(Credits: Far Out / Manfred Werner / Tsui)
Wed 22 October 2025 19:45, UK
Sometimes, you just don’t get the reception you’re hoping for from a film, and there’s not much you can do about it. Actors have no choice but to take the responses to each of their films in their stride, regardless of if they’re met with less-than-positive reception from critics.
Even when critical reaction is good, if commercial success isn’t there, many actors find themselves bitterly disappointed. Hollywood is a tough industry to navigate, but accepting that you’re going to experience ups and downs involving everything from massive hits to bottom-of-the-barrel-scraping flops is just part of the game.
It’s something that Michael Caine learned early on, perhaps due to the fact that he spent many years experiencing a lack of opportunities in the industry, struggling to tear through that fleshy web and reach the other side of success. He could see it. He knew that other working-class people like him had broken through, and he wasn’t going to give up.
It took a while, but after a decade of taking on small roles, often uncredited, he finally scored a significant part in Zulu in 1964, soon following it with his Academy Award-nominated performance in Alfie. So, while he eventually secured a career studded with hits, Caine isn’t shy to admit when he has appeared in a much less prosperous film, although he thinks some of them deserve more justice.
He can admit when a film has been bad, like Jaws: The Revenge, but what about the ones that just flew under the radar? He thinks a certain Bob Rafelson movie from 1997 deserves its flowers, but unfortunately, the movie hasn’t endured as much as he’d hoped.
Blood and Wine, which also starred Jack Nicholson in the lead, should’ve been bigger. Considering that the Hollywood actor had already worked with Rafelson several times before, most notably on Five Easy Pieces, the film had the makings of being a hit, but it just wasn’t. Add Caine to the line-up and you’re guaranteed success, right? Unfortunately not.
The film received mixed reviews, although Caine is adamant that it was “a wonderful movie.” Talking to Roger Ebert about the film, they both agreed that it was a criminally overlooked picture. “Blood & Wine must have broken Bob Rafelson’s heart, because that’s as good a picture as he’s made,” the critic told Caine, who said, “I asked someone what they thought was wrong with it? He said, ‘No one to root for.’ Everybody was an (bleep), he said.”
Clearly, this lack of heroism was a key reason for the film’s failure. That’s not what Hollywood audiences want to see. “It just didn’t work, did it?,” Caine said, even though Ebert was adamant that it was one of the British star’s best performances. Even Oscar-worthy.
Unfortunately, Blood and Wine didn’t have the pull to become a hit, grossing just $1.1 million against a budget of $26 million, which is incredibly unfortunate. Everyone involved in the project deserved a better outcome than that, but that’s Hollywood. You can never really tell what is going to be a winner.
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