 (2006)

Going For: Should have been Greek - most others attempt RP

Actually Is: A recently celibate Glaswegian mugger after a six-pack of special brew.

When you spend 6 months lifting so many wieghts even your muscles' muscles have muscles, you're hardly going to have time for any dialogue coaching.

In this tale of the 300 Spartans who stood up to the million stong might of the Persian army, the emphasis was clearly on protein shakes and pumping iron, and left the actors no time to decide how a Spartan might speak.

So instead we get all these semi-RP efforts, and Butler's snarling King Leonidas, who makes it sound like Sparta is located somewhere in the middle of a Glasgow housing estate.

Phonetic Phrasing: "THISH ISH SHPARTAAAA!!!" (0:44 in the clip) Followed by enough spittle to sink the Persian fleet single-handedly. 

Other Offenses: PS I Love You (Dublin Irish)

 

Jason Statham - The Transporter (2002)

 

Going For: American? English?

Actually Is: Your drunk cockney uncle doing a John Wayne impression.

As much as we love him, Statham is no Shakespearean prodigy. His grasp of the Queen's english extends about as far as the audible range of the Beau Bells. Whoever decided he should try an accent was 'avin a giraffe.

As Frank Martin, the titular transporter, former Special Forces operative and all around bad-ass, Statham is about as comfy as a cat on a cushion, until he opens his 'gang and mob'.

The resulting squawk was so painful they dropped the pretence for the sequels and made him British. If only they'd  watched The One, they'd never have bothered in the first place. Love you Jason, don't kill us please.

Phonetic Phrasing: "Ruule wan, neva change tha deel" (2:40 in the clip) Of course, the Stath is so cool you barely notice what he's saying, never mind that his accent is atrocious, you just sort of marvel at his awesomeness.

Other Offenses:The One (Non-Regional American) War (Non- Regional American)

Next: Heather Graham, Sean Connery

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Comments (24)

1: Rusty4bears says

What? No Robert Englund in 'The Adventures of Ford Fairlane'?? "Ello Ello Ello"

Or Brion James in 'Tango & Cash' "Yoo wankah"

Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 12:04PMAlert a moderator

2: padrigo says

What about Heath Ledger in Ned Kelly- worst Irish accent ever. Even worse than Tom Cruise in Far and Away.

Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 12:30PMAlert a moderator

3: KittyFantastico says

How the hell did Keanu Reeves' accent in Bram Stoker's Dracula not make it in there? It's horrendous!

Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 12:35PMAlert a moderator

4: imaginarium says

Orlando Bloom in Ned Kelly...

Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 12:42PMAlert a moderator

5: dgoodswen says

If you read carefully, Keanu Reeves' accent from Bram Stoker's Dracula IS on the list, just his appearance in Youngblood predates it - don't worry, we're calling out his entire repertoire of accents!

Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 12:51PMAlert a moderator

6: Agent69 says

Please do one with 15 best accents.

Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 1:25PMAlert a moderator

7: PadmanForever says

Sam Worthington was definitely a little shaky during pent up moments of T4 - Marcus suddenly became Australian. Russell Crowe syndrome.

Hmm, best accents, now that would be a tricky'un. I was impressed at Johnny Depp's consistent (if not 100% authentic) handling of the Scottish accent in Finding Neverland. I'm half Scottish and I can't even manage a full sentence. Also, Christian Bale's usual non-accented American becomes pretty impressive when you hear his bizarre 'cockney in a blender with an Italian mafioso' speaking voice.

Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 5:28PMAlert a moderator

8: dgoodswen says

Sam Worthington was definitely on the shortlist for his T4 shenanigans, the only reason he didn't make the cut was because he has no past form - if his accent is as wobbly in Avatar as it was in Terminator Savlon then we'll fully reconsider...

Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 6:37PMAlert a moderator

9: ashley.russell says

I'm guessing TF have never seen a little period film called Basil starring Jared Leto and Christian Slater, both of them are horrendous and yet so so unintentionally funny

Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 6:38PMAlert a moderator

10: ashley.russell says

I'm guessing TF have never seen a little period film called Basil starring Jared Leto and Christian Slater, both of them are horrendous and yet so so unintentionally funny

Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 6:38PMAlert a moderator

11: Comex says

OK, OK...I can agree with most of the accents you have on this list, but do you really think that Gerard Butler was trying for any sort of Greek accent in "300"? I didn't hear that at all. And since when is a weird lisp the same as a Greek accent? Everyone in the movie was being a bit melodramatic (har-har) but that's not the same as affecting an accent.

Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 7:45PMAlert a moderator

12: AYBGerrardo says

Sean Connery "Other Offenses: The Hunt For Red October (American)"
Eh? Definitely worthy of a place on the list, but he was meant to be Russian. Funny that he learnt the language but couldn't drop his accent.

Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 9:05PMAlert a moderator

13: AYBGerrardo says

Sean Connery "Other Offenses: The Hunt For Red October (American)"
Eh? Definitely worthy of a place on the list, but he was meant to be Russian. Funny that he learnt the language but couldn't drop his accent.

Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 9:08PMAlert a moderator

14: jdean888 says

Brad Pitt in The Devil's Own was a laughable Northern Irish accent. Gerard Butler's P.S. I Love You attempt at Irish was pretty funny too, when he kept calling Hilary Swank 'Hahllee'.

Posted: Jul 17th 2009 // 2:44PMAlert a moderator

15: Desperation says

Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta?

Posted: Jul 17th 2009 // 5:21PMAlert a moderator

16: joeymac says

Don Cheadle single-handedly prevented Ocean's Eleven from being a 5* film.

Posted: Jul 17th 2009 // 5:34PMAlert a moderator

17: welshdragon42 says

what no one has failed to mention so far is the amazingly diverse and odd range of (cough) interesting accents that we inflicted upon us in Beowulf, with complete inconsistency and weirdness from Ray Winstons cockney (no modification attempted) to a variety of English, American, and most importantly the bizzare and inconsistent oldy english/scandinavian/failing accent of John Malchovich! How can no one have noticed this (or maybe the men were oggling too much at the animated Angelina Jolie or freaked out by the muscled Ray Winston lookalike?)

Posted: Jul 17th 2009 // 6:25PMAlert a moderator

18: sirdday says

Meryl Streeps accent is spot on. aussies actually sound that bad. spot on meryl

Posted: Jul 18th 2009 // 5:38AMAlert a moderator

19: Bluey3 says

Thank you so much for mentioning Tom Cruise [& Nicole Kidman] in Far & Away - this film has long been one of my all-time turkeys for the reasons you've given :-)
Other dishonourable mentions ought [IMO] to go to would-be Oirish maidens Meg Ryan [Restoration] and Cameron Diaz [Gangs of New York].
Weren't there any Irish actresses available?
On the same principle, I won't get started on Bridget Jones....

Posted: Jul 18th 2009 // 4:09PMAlert a moderator

20: Bluey3 says

As someone has already mentioned Keanu Reeves...
thought I'd add a note about his performance in Dangerous Liaisons aka Bill & Ted visit the 18th Century. Like, duuuude...

Posted: Jul 18th 2009 // 4:14PMAlert a moderator

21: apple says

marion cotillard in Public Enemies:she's radiant but her US accent is too bad
every Brad Pitt accent:he's not good in accents
Robert Downey Jr in "Sherlock Holmes" trailer:is Holmes an american guy?

Posted: Jul 20th 2009 // 11:48PMAlert a moderator

22: PadmanForever says

If you listen to the "Watson, what have you done?" line at the end of the Holmes trailer, there is definitely an accent there, but it would seem overall that Downey Jr is using the "softly softly" approach to accent work, which though it sometimes makes it seem like you're not trying, can be better than just walking about going (in this case) "Corr blimey, I'm from Lahndan taan". We'll see how it goes in the full film.

Anyways, the reason I returned to this article was to ask something kind of along the lines of that "gentle accent" approach -- I saw a little bit of "Days of Thunder" tonight, and I can't remember - is Nicole Kidman even supposed to be trying not to be Australian? Because if she is, it certainly doesn't show.

Posted: Jul 21st 2009 // 1:23AMAlert a moderator

23: Jason Voorhees says

Richard Gere in The Jackal is worse than anything, Keanu Reeves in Bram Stokers Dracula, Harrison Ford in K19 the widowmaker.

Posted: Sep 3rd 2009 // 12:12AMAlert a moderator

24: Gunner1 says

Clearly not a lot of South Africans commenting on this list, otherwise we'd have heard about Val Kilmer's utterly atrocious Cape Town accent in 'The Saint' - not to mention every single bloke who was supposed to be a South African in Lethal Weapon 2!! (and what's worse is that I believe Joss Ackland was born in SA, and yet his version of an SA accent was awful!!)
On the other hand, what I've heard of Leo DiCaprio and Tim Robbins' accents in the trailers (haven't seen the films yet) of 'Blood Diamond' and 'Catch a Fire' were much closer to spot on!!

Posted: Nov 4th 2009 // 8:31AMAlert a moderator

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