Director: Tom Gormican
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Pedro Pascal, Tiffany Haddish, Sharon Horgan, Paco Leon, Neil Patrick Harris, Lily Mo Sheen, Alessandra Mastronardi, Demi Moore, David Gordon Green, Ike Barinholtz
Distributor: StudioCanal
Runtime: 107 mins. Reviewed in May 2022
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc

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Rating notes: Coarse language, violence, sexual references, drug use

Actor Nicolas Cage has agreed to star in an action drama-spoof about himself. Spanish settings, CIA espionage, wife and daughter abducted – and all kinds of dangers, chases, shootouts, all tongue-in-cheek.

The immediate thought while watching this tantalisingly titled film is what a good sport Cage must be. To have agreed to the enterprise in the first place. To have participated so enthusiastically in the second place. And to display his life and career on screen with such acting and dramatic zest.

Obviously, this is a bit of cinema fun for everyone concerned and for the audience, especially those who have had an admiration for Cage despite the multitude (to say the least) of action quickies that he has been making in recent years. This one, of course, sends those up. (And, to respect Cage, he did win the Best Actor Oscar in 1995 for his alcoholic screenwriter character in Leaving Las Vegas.)

In a sense, this is a film that has its cake and eats it. The cake is a Cage action show. Eating it is in the fact that it is all tongue-in-cheek, a send-up – we can have all the action while mocking it.

Then, there is Cage’s alter ego, a digitised version of his younger self who, in the final credits, is named as Nicolas Kim Coppola (which is Cage’s actual name). The alter ego is the younger swaggering self, making demands, taunting, but needing to be KO’d.

The cowriter-director, Tom Gormican, was daring to ask Cage to participate in this self-mocking enterprise. The popularity of Being John Malkovich meant that Being Nicolas Cage was taken for a title. And, there was a precedent, Adaptation, starring Cage and written and directed by Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufmann, who made Being John Malkovich.

As the film opens, Cage is pleading for a role that will get him a comeback, arguing with his agent, Neil Patrick Harris. Meanwhile, he struggles with his ex-wife (British comedian Horgan), tries to relate to his rebellious 16-year-old daughter, making her watch the 1919 German expressionist film, Cabinet of Dr Caligari.

He accepts an invitation to go to Mallorca, hosted by Javi (Pascal) in a lavish coastal villa. Javi has written a screenplay he wants Cage to star in. However, in the background, then in the foreground, are drug dealing criminals, surveillance by the CIA in the form of Haddish and Barinholtz. Cage is seconded by them to spy on Javi, to find the location of a politician’s kidnapped daughter, and deal with his ex-wife and daughter being abducted.

So, the rest of the film is action adventure, espionage, surveillance, assassins, dealers, fights, shootouts, car chases, the lot.

Which means then that we have a typical Cage movie underlying and overlaying an entertaining movie spoof – with all kinds of enjoyable references to many of Cage’s other films.

As this film is being released, Cage already has for action shows in post-production, including playing Dracula in Renfield.