Yet another film almost destroyed by Nic Cage’s horrendous acting. I mean…it just seems SO wooden, even when he displays emotion it seems as if he’s just reliving acting classes that describe how you SHOULD appear when angry/upset/etc…and he’s great at faking it, I suppose…but to me his appearances are more camp than anything else. I mean, when someone gets more angry over the alphabet than a homicide, you know there’s something amiss.
So Cage is consistently cr@ppy with occasional moments of believable mediocrity. FORTUNATELY, Joaquin Phoenix is consistently good, and the rest of the supporting cast makes the film enjoyable…although perhaps they’re just so good when compared to Cage?
Sort of a guilty pleasure, I suppose…partly because it tackles a subject that very few films would, and partly because the bad guys are so convincing in their nastiness.
The story concerns a supposed “snuff” film, but that’s really just an excuse to introduce some majorly fcked-up characters into Cage’s life, to show how Evil evil can be, to make money off of sensationalism, and so on. The moral “questions” (I already knew the answers before I saw the film) are obvious, at least to me.
Very few films that are this disturbing conceptually are this marketable in reality…think of ‘Dead Alive’, which intentionally does everything possible to offend/disgust, but succeeds only in the second way…it’s hard to be offended by something so campy and predictable.
Inspirational Quote: “He’s SAYING…that *name removed for spoiler reasons* fcked us…which is so totally completely bi-zarre…”
Grade: C+
2012: Phoenix, Gandolfini, and especially Stormare save this from the plague that is Nic Cage. Grade: B-