Good, better, Bettany

About 10 years ago, I interviewed the precocious antipodean star of a controversial exploitation movie. I merrily declared he was destined for greatness. Since the film in question was Romper Stomper, which at that point was being merrily picketed by the Anti-Nazi League for its allegedly fascist sympathies (it turns out they hadn't seen the film), my support for the budding Russell Crowe went down very badly with some of my more right-on colleagues. Fast forward a few years, and suddenly everyone is jumping on the 'Ice Cream for Crowe' bandwagon: praising his thuggish charm in LA Confidential; marvelling at his incredible shrinking man act in the tobacco industry thriller The Insider; giving a right royal thumbs-up to his heroic skirt-wearing turn in Ridley Scott's Roman epic Gladiator. All of which, of course, made me feel very smug indeed. For a change.

In the last couple of years, Crowe's thespian reputation has continued to grow, with an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of a schizophrenic scientist in Ron Howard's uneven A Beautiful Mind, and now predictions of further awards ahoy and lashings of rum all round for his seafaring role in Peter Weir's marvellous Master And Commander. Both these celebrated films do indeed feature some top-notch acting by a man I prophetically tipped for the top, even when others were slagging off his calling card film as violent exploitative trash. The man I'm talking about, however, is not Russell Crowe; it is Paul Bettany, the rising British star who I'm proud to say I praised to the ceiling for his performance in Gangster No 1, the blood-splattered British crime thriller which was derided as sickening by vast swathes of the mainstream British press. Ha!

Put simply, Paul Bettany is the new Malcolm McDowell. Literally in the case of Gangster No 1, in which he shares the title role with McDowell, playing the central character's younger, flashier incarnation, and (surprisingly) acting our Malcolm off the screen. In A Beautiful Mind, while Crowe mugged and fumbled his way through his worst performance to date, Bettany rescued the film from disaster with his understated portrayal of an imaginary friend who refuses to be cast aside by his mad creator. Now, in Master And Commander, Bettany again beats Crowe at his own game, captivating the audience's attention as the ship's spiky, wiry medic while Crowe hangs chubbily off an array of masts and manfully orders "extra rations of grog all round". Although it's Crowe's rugged, pony-tailed bonce which adorns the posters for Master And Commander (and his name which is once again being whispered in Oscar circles) it is Bettany who deserves the three heartiest cheers for keeping this sea-faring drama's feet firmly on solid ground, and transcending the heave-ho mechanics of a simple boys-own adventure.