Laughably Bad Film Accents

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Last night the wife and I sat down to watch ‘The Bridge at Remagen’, a film we hadn’t seen in years. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with this flick, let me say that it tells the story of the battle for control of the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine during the last days of WWII. It’s a cracking watch, with a great story, strong performances, terrific battle scenes, and… Robert ‘Man from Uncle’ Vaughn.

Now don’t get me wrong. Vaughn does a decent turn as the sympathetic, world weary German officer tasked with defending the bridge against the advancing Yank army. Trouble is, he can’t resist lapsing into a daft ‘ve haff vays’ parody of a German accent which is as distracting as it’s irritating, and worst of all, unnecessary.

Afterwards this got us thinking about just how many other ‘cod’ accents have threatened to de-rail an otherwise good film over the years. Take that perennial favourite, PoW drama ‘The Great Escape’. Jame’s Coburn’s ‘struth g’day cobber’ Aussie sounds as though he’s got a mouthful of marbles. Dire.

Anybody remember Josh Ackland’s woeful ‘Sith Iffriken’ in ‘Lethal Weapon 2’, or the grotesque Yiddisher/German gabble of Olivier in ‘The Jazz Singer’? And how about Nicholarse Cage’s excrable attempt to ‘speeka di eetalian’ in ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’?

Attempts at ‘Oirish’ have produced some of the worst offences. Think of ‘Tiny Tim’ Cruise in ‘Home and Away’, and Tommy Lee Jones’s laughable attempts in ‘Blown Away’.

The list is long, but I’ll wind up by referring to what is widely regarded by fans and critics alike as the worst fake accent in cinema history. Step forward Dick van Dyke, whose ‘indoobitably Bairy Boppins’ cockney sets the standard by which all others must be measured. Indeed it’s so awful that van Dyke still feels the need to apologise for it donkey’s years later. Indeed, the one thing that Don Cheadle’s mockney accent in ‘Ocean’s 11’ has going for it is that it’s slightly better than Bert’s.

Okay, I’ll leave the last word on the subject to Cary Elwes in ‘Robin Hood: Men in Tights’, who famously says ‘unlike some other Robins, I can speak with an English accent’. There’s a lesson there for film-makers, as this screen depiction of one of England’s greatest kings aptly illustrates…

YouTube Link

Nominated by: Ron Knee

(For shits and giggles, Day Admin – Top 10 Worst Movie Accents )

115 thoughts on “Laughably Bad Film Accents”

  1. What about the current proliferation of ‘Innit, blud, you get me?’ accents that are so beloved by cunts at the moment?

    Guaranteed piss-boilers.

    • To be more specific, Connery could only do Midlothian. He’d have been stumped if he’d been asked to do a Glaswegian or Highland accent.

      • There’s a story (possibly apocryphal) that Connery insisted that no script could have him saying the word ‘sit’, as in ‘I’m shitting here…’.

        Probably not true, but amusing tho.

    • The late great Sean Connery :
      A Bridge Too Far – General Urqhart = Scottish
      The Hunt for Red October – Russian Sub commander = Scottish
      Ian Fleming’s Super Spy James Bond = Scottish
      The Rock – SAS Captain John Mason = Scottish
      Indiana Jones & BlahBlah – Henry Jones = Scottish
      First Knight – King Arthur = Scottish
      The Wind and the Lion – Mulai Ahmed er Raisuni = Scottish

      • There’s one clip in The Wind and the Lion where I’m sure Sean Connery says something along the lines of “the finesht shilks”

        That would be “the finest silks” in Scottish/Persian to the untrained ear of course.

  3. Watched V for Vendetta on the weekend as my son is studying it at school. It’s very good but Natalie Portman makes an execrable attempt at an English accent.

  6. In this age of cultural misappropriation, doing “foreign” accents is now deemed offensive/racist blah blah. Another example of the Woke sucking the life out of everything they don’t particularly like.

    But anyway, I have to say James Coburn’s Aussie accent in TGE was about as convincing as an honest politician!

    And there’s Sean Connery’s bogus accent both in Highlander and Hunt for Red October.

      • I think dear ol’ Sean’s gonna crop up a lot. Wasn’t he supposed to be Spanish in ‘Highlander’?

        It always struck me as odd the number of times he also turned as a cod Oirish over the years eg ‘The Longest Day’, ‘The Untouchables’ among others.

  7. ‘I av come to feex your pheaun.’
    ‘Eet was a beum, thee exploding kind.’
    ‘Kato, my leetel yellow friend.’
    Best French accent in cinematic history.

  8. not forgetting the great Colin Farrell in alexander, his oirish accent in ancient Macedonia must be rated as the worst accent ever in a film , and not forgetting Kirk Douglas in Vikings his Californian drawl was just as bad

    • ‘Alexander’ has to be one of the campest films ever. Wasn’t Angela Jolie playing his mother ffs?

  9. In the shite Robin Hood of the 90s, Kevin Costner speaks ‘Murrican throughout. “Ahm gonna git that Sherrf o’ Noddingham, yeah man.” Mind you, token, crowbarred-in black man Morgan Freeman doesn’t do much better.

    • Again the story with Costner is that he tried an English accent, but it was so bad that the director got him to do a voice over.

      It’s one of those really good bad flicks, that.

    • I love the bit where Costner and Freeman set foot in Kent, and Costner says something like ‘we’ll be ad my father’s cassell by nidefall…’.

      ‘We’ll just get a taxi to the station, jump on the the Dover to London train, then change for Nottingham. Easy peesy. Er, hang on…’.

