8MM Starring: Nicholas Cage, Joaquin Phoenix Directed by: Joel Shumacher Screenplay: Andrew Kevin Walker Type: Action/Thriller MPAA Rating: R Rating: 3 1/2 Stars
Everybody at work talking about how good this movie looks from the trailer? They should be. Nicholas Cage has set himself apart as one of THE top action/thriller actors with films like Face/Off, Snake Eyes, Con-Air and now 8MM. Cage plays Tom Welles, a private detective living in Pennsylvania with a smallish practice serving clients with simple, mundane detective work, until he's approached by a wealthy woman looking to find out about an 8MM film found in her dead husbands bank vault. The film is disturbing to say the least. Its a snuff film. A pornographic rape that ends in the murder of the victim, a young runaway girl. The director, Joel Shumacher, spares us the viewing of the entire film but gives us enough of it to chill us. It has a deeper effect on Cage. He becomes obsessed with finding the producers of the film and perpetrators of the murder. The movie takes us into the dark world, and its filmed that way. Most of the film is a gritty, dark picture and it gives you that feeling of creepiness. That's a good thing in this picture because that's what its all about when making a thriller. We want to be pulled in, we want to be shocked, we want to be scared. It's not a horror film, but a journey into the underworld of porn and murder, and the writer, director, and actors, especially Cage, do a wonderful job of almost, but not qute, sickening us at what type of people are really out there. Cage's performance of Tom Welles is amazing. You follow along with him as he searches and eventually finds the people who are reponsible. Each step of the way you go in deeper with him. When it starts to get to him mentally, you feel it. Possibly one of his best performances as far as the action films go. The Co-Stars of the film also do a good job of setting the feel of the film. Joaquin Phoenix plays Max, the clerk at a porn shop in Los Angeles who helps Cage track down the poeple responsible. Catherine Keeners plays Welles ' wife Amy, who has to deal with Welle's downward spiral and the effects it causes on the family. And James Gandolfini and Pete Stormare do a wonderful job as the evil people behind the film. How good is it? Extremely good. Cage can pull off the mentally breaking down, on the edge of collape, emotionally unstable detective better than anyone. The story grabs you and continues to pull you in til the end. The action isn't as intense as say Face/Off but at times the movie just rocks on. Go see it, tell your co-workers on Monday how good it was.
Rating: 3 1/2 Stars
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