Top to Bottom: Al Pacino

6.

Harry Levine

Chinese Coffee (2000)

“Hollywood? You can't be old there unless you've been young there.”

I had to throw at least one unknown film in there. This independent film, directed by Pacino, is one of those films based on a play that basically takes place in one room with a couple actors. The conversation that Pacino and Jerry Orbach (equally good) engage in is in the same vein as My Dinner With Andre. It is deep, brilliantly-written, and thought-provoking. In these types of films, it takes a special type of actor to keep the audience fully engaged for the duration of the film, and like Pacino in real life, when he speaks, we listen. His performance is full of classic Pacino fury, yet it never goes over-the-top. It is a near-perfect performance. If more people saw it, it would be regarded as one of Pacino’s best efforts of the last 15 years or so.