Tom Welles (Nicolas Cage) is a surveillance expert on the rise. He's living the American dream with a wife, Amy (Catherine Keener), infant daughter, and a house in the suburbs of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. After the completion of an assignment for a U.S. Senator, Welles is summoned to the house of a recently deceased captain of industry. His widow, in settling his estate, has discovered an 8MM film in her late husband's private safe. The silent short depicts the apparent murder of a young woman
by a large, masked figure, what is known as a "snuff" film. Greatly disturbed by the film's contents, the widow hires Welles to find the identity of the woman and determine if she is still alive. Welles finds the girl's identity and follows her trail from the time she ran away from home to Hollywood. Once there, Welles meets adult bookstore clerk Max California (Joaquin Phoenix) to act as Virgil to Welles' Dante. As the two begin their descent into the world of underground pornography, the detective grows more and more distant from his family, as if he cannot shake the taint of the world in which he now walks. Tom and Max eventually meet pornographers Dino Velvet (Peter Stormare) and Eddie Poole (James Gandolfini). By this time the detective finds he can no longer walk out of the inferno. ~ Ron Wells, Rovi
There's no faulting Cage's committed, intense performance, but his slide from professional, internalised concern into personal, self-righteous rage still leaves a nasty aftertaste.
It's pretty sad that a big star/big budget film about a gritty piece of life that should powerfully effect the viewer at the gut level fails so miserably.
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.
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.
You are never prepared for the truth.Good movie. This film is very strong,gritty,edgy and dark. Nicolas Cage did a very good job acting on this one. The thing is this film is very real and there's actually people so sick like this in the world we live in, it's disturbing to know this and those who do those kinds of
things shall receive no forgiveness.Tom Welles, private eye, is hired by a wealthy widow, whose well-known husband passed away recently. She has found a reel of S8-film in a safe. On the film is a cruel slaughtering of a young girl, who obviously does not pretend or act: A snuff-movie. Welles takes up investigation, which leads him to the girl's mother and from there to Hollywood, into the office of a porn flick producer. Welles' rising obsession to solve the case also carries him away from his wife and new-born daughter. But when finally names are at hand, Welles suddenly finds himself on ice much thinner than he planned.
July 8, 2009
Manu Gino
Super Reviewer
Private investigator Nic Cage is hired by some old rich dame to check out a curious video found in the dead husband's safe. With some moments of interest this attempt to update the gumshoe cliche gets lost in its own over-reaching for social relevance. And Cat Keener is totally wasted.
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