Richard Dreyfuss deserves more than this. The Oscar winner, in his prime, contributed to a handful of masterpieces like The Goodbye Girl, Stand By Men, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, American Graffiti and, of course, Jaws. Recently, he was in the truly atrocious Nia Vardalos comedy My Life in Ruins and the schlock horror flick Piranha 3D. That’s unacceptable. Hopefully these two new projects Dreyfuss just booked will be better.
Variety says Dreyfuss is shooting a mainstream thriller and a lower-budget indie in the next few months. The first, an adaptation of the Joseph Finder novel Paranoia, boasts an all-star cast in a Robert Luketic-directed pic about a blue-collar worker (Liam Hemsworth) blackmailed by his employers into spying on a rival company. In addition to Dreyfuss and Hemsworth, Luketic’s cast currently includes Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, Amber Heard, Lucas Till and Julian McMahon.
From there, Dreyfuss is expected to transition over to Very Good Girls, writer-director Naomi Foner’s love-triangle drama that’s structured around Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen. The trade says the ladies play best friends who are tested when they fall for the same man. Let’s hope that man isn’t Dreyfuss!
In all seriousness, these sound like much better opportunities for Dreyfuss who, at 64, can act circles around most everybody he has had to share the screen with. The actor’s at the top of his game when he’s bouncing off of equally gifted performers in film’s like Red or even on the TV series Parenthood. It’s great that directors are finding better roles for him, and his involvement in both Paranoia and Girls has us looking forward to both.
