In a movie review, I rarely say, "I love this,"
but "the unbearable weight of massive talent showtimes” has earned my
admiration. Nic Cage has never been a comedian, but he does have a gift for
physical comedy that is unparalleled in the industry.
Nicolas
Cage plays himself in his latest film, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
This is not, it's fair to say, a career departure. Arguably, Cage has been playing
variations on the theme of Nic Cage for the best of four decades. Part of the
enjoyment in watching a Nic Cage film - such as Face/Off or Mandy - is filling
in the bingo card as viewers look for all the different performance tropes,
like lurching emphases on random words and shouting.
Cage's
distinctive screen presence led to "Cage rage" memes. Great memes are
created whenever Cage performs in a brutal yet truthful way. The most extreme
elements of a performance and then magnified to a grotesque comic effect.
Recently, Cage has expressed his disappointment with the "Cage rage"
depiction of his acting approach, arguing that it's reductive and focuses too
much on the rough moments or when there are very few lines to be delivered. With
that being said, considering last year's performance in "Pig," this
decision seems somewhat unexpected.
Unbearable
Weight is an action comedy that sees Cage's character recruited by US secret
services to spy on a wealthy individual while collaborating with the suspect on
a dialogue-driven, character-led screenplay. The film could be viewed as an
admission of defeat to the mummification of Nic Cage or, perhaps, by
confronting the clichés head, he can finally move past them by owning them.
No
one ever said that life would always be easy. It's full of ups and downs, and
some things can be hard to cope with. The things that make it worth living
aren't always the same. Sometimes it's important to separate yourself from
something you know is not suitable for finding peace in your private life,
especially regarding love and family. That's what this movie did, providing a
light-hearted approach to Hollywood egos and excesses while at the same time
using its novelty as a love letter to those who have taken part in a similar
journey.
In
playing a version of himself, Cage follows in the footsteps of John Malkovich,
who played himself inBeing John Malkovich, and Jean-Claude Van Damme, who played
himself as a down-on-his-luck action star Mabrouk el Mechri’s JCVD.
Cage also has more in common with Barry Sonnenfeld's Get Shorty, sharing
similar ties with organized crime in Hollywood.
Nic
Cage (the fictional one) is a mess. With a career bleeding out through a
B-movie plughole and a tendency to make everything – his daughter's birthday,
the song he composed for her – about himself, he is hostage to a hectoring
inner voice (played by digitally de-aged era from Wild at Heart) that reminds
him that he’s Nic Cage and should act accordingly. He's initially resistant to
the offer of a gig appearing at the birthday party of billionaire super fan
Javier (Pedro Pascal). Still, He grudgingly takes the job, considering it an
easy opportunity with potential paydays. Debts are mounting, and this trip to a
luxury compound in Mallorca comes with handsome paycheques.
The
film he hadn't expected to find a soul mate in was The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
Javi introduces him to the joys of Paddington 2, and they also seem to share a
love for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. But Javi's burgeoning bromance with Shane
is interrupted by CIA agent Vivan (Tiffany Haddish), who informs him that Javi
is the head of a cartel and is implicated in the kidnapping of a teenage girl.
Director and co-writer Tom Gormican, whose previous film was the poorly received bro-comedy, favors a combination of broad physical humor – Cage, reeling from an accidentally self-administered stunning agent and scaling the outside of Javi’s villa, is giddy fun – and cine-literate referential jokes. The screenplay is so meta that, at times, it is practically consuming itself. But there's a great appeal to the picture that disarms the more self-satisfied tendencies of the writing. And when you watch this film, you'll see why it’s such a success! Come for the industry satire but stay for your endearingly goofy buddy movie.
