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Discuss: Wackiest Ensemble Casts

by Jette Kernion Aug 7th 2009 // 12:02PM

Filed under: Casting


It seems like people all over the Web are exclaiming today about the final casting for Machete, Robert Rodriguez's feature-length expansion of the fake trailer he made for Grindhouse in 2007. Imagine all these people together in one room: Danny Trejo, Robert De Niro, Steven Seagal, Jessica Alba, Don Johnson, Lindsay Lohan and Cheech Marin, among others. It sounds a little crazy, doesn't it? Wouldn't you love to be invited to a dinner party with them all? Since they're shooting Machete here in Austin, I can daydream about walking into a local restaurant and finding that cast tucked away in a private dining room ... hmm ...

But the big-name Machete casting actually worries me a bit in that "too good to be true" way. Movies with wacky, high-profile ensemble casts often raise my expectations very high, and then it turns out that the filmmakers may have spent too much time casting and not enough on the script. Next thing I know, I'm watching a great group of talent that should be fabulous, but instead make me feel bored or annoyed, and ultimately disappointed.

You have only to look at some examples of great wacky ensemble casts to see what I mean. It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is a classic case. The cast of the 1963 film includes Spencer Tracy, Ethel Merman, Milton Berle, Jonathan Winters, Buddy Hackett and Mickey Rooney. It was a notorious box-office flop, although it's gained a fan base since then. Many of the stars were past their glory days -- there's no Jessica Alba equivalent in there -- but you see my point.

Admittedly Mad World falls into the "gimmick casting" class of movie, where it feels like the filmmakers are throwing in any well-known actor they can lure on camera, even in the smallest roles. The Cannonball Run movies were the same way. I liked them when I was a kid, and it was great fun to see so many familiar faces throughout, but I would hope that Machete will be able to top the Cannonball Run films, y'know?

Other films with less gimmicky but still high-powered ensemble casts have also let me down. I never made it all the way through I Love You to Death, Lawrence Kasdan's 1990 comedy, which starred Kevin Kline, Tracey Ullman, River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves, William Hurt, Joan Plowright and Victoria Jackson. You'd think all those talented people could not fail to generate laughs. You'd be wrong. Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing is a fun film, but some of the weirder casting choices drag down the movie in spots, like Keanu Reeves and Michael Keaton.

On the other hand, I've enjoyed many great ensemble films, some with well-known casts. The 2001 remake of Ocean's Eleven is wonderful, and you can probably name all 11 actors (plus Julia Roberts and Andy Garcia). One of my favorite movies has an incredible ensemble cast of actresses -- Stage Door, from 1937. And what about The Royal Tenenbaums? But there aren't a lot of unusual casting choices there. The Machete cast sounds like one of those 1970s obscure cult comedies we sometimes see at Alamo Drafthouse's Weird Wednesday here in Austin, with a crazy cast of familiar faces and groovy Seventies dialogue and costumes, but little else memorable. I like most of Rodriguez's films, and especially enjoyed the Machete trailer, so I'm hoping fervently that it's not like that.

Do you think an ensemble cast like the one for Machete is gimmicky or innovative? What are some of your favorite unusual ensemble casts? Let's talk about all the crazy casting that we've forgotten over the years.

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Tags: Cinematical, ensemble cast, EnsembleCast, featured, film, machete, movie, robert rodriguez, RobertRodriguez

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