Author: iysmall@aol.com (Ron Small) 8MM (1999) Grade: D+ Director: Joel Schumacher Screenplay: Andrew Kevin Walker Starring: Nicholas Cage, Joaquin Phoenix, James Gandolfini, Peter Stormare, Anthony Heald, Catherine Keener, Myra Carter, Christopher Bauer The subject matter that is dealt with (and I use that term lightly) in 8MM is an undeniably sensational one. It's too bad that its filmmaker's seem less interested in the film's lurid topic then in the simplistic conventions of the action genre. 8MM is ostensibly a private eye flick that aims for something more, though ends up with something less. Tom Welles (a morose Nicholas Cage) is a young private investigator searching for a case that will propel his career to the level of…Sam Spade, I guess. Such a case is presented, and he jumps at the chance to solve what might be a murder filmed on 8mm film. The reel was discovered in the vault of a recently deceased socialite, and Welles has been hired by the socialite's unsuspecting widow to determine if the "killing" is the real thing. The existence of snuff films (the definition of "snuff film" being a film in which a real murder occurs) is the stuff of urban legends. I have actually met people who claim to know someone, who dated someone, whose grandmother viewed a snuff film (or something along those lines). Yeah whatever, and Elvis lives. As far as I've been able to gauge within my twenty years of experience on this planet, there is no market for this sort of thing. But it doesn't seem entirely impossible, does it, what with FACES OF DEATH (a collection of "accidental" deaths captured on videotape and packaged for your entertainment) readily available in many video stores. What a completely compelling subject matter for a film to explore, right? A topic that is in touch with the most sadistic portions of the social zeitgeist and contains a built in sensationalistic lure. This is the stuff of great pulp thrillers. And the opening led me to believe that for once Schumacher (the imbecile who ran the BATMAN franchise into the ground) was on the right track. The first ten minutes are appropriately ominous; the colors stylishly muted, and the score an extraneous, Arabic sounding something or other that fits nicely with the proceedings. As it turns out, 8MM isn't so much an investigation into snuff, as it is a full-length feature film version of one of those crime reenactments regularly staged on AMERICA'S MOST WANTED. The imagery we are shown is dark and garish, but it's equally over done and fallacious, like a Hollywood set that calls too much attention to itself. I was reminded of Julie Salamon's book THE DEVIL'S CANDY, which was a guide to the production of the adaptation of Tom Wolfe's masterful novel, THE BONFIRE OF VANITIES. One passage recounts how the film crew littered the streets of the Bronx with extras dressed as stereotypical pimps, hookers, and drug dealers to fill out the scenery, and generate fear within the white middle class audience wherein the film was aimed. They even included burning cars for additional hyperbole, as if it was needed. Shumaker does something similar. When Tom Welles contacts Max, an adult video store clerk (played with maximum quirkiness by Joaquin Phoneix), he is eventually led into an underground porno ring. The set looks like a dungeon straight out of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, with dingy, florescent lights barely illuminating the nightmare. The film later implies that this dungeon is supposed to be spooky, yet somewhat stimulating as well. It only succeeds at the former; the movie fails to show us how any of this stuff could be any thing more then revolting. The porn dealers, are presented as a ravaged bunch, who hardly speak a word, and when they do speak, its so damn creepy we wish they'd stop. They are the Hollywoodized vision of porn dealers, miles from the real thing. I suspect the real guys would be just as scary, but in the way that that egomaniac Quentin Tarantino is scary, rather than the quietly menacing figures 8MM gives us. Welles and Max explore bondage clubs that look like HBO's REAL SEX series meets HELLRAISER complete with Euro trash porn dealers decked out in ebony latex. However the primary villains are depicted as conventionally evil louts who wouldn't be out of place in a LETHAL WEAPON movie. That especially goes for Peter Stormare, who plays the main antagonist in such a laughable, over the top manner he could be auditioning for the role of lead villain in DIE HARD 4. This wouldn't be as grating if it were put to the service of a typical action romp, but Schumaker is supposedly charting new out territory with a subject matter that is indeed, deeply disturbing; so disturbing that it's maddening to see it given such a "commercial" treatment. The film draws you into its satiated web, but for all the wrong reasons: It trots out an abundance of home video recorded "killings", that are graphically realized for no purpose. 8MM obviously isn't interested in exploring the topic in a serious manner, so why present us with torturous scenes of grisly violence if it's at the service of such an ordinary Hollywood crime thriller. (THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER tried the same thing to the exact same effect). The detective portion of the story is comparatively weak: Characters are identified by tattoos, and Cage stumbles upon a diary that the cops should have found a year earlier. Ahh Cage, what happened to that Nicholas Cage? He was so charismatic in FACE OFF, but so dull in everything since. He continues that backward trend, appearing drowsy and delivering all his lines in a tone as flat as diet coke. But since this is a Schumacher film, he at least looks cool in a fully black ensemble that gives him the appearance of death freezed over. For most of the movie his character is a detached bore who, towards the end, abruptly transforms into a psychotic nut case. In visual terms that means that Cage contorts his face like Jim Carrey's evil twin brother while breathlessly muttering things like "It's gonna be okay, it's gonna be okay". But never mind that, the incongruous switch in character makes no sense. Nothing that preceded it suggests any monumental change is coming; it just happens. I suspect the switch has more to do with Schumacher's desire to further pander to his audience's blood lust rather than genuine character motivation. Following the transformation, in an incredibly bullying denouement, Cage appoints himself as an Angel of Death executing every one guilty of wrongdoing. The repulsive crimes committed by the villains give us reason to cheer for Cage as he coldly dispatches them ("I will never get tired of hurting you, Eddie") with less care then Charles Bronson in DEATH WISH. Schumacher makes his bad guys so un-redeemably evil that they laugh when they feel pain, and challenge Cage to "do it already". We crave for them to die horribly, and the movie indulges in our reactionary fantasies. Should this film be lauded because it looks as a good as a commercial for grime, and pushes all the right buttons? I don't think so. The meat of the movie could be called entertaining, but in the same way it might be entertaining to watch those lurid FOX "shocumentaries". Some have criticized me for lauding movies like SEVEN and THE FIGHT CLUB, claiming that they are cut from the same cloth as 8MM. I disagree. Both of those films offered insight into the horrifying violence that they presented. Schumacher may think he's doing that, but I doubt he could ever make a truly gritty film without commercializing it (see FALLING DOWN). His nihilism is just as stylized as the candy colored cartoon world of BATMAN AND ROBIN; it's also just as phony. Like the extreme porn that is the subject of 8MM, the film itself is an extreme, sexualized violent fantasy filmed like the most conventional potboiler
http://www.geocities.com/incongruity98 (Ron's Movie Reviews)
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