A lot of pieces fell into place yesterday when Bruce Willis‘ family made the sad announcement he’s retiring from acting. The Die Hard and Pulp Fiction star is suffering from aphasia, a condition that affects the brain’s language and communication centers.
This likely explains why he’s appeared in 21 awful movies over the last two years. These are straight-to-VOD clunkers that receive scorching reviews and generally feature a monosyllabic performance from Willis, occasionally with visible earpieces feeding him lines. Many have now concluded that he was simply trying to make as much money as possible for his family before his condition means he can’t work.
However, the volume of these movies led The Razzies to feature a “Worst Performance by Bruce Willis in 2021” award at their March 26 ceremony. The recent revelations make that seem inappropriate now, so they’re now engaged in damage control:
This mea culpa has not been particularly well-received. Star Wars: Rogue One writer Gary Whitta simply said “go f**k yourselves,’ Vincent D’Onofrio commented that they were being “very disrespectful,” while other posts speculated whether it’s time for the Razzies to end altogether.
It is worth remembering that movies like Cosmic Sin, Gasoline Alley, and Hard Kill are genuinely terrible, though in the light of Willis’ aphasia perhaps the blame for this could be put on the producers.
In addition, when we look back on Willis’ career we won’t remember any of these turkeys. Movies like The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Pulp Fiction, Death Becomes Her, and of course, the Die Hard movies will endure. Let’s just hope Willis’ condition is manageable enough for him to have a good quality of life.