Year of Release: 2022
Director: Tom Gormican
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Pedro Pascal, Sharon Horgan, Tiffany Haddish, Paco Leon, Neil Patrick Harris, Ike Barinholtz, Lily Mo Sheen, Alessandra Mastronardi, Jacob Scipio, Katrin Vankova, David Gordon Green
Genre: Action, Comedy
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 5
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Synopsis and Review
"The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent" is Tom Gormican's sophomore directorial feature, following his poorly received "That Awkward Moment", which featured Zac Effron, Miles Teller, and Michael B. Jordan in the cast. The narrative focuses on Nicolas Cage who is the midst of attempting a restart of his career, though he keeps telling everyone he never went anywhere, and has continued to work very steadily. A promising conversation with director David Gordon Green seems to lift his hopes that a big role is coming his way, but that turns out not to be the case. His agent Richard mentions to him that there's a well paid booking just awaiting his decision: a 1 million dollars to meet one of his biggest fans in Mallorca, the playboy Javi Gutierrez, who is celebrating his birthday. As Cage is in the middle of an emotional turmoil with his daughter and his ex-wife, he agrees to the meeting, after being reassured that nothing creepy or awkward is being prepared by Javi. The two men eventually bond over a mutual love of a few films, but Cage is soon approached by two CIA agents who inform him that Javi is a crime lord, and has in fact kidnapped the daughter of a Catalan anti-crime politician. They ask Cage for help, in the hopes he can indeed confirm that the young woman is in the compound. However Cage soon realizes not everyone on Javi's entourage is who they claim to be.
This whole aspect of poking fun at himself and the path his career has taken, is actually the most compelling aspect to this film that is for all intended purposes a celebration of the talent and charisma of Nicolas Cage. And while he does indeed have plenty of both, this film while at times funny and entertaining, fails to capitalize on his whole persona, and also fails to take the narrative to another level. This film isn't as layered as Spike Jonze's "Being John Malkovich", it doesn't really deconstructs the ego of the actor, or surface the insecurities or fears Nicolas Cage actually has. It's a bit of a celebration with the mix of an actual action plot that by the epilogue seems to spark his energy once again. A slight variation on the unjustly maligned "The Last Action Hero" from John McTiernan, only in this case, the supposed real life is being rendered just like a Nicolas Cage action film. The film benefits from the exchanges and interactions between Cage and the always great Pedro Pascal, the same going for the underrated Sharon Horgan, however as the action set piece comes into play, the film also moves into more generic territory, and it becomes a bit of a less exciting parody, undermining all the winks at the films that have already been mentioned from Nicolas Cage's filmography. It ultimately lives from the persona of Nicolas Cage the actor/character, leaving very little room for anything else, though the supporting cast does add some solid work, including Pedro Pascal, Sharon Horgan, Ike Barinholtz, and Neil Patrick Harris. The score from Mark Isham is solid, the same going for Nigel Buck's cinematography. It's a fairly watchable film, but once again one that could have gone so much further.
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