The Winter Soldier Robert Redford offically joins Cap:TWS

[Saitou Hajime]

Goddamn, Redford really delivered on his casting and then some. Some reviewers pointed out how the character could've been played by another actor and Redford wasn't really needed, but I don't see it. Redford bestows Pierce with a certain presence and authenticity than most actors simply don't possess. I love how he can be some damn authoritative and suave that you can almost buy into what he's selling [blackout]even as you know he's completely full of ****[/blackout]. He reminded me of Aizen from Bleach.

 

[Keyser Soze]

I thought Redford was great in this. Though I have to say....

Spoiler

With how obviously telegraphed it was in both the film's marketing and in the early stages of the movie, it would have been more of a twist if Pearce WASN'T the villain. Though that moment in his home where it's made official, and he kills his maid because she saw The Winter Soldier, was suitably sinister.

 

[DaddlerTheDalek]

[BLACKOUT]I think Redford's Pierce was a Great Main Villain.[/BLACKOUT]

 

[Arcam]

I thought Redford was great in this. Though I have to say....

Spoiler

With how obviously telegraphed it was in both the film's marketing and in the early stages of the movie, it would have been more of a twist if Pearce WASN'T the villain. Though that moment in his home where it's made official, and he kills his maid because she saw The Winter Soldier, was suitably sinister.

I loved that scene at his home.

Spoiler

I felt as if he and his maid or house keeper may have been together for maybe quite a few years due to how she said goodnight to him firstly and secondly when he said to her something like "Oh Maria.........., I REALLY wish you'd knocked" I heard a huge amount of regret in his voice.......wonderfully powerful scene for me.

 

[Keyser Soze]

I loved that scene at his home.

Spoiler

I felt as if he and his maid or house keeper may have been together for maybe quite a few years due to how she said goodnight to him firstly and secondly when he said to her something like "Oh Maria.........., I REALLY wish you'd knocked" I heard a huge amount of regret in his voice.......wonderfully powerful scene for me.

I also enjoyed....

Spoiler

How the way he killed the housekeeper was recalled in how Fury killed him: two gunshots, fall back through the glass partition.

 

[Hyde]

Spoiler

I wish Pierce had been kept alive.

 

[Silvermoth]

Yeah? It would be an intriguing idea.

Redford was great in this but I always knew he would be. I hope he had fun making it

 

[AnneFan]

His death was simple but was perfect considering it was what he had done to Fury.

 

[Eddie Dean]

Robert Redford saying "Hail Hydra" may be the greatest cinematic moments of the past 20 years.

 

[Hcmarvel]

Does anyone know if he's ever played a villain before in a movie? I mean ever? I mean he's played characters who were technically criminals...The Sting, Butch Cassiday, but they're not played as "bad" guys.

Indecent Proposal is the only one I could find that I guess he's the antagonist. He's certainly playing a sort of Lucifer figure...but this was the first time I can remember him being the out and out heavy

 

[Raiden]

I thought Redford was simply sublime in this movie, and he really brought his A game to his performance as Pierce. He spoke his lines with conviction and sincerely, and make you believe what he was selling at first, until you realized what he believed in was mass murder in the American soil. To have an actor with such gravitas as Redford playing a central figure in TWS really made the movie's political messages much more serious and relevant than otherwise.

 

[Hcmarvel]

Not so much to in any manner fault Redford's performance, or even play Devil's Advocate, but was thinking about something -

Obviously casting Redford is a rather obvious echo, or nod, or direct reference to his pictures made during the 70s. He's the actor most associated with the 70's political thrillers, in front of Warren Beaty and Dustin Hoffman. So I acknowledge that and actually find it kind of cool. It worked a lot better than Gene Hackman's somewhat sad appearance in Enemy of the State, which was supposed to play on his role in The Conversation.

But

Did having the most famous liberal in Hollywood (at least the senior liberal as George Clooney might be the reigning champ) end up being this super fascist strike anyone as a bit...cheeky? A bit of a wink too far? I mean I get that by casting Redford, his turn as the big bad is that much more surprising for some people but it felt just the slightest bit cheap to me. It's in no way this extreme but let's say someone had cast Mel Gibson in a movie about a Spanish Inquisitor who you find out in the very end had been saving the Jews. Or more reasonably, imagine if someone had cast Clint Eastwood as a Fox News pundit in a film but at the end it's revealed he's secretly been turning the network into MSNBC subversively.

I dunno. There was something a bit hammy about it. It worked, because Redford sold it, and the point was that Hydra was hiding everywhere, even behind Bob Woodward, but I dunno....

 

[The Endless]

Redford could have easily phoned this in like Hopkins did with Thor 2. But he was brilliant i thought. He fully sold the idea that Pierce truly believes in what he's saying.

The scene at his house was shocking. And again, totally bought that he genuinely regretted doing what he did.

 

[Rock Sexton]

I never thought for one second he would turn out to be Red Skull ..... and I'm really glad I was right. Would've been ridiculous as hell.

 

[PunyGod]

...

 

[PunyGod]

...

 

[Glassjaw]

I really enjoyed his performance. What others have said is right, the gravitas of the actor totally told you everything about how this guy could be Nick Fury's boss and in charge of all of SHIELD.

And you want to like him at the beginning, despite suspicions I found myself wanting him to be a good guy, wanting him to be genuine. Which I think is far more interesting then a straight up bad guy who from the off is twiddling his evil moustache and laughing diabolically at his evil mastermind of a plan.

 

[Loki882]

Redford played this role really straight, surprisingly so. I think that maybe he thought that he was filming Three Days of the Condor or All the President's Men again, because he acted like he was the villain in a straight up gritty political thriller. He was great. He was so menacing when he just non-chalantly

Spoiler

killed his housekeeper.

Also, I was thinking to myself the entire movie "please let Robert Redford say

Spoiler

Hail HYDRA

at least once, pretty please? And then he did, and it was awesome. t:

 

[CapsKookyQartet]

I knew from the start he'd end up a villain I saw it a mile away, other then that he was great in this.

 

[Easter Lily]

Redford did well in coming on board and playing it straight.
Pierce is a true believer with convictions, unflappable in the face of crisis.
An interesting villain.

In that way, he was Cap's true ideological adversary... as both men were convinced of the rightness of what they believed.

 

[Whiskey Tango]

You should enjoy movies on their own and not worry about the personal lives of the actors.

Agreed with this. It's how I still enjoy Tom Cruise movies despite him being an insane Scientology cultist nutjob.

 

[The Caped Knight]

Redford was magnificent, he played it better than I could have forseen.

 

[Asr]

Really liked Redford in the movie and was only disappointed that he wasn't [blackout]Red Skull[/blackout].

 

[CapsKookyQartet]

Really liked Redford in the movie and was only disappointed that he wasn't [blackout]Red Skull[/blackout].

That would have been great to see him as Red Skull, now I'm a little disappointed.

 

[JB-the-Hunter]

Robert Redford saying "Hail Hydra" may be the greatest cinematic moments of the past 20 years.