“It was an abortion. An abortion, Michael. Just like our marriage is an abortion” – The Godfather, Part II (1974)
The Godfather regularly appears on lists of movies that are much better than the books that inspired them. The Godfather Writer Mario Puzo worked on the screenplays for all three films, so it’s not like Francis Ford Coppola deviated that far from the original vision. Sure, Coppola managed to trim Puzo’s pages down to the size of Sonny’s penis, but that doesn’t mean everything works.
The absolute worst line comes in The Godfather, Part II, in which Kay (Diane Keaton) and Michael’s (Al Pacino) marriage has completely fallen apart. After learning that Kay terminated her pregnancy, Michael suddenly finds religion and is outraged by what he sees as a killing. The audience desperately wants to cheer Kay on in this moment because she should leave Michael and he deserves the insult she is about to inflict on him. But she stretches the “abortion” metaphor far beyond her ability to handle and loses her point in the process.
“Is it still raining? I didn’t even notice.” – Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
Look, people have been excited about Andie MacDowell’s performance in Four weddings and a funeral for 30 years. Amid a cast of likeable Brits, MacDowell’s wooden lines are always distracting. Thankfully, director Mike Newell and screenwriter Richard Curtis get plenty of help from Hugh Grant, who uses all his ’90s charm to convey the seemingly inescapable appeal of MacDowell’s Carrie.
But not even Grant’s floppy hair and squinty eyes can help MacDowell when she has to say one of the dumbest lines in the history of romantic movies. When Carrie and Charles (Grant) finally meet in the middle of a downpour, the former waits until she can bring up the weather. “Is it raining?” she asks. “I didn’t notice.” Perhaps a better actor could make the line, which is meant to be romantic by suggesting that the two are falling in love, work. But MacDowell does him no favors.
“Everyone needs money. That’s why it’s called money.” – Heist (2001)
As a playwright and screenwriter, David Mamet has a special voice. In his best works, such as Glengarry Glen RossMamet captures the terse, brutal way fragile men talk to each other. Most Robbery follows the same model, with tough crooks played by Gene Hackman and Delroy Lindo exchanging one-liners.
This list also leaves a lot of room for stylized dialogue. After all, Mamet gave us “The third price is that you get fired” in GlengarryBut when Danny DeVito’s character from Robbery sneers, “Everybody needs money. That’s why they call it money,” it feels more like a parody of Mamet than the original. I mean, what on earth is that even supposed to mean? Is DeVito’s character suddenly an expert on etymology? Is there some slang that equates the word money with desire? I don’t know. Instead, it just feels like someone trying too hard to sound cool.
