Actor Alec Baldwin is under fire for a tribute video to his late “The Hunt for Red October” co-star Sam Neill, with critics saying Baldwin spent most of the video discussing his own memories and career.

Neill appears in only the first 10 seconds and the final five seconds of the nearly three-minute video Baldwin posted Monday, July 13.

“I just wanted to come on here quickly and say, how stricken I was to learn of the death of Sam Neill,” Baldwin, 68, said in the video. “When I did The Hunt for Red October, we shot in ’89, it came out in 1990, a long time ago.”

From there, the tribute drifted. Baldwin recalled the 1990 thriller as one of his first major film roles, praised director John McTiernan, remembered meeting author Tom Clancy and worked his way through a long roll of names — actors Sean Connery, Tim Curry and James Earl Jones among them. In all, he name-dropped 14 castmates. He even slipped into an impression of Jones and recounted a moment involving actor Ronald Guttman smoking a cigarette while attempting a Russian accent.

A Eulogy That Lost Its Subject

Baldwin played CIA analyst Jack Ryan in the film. Neill played Captain Vasily Borodin, the Soviet submarine officer who becomes an unlikely ally. Yet Neill’s performance, his career and his life went almost entirely unaddressed. Baldwin circled back to the actor only as the clip wound down.

“Anyway, oh my God. My God. Sam Neill. My love to his family, my love to his family,” he said, ending the video.

At one point, Baldwin turned the reflection toward his own admiration for the production rather than his co-star. “That is one of the few movies I have ever done where I remember the whole movie,” he said. Baldwin explained he wasn’t a fan of his own performances but greatly admired the collaborative work on that film.

Online Backlash Builds

The reaction was swift and unforgiving. Users on the Reddit forum r/fauxmoi tore into the post on Tuesday, with some calling it “insane” and “narcissistic.” One commenter said Baldwin appeared more focused on his own mortality than on Neill’s life, while another criticized the lengthy list of celebrity names mentioned.

“So many name drops it’s like a slow, meandering version of We Didn’t Start The Fire,” a user commented, referencing Billy Joel’s song.

The criticism spread to other platforms, where the video was described as “rambling,” “bizarre” and “self-centered.” On X, one person wrote that it was “classic Baldwin to make everything about himself, even when the goal is supposed to be honouring a legendary co-star.” Another questioned whether the actor had simply lost the thread, noting he had “zero to say about Sam.”

Not Everyone Piled On

Some defended Baldwin, suggesting his wandering commentary was typical of someone recalling events from decades ago. One Reddit user said the actor was “vibing with memories” and noted that older people sometimes ramble.

That reading, though, was drowned out by the broader consensus, which held that a tribute is meant to center the person who died — and that this one did not. The complaint was less about Baldwin’s affection for the film, which came through clearly, than about the imbalance: a eulogy in which the deceased functioned almost as a footnote to the speaker’s own reminiscence.

Neill, whose death was confirmed by his family, built a career spanning more than four decades and left a body of work far larger than the single film that dominated Baldwin’s remarks. For many watching, that made the omission sting more sharply — a chance to celebrate a versatile actor that instead became a detour through one co-star’s Hollywood scrapbook.

Baldwin has not publicly responded to the criticism. The video remained on his Instagram account as the backlash mounted, a nearly three-minute reminder of how a well-intentioned goodbye can go sideways when the person delivering it forgets, for most of it, who it was for.