He’s either the worst actor who ever lived…

I met Johnny Depp once. Or, I should say that “we” met Johnny Depp. The “we” was me and a group of college-age film critics who had been invited to a special preview screening of “Benny & Joon.” We saw the film in an intimate theater on the Sony Pictures lot, which at that time — 1993 — was the old MGM Studios lot. So on the same patch of ground that “Gone With the Wind” and “Citizen Kane” were filmed, I got to see “Benny & Joon.” It wasn’t what you could call a breathless moment.

After the screening, Depp, along with director Jeremiah Chechik (who has gone on to make such artistic visions as “Diabolique” and “The Avengers”) and co-star Mary Stuart Masterson sat at a table and answered questions. As I recall, Depp slouched, slurred and smoked, playing the part of the ultra-cool dude (who, by the way, got his start on “21 Jump Street”) , which irritated me at the time. And my attitude carried over to the movie itself. And while I still think the movie really is second rate, I’ve changed my mind about Depp.

He’d showed what he could do in mime while playing the title role in Tim Burton’s “Edward Scissorhands.” He was wide-eyed and weird in Burton’s “Ed Wood,” buried under a totally believable accent in “Don Juan DeMarco” and “Donnie Brasco” and better than the material he was given in such films as “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” “The Ninth Gate” and “Blow.” But his real breakthrough came last year when, first, he played the rogue CIA agent in “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” and, then, Capt. Jack Sparrow in “The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.”

All of which leads to Depp’s current film, “The Secret Window,” which is worth watching only because Depp is in it. Based on a Steven King novella , “The Secret Window” has a plot line so obvious that even an amoeba would be able to figure out what’s going on before the first 20 minutes have passed. Director David Koepp (who directed “Stir of Echoes” but wrote the incredibly creepy “Apartment Zero ”) does what he can to keep us peeking through the window, so to speak. But it doesn’t work. Nifty camera angles and obtuse dialogue don’t make mystery. Here they just leave viewers in the murk.

But Depp: What a performer. His character, Mort Rainey , is filled with twitches and tics and vocal inflections that few other actors would be able to think up, much less perform with such authenticity. The story that unfolds around him is absurd, but Depp is never anything but watchable. He has earned the right to amble over the ground upon which Orson Welles walked. If he ever again does, though, I hope he’s dressed like a pirate. That would enough to take my breath away.