So I am trying my best to crank through as many of these reviews as I can, to have a book three for San Diego Comic Con, and I feel like I am progressing pretty well. As I was telling Larry and Mark, I am experiencing a creative tidal wave, and I am riding it right back to the shore. So I just wrote an article about Session 9, and in that review, I mention a film David Caruso and Nic Cage are in together called Kiss of Death. And I then realized I have not written a review for a Nic Cage film. And because of that, I am going to hit you with two. This is the first. But before I jump into the flick, I want to say something about when this movie came out. This movie comes out about a full month before The Matrix, and I recall seeing it in the theater; in fact, I have the ticket stub. But I remember really liking this flick even then, but it fell to the back of the line as soon as The Matrix premiered. But as I could write about seeing The Matrix in a theater with my now brother-in-law on the Friday it came out, and being in a theater with nine other people. Yeah, the theater was empty, and that movie did not explode until word of mouth hit. We then proceeded to see it two more times, and were happy to get the full audience crazy experience that it deserved. But, this is about 8MM, and when I walked out, I was very, very blown away by this flick. So let’s talk about it.
Here is the setup. Tom Welles, played by Nicolas Cage, is a surveillance specialist and private investigator living a quiet life in Pennsylvania with his wife Amy, played by Catherine Keener, and their infant daughter. He is good at his job, and that mostly involves photographing insurance fraud and cheating spouses. Nothing too crazy. Then he gets a call from the attorney for a recently widowed woman named Mrs. Christian, played by Myra Carter. Her late husband was an enormously wealthy and powerful man, and while going through his belongings after his death, she found something in his private safe. A small reel of 8mm film. It appears to be the actual murder of a young girl. Not a simulation. Not staged. The real thing. This is my introduction to the term “snuff film.” I honestly don’t think I ever heard about that before this. Anyway, she wants to know if the girl was real, if she is really dead, and if so, who did this. And so Welles takes the case. And the deeper he goes, the further he gets from the world he knows. He ends up in Los Angeles working with a record store clerk named Max California, played by Joaquin Phoenix, who knows the underground adult film world and agrees to guide him through it. And then deeper still into New York and the absolute bottom of what people will do for money. Sold yet? Well, that is where I will stop the plot, but you are in for a ride. And then the one thing about this flick that impresses me the most is the cast, because this is 1999. So let’s talk about that.
Now, the cast. Nicolas Cage is Tom Welles and this is Cage doing something he does not get enough credit for, which is playing ordinary. And this is also why I am writing this article. This is in my opinion the most normal Nic Cage is in a flick. Welles is not quirky character. He is a normal decent man being slowly destroyed by what he is witnessing and Cage plays that erosion with real restraint and real pain like any good father seeing what he sees would. He honestly gives a damn solid performance and I like to think that everything he does after this movie is because of the real Nic Cage explored the depths of where this movie took him and made him a bit crazy. Anyway, he is awesome in this. Joaquin Phoenix is Max California and he is honestly the best thing in the movie. Max is funny and street smart and genuinely kind under the don’t give a “f” exterior vibe he is putting out. And Phoenix brings a personality to the role that makes everything that happens to him land harder than it should. A lesser actor doing this would have been less impactful but this was Phoenix right after To Die For and Inventing the Abbotts and right before Gladiator, a period where he was about to become the man, and this performance is a major part of that argument. I think it is easily one of his best roles. How about James Gandolfini is Eddie Poole, a low level low life in the underground film world, and this is the year The Sopranos debuted. In fact, The Sopranos debuted in January 1999, this came out Feb of 1999, and Gandolfini was becoming Tony Soprano, so this is when you start to see that he is about to become an enormous star, because he is scene stealing in this. So let’s recap where we are. Oscar winner Nic Cage, Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix, three time Emmy winner James Gandolfini. But let’s keep going with the cast. Next is Peter Stormare as Dino Velvet, the underground filmmaker at the center of this, and if you know Peter Stormare you know him as one of the nihilists in The Big Lebowski, as Gaear Grimsrud in Fargo who feeds a body into a wood chipper, and as the devil himself in Constantine. He is one of the great screen weirdos of the last thirty years and Dino Velvet is exactly the role built for him. Another role, that when given to him, I am sure he shows up in wardrobe with this stuff from his closet. Anthony Heald plays Longdale, the attorney who hires Welles, and if that name sounds familiar it is because he is Dr. Chilton in The Silence of the Lambs, the warden who keeps leaking information about Hannibal Lecter to the press. Like I said earlier, Catherine Keener plays Amy Welles and this is not a large role but Keener does a solid job on screen, when she is present. She had just done Being John Malkovich the same year, for which she received an Oscar nomination, and she is one of those actresses where no scene she is in feels wasted. And then there is Norman Reedus in a small but memorable role early in the film, years before he became Daryl Dixon on The Walking Dead. He is barely in it but he leaves an impression. The last person I will mention in this is Chris Bauer, and he plays Machine. I bring him up because he is in a billion movies and tv shows, but he is in Larry’s favorite For All Mankind.
