10 Strangest Partners & Duos In Movie History, Ranked

Audiences love a good pairing of actors in buddy cop movies, comedies, or action movies in general. Since the 1980s, Hollywood has produced some great ones like 48 Hrs, Lethal Weapon, Rush Hour, and many more. However, Hollywood has also made some odd choices in their casting for these various pairings.

Sometimes mismatched actors can work out if the film plays on what makes them different, however, sometimes these pairings are too bizarre to reconcile. While quirky pairings have made for a fun movie-going experience, others have seemed awkwardly put together, and lacking in chemistry, which ultimately hurt the movie.

10 Heart Condition – Denzel Washington and Bob Hoskins

In Heart Condition, racist cop Bob Hoskins receives a heart transplant from a murdered Black lawyer (Denzel Washington). Now, the lawyer’s ghost haunts the racist cop who guilts him into trying to solve his murder.

Hoskin and Washington are an interesting pair of award-winning actors but don’t quite work as a duo. The bizarre film may have had its heart in the right place but the plot proved problematic and the unlikely and unfunny teaming of Hoskins and Washington was met with little fanfare. The film received negative reviews and there has been a long-standing rumor that Washington fired his agent after the movie’s poor release.

9 Taxi – Jimmy Fallon and Queen Latifah

Like Jay Leno, Jimmy Fallon never successfully made the leap from stand-up to movies and eventually nestled into his role as Tonight Show host where he’s found success. One of the few films he made was Taxi, a remake of French Luc Besson film. Like the original, the film concerned a cop who loses his driver’s license and must rely on a taxi cab driver (Queen Latifah) to drive him around while he tries to stop bank robbers.

An implausible plot is made even more unrealistic by the fact that Latifah’s character happens to drive a supercharged taxi cab. Critics and audiences deemed the movie unfunny and criticized the weak pairing of Fallon and Latifah for not being much of a draw for moviegoers. Following Taxi, Fallon would never headline a movie again.

8 Bad Company – Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock

Sometimes the teaming of a serious actor with a wise-cracking sidekick yields great results as in the case of Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith in Men in Black. However, it did not work with Oscar-winning Anthony Hopkins and comedian Chris Rock in Bad Company.

In the film, the CIA recruits a hustler to impersonate his deceased spy brother in order to stop a terrorist attack. Directed by Joel Schumacher, Hopkins delivers a passionless performance and unfortunately doesn’t have any chemistry with his co-star Rock who struggles to inject humor into the pairing.

7 Loose Cannons – Gene Hackman and Dan Ackroyd

Made at a time when serious actors were being paired with comedy stars, Gene Hackman and Dan Ackroyd star in Loose Cannons. They play two cops, one hard-nosed and the other with dissociative personality disorder, who try to track down a sex tape that features Adolf Hitler.

Comic genius Ackroyd is known for being able to play many different funny characters while Hackman seems barely comfortable with one, making them an awkward pair. The bizarrely premised movie flopped with critics and audiences but it made headlines in 2010 when parts of the film were recovered from a Calgary landfill to which Dan Ackroyd commented, “the movie should have been left in the landfill where it belongs.”

6 Cop Out – Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan

Sometimes random actor pairings work for a buddy cop movie and others don’t. Originally developed with Robin Williams and James Gandolfini in the leads, producers eventually landed instead on Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan for Cop Out, which failed to bank on movies like 48 Hrs’ formula.

The problem is, by then, Willis was a fading action movie star and Morgan was a rising comedy star who hadn’t proven himself on the big screen yet. Each performer’s style didn’t gel well and the film had a notoriously troubled production. Bruce Willis couldn’t keep up with Morgan’s improv style which ultimately made the Kevin Smith-directed result a pretty unmemorable buddy movie.

5 Welcome To Mooseport – Gene Hackman and Ray Romano

Legendary actor Gene Hackman did several comedies during his career like the successful Birdcage and the failure, Loose Cannons. However, his final attempt at comedy would also be his career’s last gasp. At the time, Ray Romano was attempting a movie career so Hollywood tried to pair him with veteran Hackman for the story of an everyman plumber who runs against a former President for Mayor of a small town.

At the time, Romano was a sitcom actor and his performance didn’t mix well with one of the greats trying to be funny. Movies like Analyze This starring Robert DeNiro and comedian Billy Crystal found success with this formula. Unfortunately, Hackman decided to go out on a low note and this is currently his final film, although audiences hope the retired actor makes one more movie someday.

4 Collision Course – Jay Leno and Pat Morita

Most audiences know Jay Leno as the former host of The Tonight Show but not many remember he attempted a movie career when he was a rising star on the comedy scene. One of the few films Leno made was Collision Course which paired him with Karate Kid’s Pat Morita as a Detroit cop and a Japanese cop who team up to recover a stolen car part.

The movie didn’t fare well and wasn’t even released in the USA until three years after opening internationally. Collision Course failed because both actors are comedic in their own ways and instead of relying on humor coming from their different personalities, the humor comes from their cultural differences which falls flat. Years later, Rush Hour would find success with this. Leno would never star in a movie again and only pops up as himself in films these days.

3 Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot – Sylvester Stallone and Estelle Getty

Considered one of Sylvester Stallone’s worst movies, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot paired him with The Golden Girls’ Estelle Getty. The story revolves around a cop whose mother witnesses a murder and the two must team up to solve the case. Unfortunately, for audiences, hilarity did not ensue. Since its release, the absurd premise has yielded more laughs than the film itself and even Stallone has regretted taking part in the film.

After the great pairing of Stallone with Kurt Russell for Tango & Cash, his pairing with unlikely and elderly Estelle Getty seems like the filmmakers trying too hard to be funny and unique. Stop! performed decently at the box office but faired very poorly critically and has become an embarrassment for all involved.

2 Gang Related – James Belushi and Tupac Shakur

Perhaps the unlikeliest of pairings is that of normally comedic actor James Belushi with the late rapper Tupac Shakur in Gang Related. In the film, the two play corrupt cops who frame a homeless man for a murder they themselves actually committed. The film is unique in that the central characters are the villains.

However, some felt the regularly comedic Belushi was miscast in a drama about corrupt cops. While the rapper turned actor Shakur fits the role, Belushi lacks the edge required for the part. Shakur should have been paired with an accomplished dramatic actor without a well-known comedy background as was the case with Spike Lee’s Clockers with Harvey Keitel. Unfortunately, Shakur died before its release and the movie was advertised as his final film.

1 Double Team – Jean Claude van Damme and Dennis Rodman

Perhaps the strangest pairing is Double Team, which revolved around a counter-terrorism agent teaming up with an arms dealer to stop a terrorist and featured the unlikely pairing of action star Jean Claude van Damme with former NBA star Dennis Rodman.

Unfortunately, the odd pairing didn’t draw in audiences, and the movie bombed. The problem is the movie’s stars are successful at other things like Martial Arts and Basketball but can’t really act. This may work if one is paired with a real actor but two actors who can’t act spells doom, making them the most mismatched casting. Since its release, Rodman has only made a few films and never caught on as an actor despite his real-life theatrics.

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