2006 Goaties: Best Supporting Actor

There's a lot of shooting and running around going on in 16 Blocks, but if anything, it loosens up Mos Def. He slouches through most of the film with his shoulders hunched up, as if from a lifetime of expecting someone to hit him suddenly. He walks in short, rapid steps, his body closed tight against the world. By the end of the film, when he's both (1) not dead and (2) accepted as a person, not just as "the kid" or "a little hemorrhoid" or even an important witness, he's relaxed and open.

He talks nonstop in a flat, underenunciated, nasal whine, like he's proclaiming his existence at the same time that he expects nobody to be listening to him. This commentary on the world leads to belly laughs (take his comment on the official photo of a smiling Bruce Willis—"This what you look like when you smile? Probably drunk there too.") but also to unexpected inroads into his character. He's internalized as a motto "everything happens for a reason," but we can tell two things simultaneously: he believes that he deserves all the bad things that have happened in his life, but he hopes that someday the stars will align in his favor.

If he's great when he's talking, he's better when he's listening. So many actors either drop off or demand too much attention when they're not the focus, but he shows an intuitive screen-sharing ability. In a timeout in the middle of a gunfight, the head bad guy (David Morse) is trying to convince Willis that Def is unredeemable, and Def is observing Willis's reactions. He's uneasy and watchful, believing that Willis will change his mind and give him up. But he's also deeply hurt, both by what Morse is saying—"I never did no armed robbery!" he exclaims at one point, unable to keep it in anymore—and by Willis's appraising looks, as if the grungy cop must believe the litany of abuse, at least a little. Later, after a dog-tired Willis has said "I'm not a good guy, Eddie, I'm not a good guy," Def returns that appraising look, at least at first; then there's a hint of a smile, the tip of his tongue on his teeth, and he says with a little nod of his head, "Yeah, me neither." The film spends a lot of time showing the two men drawing together, but that glance and that pause say everything that needs to be said.

One might argue that Willis and Def are co-leads, that by calling Def a supporting actor I'm indulging in the kind of category fraud the Oscars have made their metier. Perhaps. But Willis gets the beginning and the end of the film for himself; Def is notably absent when all the external conflicts are worked out, and the main conflict is about whether Willis will "do what he always does" and give in to his cowardice and corruption.

Runners-up: The Departed provided oodles of great supporting performances. Mark Wahlberg wandered into the film off the set of a David Mamet project, poetically enunciated streams of invective intact. Joining him, but from the set of an R-rated cop comedy, is Alec Baldwin, who knows he's the funniest guy in the room and can't help laughing at his own jokes.