A Titan Among Mortals

Title: The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

Rating: 5 Stars

I watch a lot of films. Since the beginning of 2019, I’ve watched nearly 400 films. Since the beginning of this year, I’ve watched over 60, including French, Mexican, Japanese, Hitchcock, and even silent films. Over the past three months, I’ve awarded a five star rating to a grand total of four films. Fascinating to me, three of those films star Nicholas Cage.

I know that he’s had a lot of grief over the years with some truly over the top performances and then some performances where, even if he was fully committed to whatever role he was playing, he was doing it for money to get the government tax man off of his back.

Even so, there’s no denying that, in the right vehicle, a Nicholas Cage film can be a wonder to behold. The two earlier 5 star reviews were for Con Air and Pig. It would be hard to visualize two different films. Cage was amazing in both.

This brings us to the third 5 star Cage film that I’ve just watched, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. I know that these are big words, but this might be my new favorite Nicholas Cage film.

Nicholas Cage plays an actor named Nic Cage, famous for such films as Con Air, Face/Off, Captain Carolli’s Mandolin, and Mandy. His career is at a crossroads. He’s living at a fancy hotel and his bill is now many hundreds of thousands of dollars. He’s up for a part that, if he gets it, will re-launch his career.

Meanwhile, he’s in a problematic relationship with his ex-wife and daughter. Narcissistic, he wants to be close to his daughter but feels that he can only do so by dominating her. In his world, he simply doesn’t have enough room to empathize with the thoughts and feelings of others.

He does not get the coveted role. In despair, he decides to retire from acting. To clear his debt, he agrees to accept a $1,000,000 personal appearance to attend a birthday party in Majorca for the extremely wealthy Javi Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal).

Hungover and surly, to his surprise he finds himself becoming friends with Gutierrez. Gutierrez is a true fanboy of Cage and fawns over him. They find that they have similar tastes in film. Majorca is beautiful and they have a magical time together. However, Gutierrez has a secret agenda. He’s written a script for Cage and wants him to read it.

While this is happening, two FBI agents intercept Cage. They tell him that Gutierrez is a notorious, violent drug lord and that he has kidnapped the daughter of a politician. Cage can’t believe it but he agrees to work with the FBI to locate the young woman.

So that he can stay in Majorca, Cage convinces Gutierrez that they should work together and co-write a script. Gutierrez, thrilled, agrees. The script starts off as a sensitive story of two men becoming friends but, for box office appeal, they begin to add plot complications like a kidnapping. Over time, the script and reality begin to blend. By the end of the film, what started off as a character study of an actor in his twilight becomes an over the top Cage action film.

In a word, glorious. You want a portrayal of the price of stardom and the corrosive cost of fame on a psyche? Check. You want to navigate the troubled journey of an out of touch father and his estranged daughter? Check. You want to watch a buddy movie? Check. You want to watch a silly comedy that leaves Cage drooling on the floor after accidentally wiping his forehead with poison? Check. And finally, do you want to watch a Nicholas Fucking Cage action film where his daughter throws him a knife, he catches it in mid air, and he stabs the bad guy holding a gun to his head? CHECK!

Although it’s not, this film reeks of Charles Kaufman. In fact, it’s obviously reminiscent of the awesome Being John Malcovich. In both cases, you have two fearless actors taking on their strangest role, themselves.

In fact, Cage does double duty. Not only does he play the actor Nic Cage, he also plays the actor’s id named Nicky Cage that manifests itself as a CGI de-aged Nicholas Cage that only Nic can see. Nicky Cage is a wild man apparently based upon the character that he played in Lynch’s Wild at Heart.

The film has fun with some of the excesses of Cage’s life.  Gutierrez has a room that’s an entire shrine devoted to Cage’s career. The highlight is a statue of Cage holding his two gold guns from Face/Off. The statue is truly a hideously done caricature of Cage. Cage is horrified by it and Gutierrez is a bit embarrassed. Cage asks Gutierrez how much he paid for it. Gutierrez says $6,000. Cage, despite his known money problems, promptly offers $20,000 for it. In real life, one of the reasons that Cage got in so much financial trouble was his purchases. Among other things, he bought dinosaur skulls, the Shah of Iran’s Lamborghini (?!), the first Superman comic, and two European castles.

Not to get too high brow or anything, but this film also made me think of the second part of Don Quixote. If you don’t know the plot, the first part of Don Quixote is the deluded Quixote going out on adventures and then being routinely beaten up and treated as a mad man. In the world of the second part, the first part of Don Quixote has already been published. Therefore, when Quixote goes out again, the people that he encounter have already read the first part and this prior knowledge informs how they treat him (hence an argument can be made that the 17th century Don Quixote is the first true post modern novel). When Nic Cage goes to Majorca, he’s in a similar situation. Everyone already knows who he is and this knowledge informs their treatment of him.

Casting Neil Patrick Harris as Cage’s agent is inspired. For those unfamiliar with Harris’ career, he started off as a child actor playing the doctor Doogie Howser. Struggling to become accepted as an adult actor, the role that broke him free was when he played a wild, womanizing, drug addled version of himself in the Harold and Kumar films.

It goes without saying that Cage does great work in this film. However, Pedro Pascal does amazing work as well. Alternately appearing to be a fanboy and a ruthless cartel leader, Pascal and Cage form a great comedy team as their bromance blossoms.

I just might have to go back into the extensive Cage cinematic backlog and find some more of his work to enjoy.