To be honest, Billy Bob Thornton is kind of hard to forget unless he’s pushed in the background where he’s not seen as much. He tends to stick out quite often since he is a very strong character that puts himself in the middle of things a lot of times. Even when he’s an extra he tends to add more to a movie than a lot of extras do. But there are times when it becomes easier to forget about him simply because of the story or the other actors he’s with since while he is a strong character, there are others that are stronger and a little to a lot more charismatic, as Thornton tends to play a plot of characters that are either down on their luck or are kind of brutal in the way they deal with other people. He does have a wider range than this, but a lot of his best roles are those that show him being kind of a jerk. Here are five movies you might have forgotten Billy Bob Thornton was in.
5. The Judge
A longstanding feud between a father and son is one of the last places that anyone would want to find themselves, but when a defense attorney has to return home following the death of his mother it brings him into contact with his less than forgiving father. The problem is that the father has apparently performed a hit and run involving someone that he put away, which is a huge problem for the defense. The prosecution, Thornton’s character, in other words, is there to put the old man away, and while he’s not an evil man out to ruin someone, he’s definitely good at his job, which makes for an interesting courtroom scene.
4. Love Actually
This movie is essentially a lot of different stories that revolve around the main point, and while Thornton isn’t the main actor in this movie he does play a role that a lot of people might remember and say ‘oooh’ as they recall just what he was supposed to be doing. In terms of being a chick flick, there’s no doubt that this is what it is, but a lot of people have managed to enjoy this movie and talk about it over the years since its release. While it might never be a legendary movie it’s still one that a lot of folks might mention now and then in one way or another.
3. U-Turn
This is without a doubt one of the strangest movies that any of the actors in it have ever been in since it’s essentially about a drifter whose car breaks down in a little out of the way town in which a lot of the residents appear to have a few screws loose and are ready to snap at any moment. Thornton’s part in the movie is pretty small, and whether he was grateful for that or not is hard to know, but the rest of the movie is so crazy that his there and gone moment is easy to miss given that the story focuses primarily on Sean Penn and Jennifer Lopez and the serious amount of double-crossing that goes on.
2. Armageddon
Out of all the disaster movies that came and went in such a short time, Armageddon ended up being given the most attention out of many of them and it was also given the most impressive soundtrack since the Aerosmith song that came from it still pops up on the radio from time to time. But when one really looks at the movie and wonders why in the world it was deemed perfectly acceptable to trade astronauts for oil drillers you might need to scratch your head just a bit even though the skill sets are so insanely different that it might not appear possible at all. Still, it worked for the movie if a person managed to shut off their brain for a couple of hours.
1. Going Overboard
The beginning of this movie has Adam Sandler stating that there are low-budget movies and there are NO budget movies, which this one happens to be since shaking the camera counts as an earthquake. The movie actually features several famous faces if one is willing to pay attention and, of course, watch it in the first place. But Billy Bob gets to play the part of a heckler that starts getting irate at Sandler’s character when he attempts a stand-up comedy routine that bombs quickly and without hesitation. Throughout the movie, though Sandler does eventually find his groove and takes over for the onboard comedian that is kind of a jerk and tells horrible jokes that people laugh at for some reason.
He’s not always that easy to miss in a movie, but there are those times when Billy Bob Thornton can become part of the scenery.
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