What happened to Russell Crowe’s career? Where did it go wrong?

What has become of Russell Crowe? When the Australian-Kiwi actor, 60, signed on to star in Kraven the Hunter, he might have thought he was onto a winner: a blockbuster Spider-Man spinoff, in which he plays the father of the man many think will be the next James Bond (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Critics duly hunted Kraven down, and Crowe’s performance along with it – shooting it, skinning it, and turning it into a winter coat. The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey described Crowe’s attempts at a Russian accent as “Boris-and-Natasha from Rocky and Bullwinkle-level”; IndieWire’s David Ehrlich wrote that Crowe “yammers about weakness, fear, and breaking his enemies with enough borscht in his voice to make Ivan Drago seem like a respectful depiction of the average Soviet by comparison”.

Sadly, this has become all too common for Crowe, an actor who was once electric. When he broke through in the Nineties – as a bruiser with a badge in LA Confidential, or the set-upon whistleblower in Michael Mann’s The Insider – he was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, a versatile and specific character actor full of gruff gravitas and blunt, no-nonsense machismo. With 2000’s Gladiator, he announced himself as a bona fide star; the Oscar win was inevitable. (It’s a performance which seems better than ever, in the light of Paul Mescal’s pallid imitation in Gladiator II.) His hot streak continued – the showy, awards-lavished A Beautiful Mind; the brilliant and enduring Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World – up until around 2007, and the superlative remake of the western classic 3:10 to Yuma.  Since then, though, it’s been a cavalcade of dross.

This year alone, Crowe has starred in four films, including Kraven. There was the dimly reviewed spiritualist horror The Exorcism, cheap and uncompelling crime thriller Sleeping Dogs, and, way back in February, the Luke Hemsworth action thriller Land of Bad. Any sense of quality control is utterly out the window. Crowe has been wandering through his own Land of Bad for a while now; they say he’s thinking of buying a villa there. You could argue that the nadir may have been 2022’s self-directed Poker Face, an absolute dirge of a crime thriller, but there’s plenty of competition. From his turn as a visibly checked-out and green screen-ensconced Zeus in Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), to his scenery-devouring part as Jekyll and Hyde in the abortive franchise-starter The Mummy (2017), Crowe’s career has gone from feast to creative famine, an interminable string of “one for them” films in succession.

What is behind this wayward pivot? Watching Crowe on screen, you often get the impression that he simply can’t be bothered. He’s obviously not the only great actor content with simply collecting a paycheque – even titans of the art form like Robert De Niro and Al Pacino have struggled for decent projects in the modern landscape. There are also factors outside of Crowe’s control. He is no longer the lithe young leading man; good, meaty roles for actors of Crowe’s profile are few and far between.

He has other irons in the fire too: this year has also seen Crowe pursue his side-hustle as a musician; a new album was followed by an international tour, and a slot at this year’s Glastonbury Festival. On stage, Crowe proves himself innately very funny – sharp-edged, sardonic and forceful with a punchline. (It’s a good thing too, as the Les Mis star has never been renowned for his pipes.)

It’s telling, perhaps, that Crowe’s best late-career roles draw on this comic sensibility. He is wonderful, for instance, in 2016’s The Nice Guys, playing it hilariously straight as no-nonsense gumshoe Jackson Healy opposite Ryan Gosling’s daffy counterpart Holland March. Last year’s papal horror movie The Pope’s Exorcist was also something of a minor win for Crowe, thanks in part to the incongruously comic – and, on certain corners of the internet, much-memed – slant to his performance. (The sight of Crowe in priest getup, moped-ing around the streets of Rome, is delightful by itself.)

There is no doubt that Crowe is capable of a comeback. Even in his worst recent fare, there is always some enjoyment to be wrung from his performances, no matter how overwrought or phoned-in they may be. But he has to start picking better material. Do this, and a career revival is surely on the cards – in this life or the next.

‘Kraven the Hunter’ is in cinemas