The film opens with a movie clip of Nicholas Cage saying ' I could cut my hair if you think that would make it better'. Thus is the tone of The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent set. Its a film with its tongue very much in its cheek. And of course Cage is central to its multi layered conceit. Because it is the history and reputation of his movies, and the eccentricity and waywardness of his talent as an actor, that is being lampooned here. That Cage is more than willing to embrace this modus operandi, is to my mind so admirable that it has actually transformed my view of him. Yes, he has become a bit of a spendthrift with his career. Often in the unfettered pursuit of money. All of this is up for becoming the subject matter in this film. As he says in response to the repeated assertion through out, that this film might be considered a comeback - ' not that I ever went away'.
So Nicholas Cage, playing Nick Cage, goes to an island to meet an apparently mafia movie mogul Ravi, who wants to talk to him about making a movie together. Ravi, played with bright eyed besottedness by Pedro Pascal, just loves Nicholas Cage, he is a huge huge fan. The CIA, also on the island, believes Ravi is holding a woman hostage as part of a Mafia political sting. When their own spying network fails to show up, the CIA recruit Cage to investigate Ravi for them. Cage's friendship with Ravi grows, they go on long fantasy car journeys working out possible story lines, into which Cage clumsily introduces the real idea of a kidnap victim.
But the conventions of this narrative trail doesn't quite capture the real intoxicating delight the movie has in playing around with the reality that you are perceiving. Cage and Ravi go on a ride in a car brainstorming ideas whilst they are off their heads on LSD. Boundaries are transgressed or constantly blurred. Cage when drunk will often meet his younger self, back when he was supposedly 'a better actor'. This younger self mocks and taunts him, so it will always end up in a fight with this fantasy version of himself from the past. At the film's end we are unexpectedly thrust into another realm, a fictionalised portrayal of a fictionalised portrayal, where his wife is now being played by Demi Moore. Its the final shoot of the movie he's now made of the script he and Ravi wrote, the meta filmic fiction is given another twist.
The first experience of this movie its perplexing, a seeming mess of ideas, that somehow holds itself together around Cage and Pascal's evident enjoyment of creating this riot of disorder. I think a second view might reveal more hidden delights, once you are not taken off guard by the bamboozling of its hokum.
Buoyed up by a new found respect for Cage, we watched a recent horror movie of his Willy's Wonderland. In it he does not speak a single word whilst he destroys a succession of demonically possessed automata. Its bizzare, low budget, its trash and a complete waste of our time and his. But every now and then, just when you think you can write Cage off, he'll pull something out of really unpromising subject matter. Willy's Wonderland wasn't one of those, but it could have been. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, however bonkers it is, its a true gem.
CARROT REVIEW - 7/8
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