In his latest foray, Nic Cage takes on the role of a private detective,
sent out to
prove a “snuff” film’s authenticity for an old woman who has stumbled
upon the film in
her late husband’s private safe. (For those of you ignorant to “snuff”
films, they are an
urban myth....a film in which a human being is murdered. The idea is
that some people
get off on this.) His search leads him to underground porn dealers,
sleazy porn producers
and wild “S & M” baddies. The best idea presented in the film is
that most of the men he
encounters deny the existence of “snuff” films. An industry forged
in sleaze denies the
existence of these films. What makes this film so scary is that after
Cage wades through
the many, many men who are bad, (but not “snuff” film bad) he may actually
may come
to the worst. This is a shattering technique the screenplay wields
like an axe and then
uses against us. While showing us that beyond a trade that is linked
with degradation
there is something much worse, the final moments of the film hand us
a surprise (Andrew Kevin Walker, the film's writer, also penned 'Seven')
that brings these ideas to a boil. While you’ve been inundated with the
trailer for this film to the point where we’re saying the dialogue in our
sleep, the
movie is being mis-marketed. It’s far too dark for the multiplex.
There are problems with the film. The editing, for a film this
rich with
opportunities (it's a movie about movies for crying out loud!), is
truly bland.
My theory is that this is director Joel Schumacher’s only contribution.
Known for making poor Grisham films (“A Time to Kill”, “The Client”) and
even sloppier Batman films (“Forever” and “& Robin”), Schumacher is
obviously not the director for the job. Occasionally you’ll notice a bit
of
cornball dialogue, but these mistakes are so few and far between, it’s
easy to forgive.
I spoke to one person who was not at all turned off by the film
and had hoped for
something raunchier and more profane. I also spoke to someone who felt
the film
evolved into nothing more than a chase scene, a bad film with a good
film lost
somewhere inside of it. I have to disagree with all of these points.
There is a scene I call
to mind when I think of this film. It pictures Cage with his gun to
Gandolfini’s head. In
any lesser Cage film, a distraction would change the entire makeup
of the sequence,
causing it to diverge into a normal Cage situation. In this film, the
shot doesn’t move. It
reflects the “snuff” film entirely. By the end of the film, the idea
may have been
spoon-fed to our lazy American minds, but it’s there. The method to
reaching his
madness is, for me, very disturbing.
I apologize for the confusion this review contains, but I am trying
not reveal that which I must not, in the good tradition of the element
of surprise. What did I discover about Andy’s love for Nicholas Cage? No
matter what Cage does, he’s always supercool about it and he always seems
to know
what he’s doing. In this film, both of those attributes are stripped
away in key scenes. We
see the vulnerable man we saw in “City of Angels” and “Leaving Las
Vegas”. Blending
his tough-guy persona and the lovable, emotional Nicolas Cage in the
film, I can see why
Andy’s so nuts about him. Cage completely embodies the traits we’d
all like to possess,
but can’t quite bring to a head all the time. He’s a likable movie
star, cut and dried.
Seeing him in this type of form again, it’s easy to recognize his appeal.
As Andy would
say, watching Nicholas Cage is “always a pleasure”.