8MM (1998)

Unpleasant.

The repartee between Cage and Phoenix is the high point in the film, which otherwise made me want to go take a long hot shower.

It is good work by Schumacher, but hard to watch nonetheless.

8mm is neither the sick exploitation film nor the risible misfire the critics had prepared us for -- it is a movie of serious intent.

I could not get past the pathology lurking just below the skin of this story -- its false morality, its prurient absorption in sexual violence, its sadistic glee over the hero’s degradation.

It has some worthy moments, but it could have been so much more.

I'd like to think the project would have fared better in more eclectic hands, say Gus Van Sant, or perhaps Roman Polanski, but what's done is done and what's done is maybe not what it could have been.

Cage’s flat, deadpan acting style makes it hard to pick up on his character’s moral demise, much less care about it.

Quite possibly the most revolting studio picture since the execrable 1980 Al Pacino flick Cruising