I started to think about the way that accents are portrayed in films after seeing the film Locke (2014) at the cinema quite recently. Locke features Tom Hardy as the main character Ivan Locke who sets on a journey when the mother of his baby goes into labour. It's an interesting concept, original- the entire film taking place on a car journey. What got me thinking was Tom Hardy's choice of accent, Welsh. The accent started off as quite distracting, as I, as an audience member, couldn't quite associate the accent with the actor. Which then got me thinking about actors who have got an ear for accents and those that should just stop even contemplating doing an accent different to their own.
So, I will look at a couple of actors and the films in which require them to adopt an accent and analyse why I think each one is particularly good or particularly bad: