The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
Dir: Tom Gormican
Writer: Tom Gormican
Starring: Nick Cage; Pedro Pascal; Tiffany Haddish
So when I first saw this trailer, I thought this movie was brilliant. Nicholas Cage playing Nicholas Cage and going to an island for a birthday party for a million dollars? Fantastic! I love it! Then I actually saw the thing.
Unfortunately it’s not just a simple birthday party hijinks movie – it’s a spy movie and a movie about making a movie, which is something I really despise.
Pedro is wonderful, and charming and very funny, and you love every second he is on the screen. Same goes for Nick Cage, he plays the over the top Nick Cage that everyone imitates and everyone loves, and it’s great.
So all is going very well until the spy part comes in, and then nothing makes sense anymore. The rich guy Pedro mainly invited Nick Cage to his party to show him the script he wrote, and maybe they could make it together. I mean, he spent a million to just get Nick Cage there, why not make a movie with the guy that he adores. And he truly does adore him. Pedro shows him all his collectables and memorabilia surrounding Nick and his guns that he used in his movies and all that. Yea, Pedro is a truly huge Nick Cage fan. Unfortunately the FBI or whoever gets involved thinks Pedro is the leader of a massive drug cartel, and the only person who can bring him down is not a real spy or a trained FBI Agent, but the known lunatic, the unhinged Nick Cage.
Yes somehow, on this entire planet, the only person qualified to capture a drug cartel leader is a crazy nervous Hollywood actor. Believe it? Not for a second and that was a huge problem for me. So now Nick is working undercover, while writing a script with Pedro and everything I loved about the movie is out the window.
This film is funny and very charming and easy to watch, if you can accept that Nick Cage is better than any FBI Agent of undercover spy for the job, which is absurd. Pedro and Nick are fantastic together and the jokes work, and the pacing is good. If only I didn’t care about logic and common sense. I give this movie a 6 because the comedy writing is good, and the performances are even better. It’s always great to see Nick Cage in a movie, to remind me there is someone out there crazier than me.
