My Cart - With the second series of Birmingham-based historical gangster show Peaky Blinders in the pipeline, the BBC have been asking why that Brummie accent is so tricky to mimic. Although star Cillian Murphy has received praise for attempting to master the Midlands twang, others have been quick to criticise the show for its unrealistic depiction of the Black Country brogue. Here’s our run-down of the worst accents to ever make it to the big screen.
Kevin Costner Can’t Do Robin Hood
Hero. Icon. Legend. Kevin Costner isn’t any of these things. In the actually pretty engaging Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Costner starts off doing an English accent, which, when it hits, sounds fine. That’s roughly one syllable every twenty sentences. His accent seriously wavers somewhere in the middle of the first act. Eventually, Costner just gives up trying and becomes all-American action man Robin Hood: President of Thieves, or something.
Neither Can Russell Crowe
The genuinely clever original premise for 2010’s Robin Hood, which saw a sympathetic Sheriff of Nottingham try to bring to justice the unscrupulous and dishonest Robin, was re-written to become just another bland Errol Flynn knock-off. Russell Crowe’s accent was at least more inspired than this dull waste of two-and-a-half hours, as he mixed northern English with Irish, Australian, and American. There may even be a hint of old Russian in there, and the voice of some fella he met on holiday in Gibraltar. Probably. Whatever, it was a messy mutt of a voice. When he was asked about it by an interviewer, Crowe sulked and stormed out. Some egotists are so touchy.
Sean Connery isn’t Actually Untouchable
Is there a more distinctive voice in Hollywood history? We’re guessing the reason Sean Connery tried an Irish-American accent in The Untouchables was that he was so tired of hearing everyone imitate his own thick accent at parties. But when Connery plays an English spy, he sounds like Sean Connery. When he’s a Russian submarine commander, he sounds like Sean Connery. And when he’s a tough Chicago cop, can you guess who he sounded like? When he tells one would-be assassin in the gangland epic not to ‘bring a knife to a gun fight’, we’d extend that advice to ‘or a Scottish accent to an American period piece.’
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