He's the poster-boy for this summer's biggest blockbuster, but is Brad Pitt the movie star who's yet to star in a hit movie? Steve Pratt examines the evidence.

DIRECTOR Wolfgang Petersen never had any doubt about who would be his ideal Troy boy after Brad Pitt signalled his interest in playing the Greek hero Achilles.

"It makes a lot of sense to have a big superstar like him because Achilles is definitely a superstar, like a pop star, in his time. So it makes sense to cast a star of our time," he says.

He's both right and wrong. At 40, Pitt is one of the world's biggest movie stars. After early roles dressing up as a chicken to advertise a fast food restaurant and in glossy TV soap Dallas, the actor has accrued a long list of diverse screen credits and an Oscar nomination for Twelve Monkeys.

He and wife Jennifer Aniston, star of TV's Friends, are the perfect couple - and that's official as they've come top of the 2004 list of the 50 Most Beautiful People In The World.

Yet you'd be hard pushed to name a blockbuster movie in which Pitt has starred. He does not, in industry parlance, open a movie. His name doesn't guarantee a good opening weekend box-office, the marker by which films are judged these days.

He can claim a willingness to try different things since first catching the eye as the young hitch-hiker who seduces Geena Davis in Ridley Scott's Thelma And Louise.

He has a number of modest commercial successes and critically-liked independent movies on his CV. Oceans Eleven was probably his biggest mainstream hit, but that had more to do with the ensemble cast - including George Clooney and Matt Damon - than Pitt's individual pulling power.

He's co-starred with many of Hollywood's top names including Julia Roberts, Anthony Hopkins, Bruce Willis, Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford and Robert Redford (who also directed him in A River Runs Through It).

But he's had disappointments both as a star (think Seven Years In Tibet and even Fight Club, which only gained cult status well after its initial release) and in the company of others (The Devil's Own with Ford, Meet Joe Black with Hopkins, and The Mexican with Roberts all under-performed).

He's still looking for a hit movie to call his own. No matter what he's done in the past to disguise his appearance - described early in his career as "James Dean looks, pouting lips and general air of overripe sensuality" - he's had to work hard to convince that he's more than just a pretty face.

The £200m epic Troy could change all that, although ironically the film doesn't stand or fall on the presence of Pitt. This is no star vehicle. The producers emphasise the ensemble nature of the movie, while still ensuring that Pitt's picture is bigger than anyone else's on the poster. You'd think that he'd be hoping that Troy will be his Pirates Of The Caribbean, the film that finally gave Johnny Depp, also 40 this year, a big commercial success after years of smaller, quirkier movies. A box office hit and an Oscar nomination has elevated Depp to the Hollywood A-list.

The massive marketing and publicity drive make it unlikely that Troy will flop in cinemas around the world. Less certain is whether it can do for Pitt what Pirates did for Depp.

Pitt, who collected a rumoured $17.5m to play Achilles, claims not to feel the pressure of people's expectations. "Listen, it's more fun when the films work and do well and it makes life easier, but it's not my job to worry about that," he says.

The difference is that Pitt, who can be effective in the right part, is not as good an actor as the immensely versatile Depp. The first advance reviews of Troy seems to indicate that. The film's principle shortcoming, wrote critic John Hiscock, was the casting of Pitt.

"It needs an actor with the presence of a Richard Burton to carry off the limp and cliched dialogue," he stated. "Unfortunately Brad Pitt does not quite fit the bill. Although he looks the part, with a shoulder-length mane of blond hair and a winning way with enemy princesses, he cannot make the often portentous lines ring true."

Having seen the film, I couldn't agree more. Pitt isn't bad, it's just that most others in the cast, including Eric Bana and Peter O'Toole, are better.

Of course, he looks every bronzed and muscular inch the Greek warrior. He spent months getting fit, building up his body and rehearsing the hand-to-hand fight sequences. He even gave up smoking just before filming began.

There's no doubt he takes his work very seriously. Not just the physical side but the mental and emotional aspect of creating a character. "Some movie stars are just beautiful and that's it," says Petersen. "But that's not the case with him. He did his homework, physically and mentally, preparing himself for the part."

Yet, because this is Pitt the pin-up, matters tend to get reduced to the way he looks - the length of his warrior's skirt, what he's wearing underneath and whether his legs were enhanced using computer graphics. He joins in the conspiracy, stripping off on screen to within a whisker, well pubic hair, of total exposure at several points in the film. It wouldn't be the first time. He and then-fiancee Gwyneth Paltrow were snapped in the nude on holiday by the paparazzi and the photographs published in magazines and on the Net.

He would have you believe that we're all more concerned about his physical appearance than he is, rather like rich people can afford to say that money doesn't bother them. If so, he really shouldn't go around saying, as he did this week, that he's hung like a hamster in reply to a question about whether he was the perfect male specimen.

"I don't worry about looks," he says. "You see yourself growing older and you don't want to live with any regrets, but then do that inventory on your twenties, 'did I get everything out of it that I wanted to? I wish I'd done that.' I guess you could pound yourself to death with regrets. But you just use that as a marker of where to go from there and I guess that is the wisdom."

Whatever the reaction to Troy, Pitt won't be short of work. He's been shooting Mr and Mrs Smith, opposite Angelina Jolie, and next rejoins Clooney & Co for the sequel Oceans 12. He also has a number of projects in development through Plan B, the production company in which he's a partner.

Not bad going for the man born William Bradley Pitt who dropped out of journalism school to try his luck in Hollywood.

Another forthcoming attraction could also be some little Pitts. After four years of marriage, he and Aniston are planning to start a family. "I think it's time I started having children, I finally think I'm mature enough," says Pitt. "More importantly, Jen thinks I'm mature enough and won't mess up a child's life too much."

* Troy (15) previews in some cinemas today, tomorrow and Thursday before opening nationwide on Friday.

* Fight Club is showing on BBC2 tonight at 9.15pm.

Published: 15/05/2004