Back in the day, we have seen a side of Nic Cage who swaggered onto the set of a British talk show to promote his movie “Wild at Heart“. He did a handspring, several kung-fu moves, whipped off this T-shirt, threw it at the startled host and donned his leather jacket over his bare chest, and continued with the rest of the interview. If that is the version of Nic Cage fans appreciate – the one who seems eager to do something new at any moment to leave an impact – will be excited to hear that he brings back that swag in his latest movie “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.”
Here is why Hollywood loves Nic Cage’s latest film:
His style of going all out
I kept thinking if the director Tom Gormican didn’t get him to agree to do this film, given how tied up with tax scandals Nic was for a while. He could have easily approached someone like Mel Gibson for the film. Though it would satisfy the premise of comedy, the movie wouldn’t be the same as it is now.
Cage tends to go all out, sometimes even over the top, and gives sharp edges to roles that only he can. To add on to the basic comedy there are Cage’s manic timings which really work in making the best lines in the movie, especially with the inside jokes of the industry thrown around throughout.
The movie marks Cage rising from the dumps
The movie is a depiction of Cage’s life and career, based primarily on the media’s perception of the Oscar-winning actor, who in recent years ran into serious troubles with back taxes and often took up smaller projects for money which led him to a string of flops. The movie shows Cage talking to a younger version of himself from his imagination and advises him to pick the right movies, or in his words, “You have to be more strategic, more of a movie star,”. His being strategic and more like a movie star was seen in his recent movie Pig which was critically acclaimed and got him nominated for the Best Actor role.
The eventual growth of Nic into a movie star
The Nicolas Cage we see today, is measured, courteous, thoughtful, and discursive. He in particular discusses the cinematic aspirations for his stylized acting approach. From silent films to German Expressionist movies like “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,”. The likes of which he used to watch with his father. Considering the unbearable weight is the premise of the whole movie, it is easy to imagine how Nic’s Massive Talent could’ve fallen apart. But it didn’t.
In this movie, Nic Cage doesn’t serve as a stand-in for Nic Cage, but for the passion of acting. As the movie ends, it is clear why the real Nic is so insistent on keeping the characters separate. Massive Talent is therefore a dig into the lore of an actor so capable of surfacing enthusiasm that is infectious to a ridiculous range of cinephiles. According to the Wired, it finds the power of myths to inspire. Nick Cage, the now-canonized folk hero of the real-life man he’s meant to satirize, is an embodiment of everything cinema can be.
