Film: The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Pedro Pascal, Jacob Scipio, Demi Moore, Sharon Horgan, Ike Barinholtz, Alessandra Mastronardi, Lily Sheen, Neil Patrick Harris, Tiffany Haddish
Director: Tom Gormican
Rating: 3/5
Runtime: 107 mins
This film is about Nicholas Cage playing himself. The story plays thus ; Creatively unfulfilled and facing financial ruin – with no takers for his acting talents and with a divorce and child support hanging fire, Nicholas Cage is forced to accept a $1 million offer to attend the birthday of a dangerous superfan Javier ( Pedro Pascal). But once in Spain, Cage is recruited by a CIA operative and forced to live up to his own multiple screen personas, channeling his most iconic and beloved on-screen characters.
For those who’ve seen “Con Air,” “Moonstruck,” “Raising Arizona,” “Honeymoon in Vegas,” “The Rock” and “Face/Off” it’s really hard not to be a Nicholas Cage fan. My guess is that director Tom Gormican and his co-writer Kevin Etten have basically written a part of themselves into this movie that allows the A lister to showcase his legendary talents to the fans. This film proves beyond a doubt that Cage is not a spent force and he still has it in him to entertain us in a style we have gotten accustomed to.
The filmmakers craft a symbiotic narrative that has the actor and his on screen persona, living up to expectations of his fan. The aggrandized narrative works up quite a lather while careering through the shifting goalposts of contemporary expectations. The narrative begins with a scene featuring a teenage girl referring to Cage as a “fucking legend” while watching the 1997 action film “Con Air.” The next moment we see her being kidnapped. Cut to Cage cruising down Sunset Blvd on his way to a meeting with a director at the Chateau Marmont. We are privy to his neurosis when we see his dysfunctional family life. He is busy hoping for a role of a lifetime while his divorced wife Olivia (Sharon Horgan) and 16 year old Daughter Addi (Lily Sheen) are getting further alienated from him. Since he’s got living expenses to take care of he has no way out other than playing a fictionalized version of himself called Nick Cage at billionaire super fan Javi Gutierrez’s (olive-exporting magnate who may also be an international gun runner) birthday in Mallorca for a cool million. Adding further complexity to the narrative is Nicky a surreal version of Cage’s “Wild At Heart” persona butting in with reminders that he is still an actor of repute.
The script is stuffed with self-referential dialogue and generic action-flick beats. The actor gallantly lives out a plot resplendent with car chases, shoot-outs, leaping off cliffs and macho posturing. You see Cage go through real and fake moments, pandering to his own vanity and artistry, taking a few potshots at himself along the way and generating comedic moments that are astonishing in their conceit. Sequences reminiscent of “Gone In 60 Seconds,” “National Treasure,” and “Leaving Las Vegas” also flit through this highly imaginative and daringly witty entertainer. This is a fun ego trip for the actor and likely to be well loved by the fans.
