Magnolia has entered the chat .. also, through ive never seen Tropic Thunder- i hear that he steals the show in that one .. to me it’s wild that you think his best was in Taps, which was literally the very first movie he ever did, outside of a blink-and-you-miss-it singular scene in Endless Love .
The thing you need to realize is that each actor brings a huge amount of him/herself to every role they play .. that’s 98% of actors.. if you are comparing him to the likes of Day-Lewis or Streep, the extremely rare actor that “gets lost” in their roles, wherein they are unrecognizable because they “become” the character so fully- well, good luck deeming anyone a good actor or actress if that’s the bar youre comparing against… There are many , many brilliant actors who are still recognizable in their roles, because these are human beings laying a part, not AI .. at least not yet .