  10. One of England’s greatest Kings?? The fucking cunt was only in country for 6 months he swaned off and was captured, the ransom bankrupted the nation….

  11. I think we’ve got movies pretty much covered. How about television?
    Posh actors with their β€˜Cor blimey guv’ exaggerated mockney on Eastenders.
    Danny Dyer with his exaggerated β€˜Cor blimey guv’ exaggerated mockney on anything he does.
    Jame Oliver the same.
    Black actors trying to impersonate Phillip from Rising Damp.
    I’m sure I’ve missed a few though.

    • On tv they had Adrian Mole’s mum in Leicester who talked with a brummie accent for some strange reason.

  12. Steve McLaren (ex England manager) springs to mind.
    When he managed Dutch club ‘Twente’ in 2008, he eventually won some Dutch trophy with them (I forget which one) and I remember the daft cunt being interviewed by Dutch TV in English and him putting on the most outrageous Dutch accent on during the interview.
    It was absolutely cringe worthy because he sounded like a complete Bell-End (as well as being an actual Bell-End)

  13. Almost as bad as French or Swedish accents on adverts for cars.
    Or drooping g’s off the ends of your words…

  14. Renowned actor John Wayne

    ” He truly was the son of Gawd”

    Director ‘im getting one of my migraines…”

      • Hehehe πŸ˜„
        Always makes me laugh that.

        Can imagine the film crew rolling with laughter,

        “Sorry didn’t get that.
        Go again please Mr WayneπŸ˜†”

        Morning Ruff

      • This was so bad, my memory played tricks on me. I could have sworn he was holding the reins of a horse in this scene.

    • I’d love to know who it was that thought it a good idea to cast the Big Man in this cameo, esp. at this incredibly dramatic point in the film, when the last thing you want is for your audience suddenly to start falling about.
      Insanity, but priceless.

  15. You could always be like Jean Claude Van Damme and just play a character born in Belgium who emigrated in every film.

    Similar to Arnie – Just play an Austrian in every film.

    “Do it!”
    “Get to the chopper!!!”

  16. Leo DiCaprio and his laughable Orish accent from Gangs of New York.

    Tries to come over a tough New York gangster but sounds more like a spotty 13 year old doing the paper-round.

  17. Russell Crowe in the most recent outing for Robin Hood.

    Was fucking all over the place .

    Had the front to get shitty about it when asked why he sounded like a cross between a Geordie and a Manc .

    • A cross between a Geordie and a Manc?
      Christ, he must have been listening to recordings of Alan Price and Georgie Fame.

    • It doesn’t take much to make Crowe shitty, the chippy antipodean. How bad must your life be when you’re a Kiwi but pretend to be Australian?

      Also, the fat cunt’s got a face like a squashed cabbage. Fucking lightweight.

  19. Arthur bostrom’s french accent was amazing as was vicki michelle in allo allo. Good moaning.

  21. Compulsive liar and fake hard man Steven Segal claims to be fluent in Italian, Japanese and Russian.

    The cunt.

  23. Some great and varied cuntings of late, starting to look like the IsaC of old.
    πŸ˜€πŸ‘πŸ‘πŸ‘

      • Morning HJ!
        It must be burning the daft scotch cunt no end to be able to spout his drivel and post his YouTube links.
        I wonder if he’s haunting cunts corner? Or mumsnet?
        Good riddance.

      • Morning fellas.
        I’m jealous.
        I only got 50 ticks for a comment I posted yesterday,
        LOL

  25. I speak Russian reasonably well. I know it’s not a language looked upon favourably in these parts given current events, but I didn’t put the best part of a decade into it to be told it’s “insensitive”, so whatever.

    Anyway, yeah – bad Russian accents in movies. That properly boils my piss. As does incorrect Russian in movies. Yes, I’m looking at Moore/Brosnan-era Bond films. And incorrect use of the Cyrillic alphabet to “slavicise” things like vodka. In fact, that’s more of an irritant than the films. It’s hard to un-see things like “VoΠ΄ka”, etc etc.

    And the USSR was a proper cunt, so I don’t know why we fetishise it.

  27. I’m really not that bothered about accents but what really pisses me off is when subtitles have only a passing nod at what is actually being said.

  28. Was watching tango and Cash the other evening (soooo bad, it’s good) and there’s a with a fucking awful put on cockney english accent in it…thats my nomination.

    I googled after the film and i’n not alone in this observation.

    Cunt.

  29. You will find it hard to being, that I’d never watched any of the films Admin had foistered upon me, except for “The Great Escape”.

    The only “septic” I’ve appreciated is Meryl Streep, who can speak English perfectly in my opinion, much better than most true English persons. Her appearance in “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” being an example.

    Being a foreign film enthusiast, I’ve noticed Scandinavian countries tend to speak perfectly English. My only gripe is the yanks spoiling the English subtitles with their version of our language. Thankful for Film Four.

    • Yep. She annoys the fuck out of me with her fucking Hollywood woke posturing, but credit where it’s due. She nailed it as Thatcher.

      • Sleep was also good in “Plenty”, but didn’t watch her has the British Battle axe, due to not wanting to brake my philogynist feelings for the fair sex.

      • Concorde Conk Streep. Weinstein acoylte, who was also up Polanski’s arse. But, of course, she made out she was for the Me Too mob, And she even tried to cash in on it by framing Dustin Hoffman. Streep said that a scripted slap he gave her in Kramer vs Kramer was ‘abuse’, when it was just acting. The big nosed witch is a fucking cunt of the very first rank.

    • Joy of fucking joys. An absolute cast iron result, Servalan.
      Let us hope that the terrorist bitch rots in some middle eastern shithole.

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