Gotcha I thought the handlebar moustache was unmistakable!

It's hard to think of a bad movie that was saved by one character, but the one example that I absolutely can't imagine anybody else in the role and can't imagine what the movie would have ended up like had he not been cast, is Jeff Bridges as The Dude in The Big Lebowski.

Hmm...I think Kurt Russell could have made a go of it. But, by and large, that movie was perfectly cast all the way around. John Goodman was hilarious as the gun-nut, and I don't think Julianne Moore gets enough credit for playing the batshit crazy artist so deftly. And I'm damned if I can name anyone that would have been as perfect as Sam Elliott as the narrator.

I agree. I can't think of one character that was even remotely miscast in that movie. Even Tara Reid was perfect in her role.

It's not exactly fair, because it would have still been a better-than-average teen sex comedy from the 80's even without him, but honestly is there a greater, more iconic scene-stealing role than :

No.

Liam Neeson in Taken. Witout him it's just a direct to video Steven Seagal type movie.

Agreed. Even with him I was on the edge about the film, but without him it would be total shit. It would be something like Edge of Darkness.

Christolph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds. Would the movie have worked nearly as well had Leo been cast and with him doing a german accent

Bruce Willis -Die Hard

he just has the persona and look of John McClane I can't imagine anyone else making that role work

On the role, I agree. But that movie had more than him going for it, including Alan Rickman as one of the best screen villains of the decade; maybe ever.

It's fun to speculate, but I feel that this is one of the those questions that you can't honestly answer.

A creative work is the sum of a lot of parts, and you can't really say what would have been if one part was different.

I'd love to see a film completely made twice with the same exact story and creative team, but two different directors, just to see what a difference a director can make. Or the same thing with two different leads.

I don't think you need to speculate at all about what might have been; the OP simply asked if you could think of a movie where virtually nothing else worked, but one single performance rescued the entire production. That doesn't require any imagination; only an analysis of what you've actually seen.

On a different note, Ty Templeton posted this blog entry back in June that I found fascinating. Templeton wrote a Star Trek comic book for IDW, and it was illustrated by Stephen Molnar. Another artist, Darrin Egan, had just taken a course on art from Templeton and asked to take a crack at something just for the exercise so he handed over a preliminary version of his script. In the blog, you get to see what both artists did with the same basic story. It's pretty fascinating to see how similar, yet different, each one is. It's definitely worth a look, even if you don't care about Star Trek.

Ed Norton in Promal Fear

And people here are mentioning films like The Big Lebowski & There Will be Blood which do not fit in at all with what the OP is asking....in fact most of the films mentioned so far don't fit.

I will nominate Street Smart, a mediocre film, that is worth watching almost solely for Morgan Freeman's riveting role as a pimp.

I was responding to this part of the OP, and all the subsequent talk about how a different actor could have done the role.
Very cool. Thanks!

Ok, ok... I may take a lot of shit for this...



In the African Queen.

I do really enjoy the movie and I love John Huston, but I am not big on on Katharine Hepburn and I just don't find the story to be all that engrossing. I enjoy some of the banter between these two, but most of the appeal of the entire film for me is Bogart. I wouldn't ever revisit the film if he wasn't in it.

Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor in Superman Returns saved the movie.

ugh no way... he came across as so lazy and disinterested, I thought he was one of the (many) weaknesses in that film.

I fall between these two sentiments. I liked his performance, and I greatly prefer it to what Gene Hackman did with the role. But "saved the movie?" No. Gave me something to enjoy about it, yes, but nothing could redeem the movie that made the virtuous Man of Steel a creepy, stalking baby daddy. Nothing.

Could you imagine remembering anything about Saturday Night Fever if it didn't star Travolta?

I'm not the OP, so I can't speak for him (her?), but I just took that to be an extra prompt for considering how significant that one performance was to a given movie.

I don't know that it falls into the category of singlehandedly rescuing a dismal film, but I got to wondering while screwing around on Flickchart a little while ago what fans and critics might have made of American Beauty without Kevin Spacey. I thought the cast overall was pretty damn good, but I always felt the story was given way too much of a pass because everyone was so wrapped up in Spacey's performance.

Wehn he was being an evil, sadistic bastard? Yes. When he was doing a weak Gene Hackman impersonation? No.

The movie would have still been good, but Val Kilmer as Doc Holiday in Tombstone really elevated that movie to another level.

Also...Kevin Bacon, Tremors.