If you follow screenwriters and their work then the name Andrew Kevin Walker might be of interest. He wrote Seven, the David Fincher thriller that confronted some, impressed many and disturbed all of us. Walker's latest screenplay is 8 MM and that might be a reason to rush to see it. Nicolas Cage stars as surveillance expert Tom Welles who's hired by one of Pennsylvania's wealthiest widows to discover the truth about an apparent snuff movie found in her dead husband's safe. As Tom gradually tracks down the identity of the girl and the truth about her fate he becomes horrified and strangely contaminated by the sleazy and ugly side of the porn industry. He's helped along the way by adult video store clerk Max, played by Joachim Phoenix.
8 MM begins promisingly enough and then becomes boringly trite and rather repulsive as it seems to relish exploiting what it apparently deplores. Ultimately it becomes unbelievably stupid. We're meant to understand Tom Welle's apparent vulnerability to the dark side of life, but Cage doesn't give too much away. Interesting performers like Joaquin Phoenix and Catherine Keener who plays Tom's wife are wasted in uninteresting roles, Peter Stormare as the "Jim Jarmusch of S&M" is almost embarrassing after his silent stint in Fargo. What this film shows beyond doubt is that director Joel Schumacher is no David Fincher and should stick to Batman movies.
David's Comments: Starts off OK as a classical private eye movie, but once we get to LA it falls into a slough of mediocrity. As the plot unravels it's not only unconvincing - on every level - but it's utterly nasty. Not only the unrelenting violence, but the very same pernicious philosophy on the subject of revenge that Joel Schumacher touted in the miserable A Time to Kill. Nicolas Cage is terribly wooden, and Catherine Keener's role consists of nothing but whingeing. Even Peter Stormare, normally good, is hideously bad as "the Jim Jarmusch of S & M". Compare this to Paul Schrader's very similar Hardcore, and you see just how meretricious Schumacher's ugly film is.
