Cary Elwes

In The Princess Bride (1987), Cary Elwes handles the swordplay with enough assurance to leave room for the jokes. As Westley, he makes physical skill and comic timing seem like sensible qualifications for the same job. We rate that combination, and would like to see it called upon more often. The frustration is how little of it some later films ask him to use.

The supporting work began early: Glory (1989) and Days of Thunder (1990) followed that breakthrough lead. Elwes turned down many similar medieval or pirate roles, though Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993) put him back at the centre of a comedy. The later work extends to horror in Saw (2004), alongside the ensemble action films that have become a regular part of his career.

As Russ Wheeler in Tony Scott’s Days of Thunder, he joins a film we recommend chiefly to racing enthusiasts: the action works, while the thin writing and neglected romance matter. It is not where we would start with Elwes. Guy Ritchie’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024) uses him as Brigadier Gubbins, helping send Henry Cavill’s Gus March-Phillips on a mission to sink a ship. We became restless because the cleanly staged action never makes anyone’s choices cost them anything. The company is agreeable, but we would not recommend the film simply for the chance to see him in it.

In Gus Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire (2026), the shortage is screen time. Elwes is good as Michael Grable, but the part amounts to roughly a scene and a half. We wanted more of him, and of Myha’la’s Linda Page and Kelly Lynch’s Mabel Hall, because their brief scenes suggest a city beyond the siege that the film rarely explores. Van Sant has good reason to stay in the flat, where the tension is, but that leaves capable actors outside the main story. See it for Bill Skarsgård; start with The Princess Bride if Elwes is the reason for the evening.