Now the crew. The director is Joel Schumacher, and I know what you are thinking. Batman and Robin. I hear you. I get it. That film did not get well received but here is the thing about Joel Schumacher that gets lost. The man directed St. Elmo’s Fire, The Lost Boys, Flatliners, Falling Down, The Client, and A Time to Kill before he ever touched Batman. He was an absolute solid director that most people think made a career altering misstep, but I disagree. Batman and Robin doubled its budget and that is a success. Sure it was not Batman making eight times its budget, but it made people money. Back to this flick. 8MM is the film he made immediately after Batman and Robin and it is the film of a director who had something to prove. He was showing everyone that he could direct a solid flick. My opinion is that it is maybe his second best directed film. The screenplay is by Andrew Kevin Walker, who wrote Se7en. Walker had written one of the defining thrillers of the 90s and the studio hired him to write the follow up and this is what he brought to the table. Are you kidding me? He also wrote Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow and Joe Johnston’s The Wolfman. All amazing scripts. He is working I believe with Panos Cosmatos on Flesh of the Gods. I bring this up because my next review is a Panos flick. The cinematographer is Robert Elswit, who is one of the greatest working cinematographers in American film. He shot There Will Be Blood for Paul Thomas Anderson, which he won the Oscar for. He also shot Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Good Night and Good Luck, Michael Clayton. The score is by Mychael Danna, who later won the Oscar for Life of Pi, and like most of my favorite movies, the soundtrack also does a great job of making you feel uneasy. Absolute solid crew. And now on to my favorite part. The quotes.
“There are some things that you see, and you can’t unsee them. Know what I mean?” – Max California
“You know the best part of killing someone? The look on their face. It’s that look. Not when they’re threatened. Not when you hurt them. Not even when they see the knife. It’s when they feel the knife go in. That’s it. It’s surprise. They just can’t believe it’s really happening to them. She had that look, the girl, when she knew it wasn’t just porno.” – George Higgens
“I don’t buy it. I don’t endorse it. I just point the way.” – Max California
“What were you expecting? A monster?” – George Higg
“This is wrong, something’s wrong. Oh, God, not like this. I’m supposed to have something more cinematic. Kill them, Machine… kill them all.” – Dino Velvet
“Hello, Machine. Love your work.” – Tom Welles
Look, Rotten Tomatoes has this at 24 percent and I cannot believe that is accurate. The cast alone makes it required viewing for anyone who cares about film. Cage and Phoenix in the same movie with Tony Soprano directed by the director of Lost Boys and the script by the guy that wrote Se7en. You kidding me. 24? whatever. Standard deal. You hate it, find me and i will provide a five dollar bill. I will expect change. But seriously, I imagine you will really dig it.
Fun Facts:
- Russell Crowe was Joel Schumacher’s first choice for the role of Tom Welles. The studio pushed for Nicolas Cage because he was the bigger box office name in 1999 following Face Off and Con Air. Crowe went on to make Gladiator the following year, which won him the Oscar, so nobody came out of that decision badly. Mark Wahlberg was also originally attached to the film and dropped out before production began. I believe for the Max California role.
- I read somewhere that the screenplay was written by Walker before Se7en was released. Which leads me to believe that he knew that he had more in him and boy did he prove it. He also wrote Brainscan, which I love and more recently David Fincher’s The Killer with Magneto. Or is it Michael Fassbender?
- The last tidbit to share is it premiered in the Berlin International Film Festival and won essentially the best picture award, and standing ovation. It then premiered in the US and people kind of ignored it. Sometimes I think the Europeans have a better view on the darker topics/subjects in film.
