8mm - Meandering Cage flick

It's hard to believe that back in the nineties Nicholas Cage was a Box Office draw.  Slowly, the quality of his films deteriorated to the point that many were straight to DVD and only noticable for how truly awful they were.  1999's '8mm' was one of those movies which started the trend in his downward spiral.  It's not awful, but then it's nothing you'd probably want to watch again.

Cage plays a private detective who's hired by an old, rich widow to investigate her late husband's involvement in a 'snuff film' she found among his possessions after his death.  He therefore leaves his wife (Catherine Keener) and young baby for a while in order to look into the girl in the film's disappearance.

First of all, the whole point of him leaving his wife to work is a bit of a redundant sub-plot.  Because they spend so little screen time together there really isn't the chemistry between them that should exist with these two excellent actors.  I'm guessing the only real reason the 'wife element' was included was to show that Cage's character was a wholesome family man who was about to descend into the murky depths of the criminal underworld.

The film is quote long (just over two hours) and for the first hour not much happens.  Then Cage's investigation takes him to L.A. and he encounters a small time s3x shop worker (Joaquin Phoenix) who helps him along the way.  Now, it's well known that Phoenix is a great actor and he certainly lifts the film's quality and gives Cage someone to 'bounce off of.' However, his inclusion was a little late and they needed him in it much more.

Plus the film doesn't really have a defined antagonist.  Granted the story is about investigating a girl's disappearance, so, until about three quarters of the way through, we don't get to meet the person behind the crime.  And, when we do, there's sort of three of them - none of which can really be described as the actual 'villain' of the film.

What follows is supposed to be tense, but ends up more of a revenge flick where there aren't any real stakes.  I say this because, to get the tension, our hero should be in danger, not the one constantly in charge of every situation.  Then it ends.  But it doesn't.  It starts up again with a similar scenario.  In fact, it has roughly three endings (one per criminal who needs punishing).

There are a couple of moments that are supposed to be shocking (I would say 'twists,' but I don't think they're as clever as that), but you can spot them coming a mile away.  Ultimately, this film is just slow.  The colour pallets are drab and it's mainly walking and talking.  There are good bits thrown in there, but they're so mixed up it was like the film-makers had a lot of different ideas and tried to include all of them, rather than sticking to one solid premise and running with it.

If you're a fan of Cage you may get something more out of it, but it's Phoenix who steals the show at every turn.

5/10 a hard trek, a bit like unicycling to Mordor and back