Nicolas Cage isn't the first actor to lead a group of talented friends astray, and this movie won't create a ruffle in what is already an erratic career.
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12/27/02
Sonny (2002)
23
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:26
Fresh:6
Rotten:20
Average Rating:4.2/10
Theatrical Release:Dec 27, 2002 Limited
Synopsis: Nicholas Cage's directorial debut SONNY is the story of a young man (James Franco) who returns to the life he left behind in New Orleans after a brief stint in the Army. That life, provided by his... [More]
Starring: James Franco, Mena Suvari, Brenda Blethyn, Harry Dean Stanton
Director: Nicolas Cage
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Reviews for Sonny
Amid the cliché and foreshadowing, Cage manages a degree of casual realism ... that is routinely dynamited by Blethyn.
12/25/02
Top CriticAuthor John Carlen has abstrusely captured that struggle of one man simply trying to be human in nonhuman, vile, circumstances.
12/27/02
Franco is an excellent choice for the walled-off but combustible hustler, but he does not give the transcendent performance SONNY needs to overcome gaps in character development and story logic.
12/26/02
John Carlen’s script is full of unhappy, two-dimensional characters who are anything but compelling.
12/24/02
It's just plain lurid when it isn't downright silly.
12/27/02
It's as if a bored Cage spent the duration of the film's shooting schedule waiting to scream: "Got AIDS yet?"
11/22/02
Preposterous and tedious, Sonny is spiked with unintentional laughter that, unfortunately, occurs too infrequently to make the film even a guilty pleasure.
12/25/02
The story is bogus and its characters tissue-thin.
12/23/02
Top CriticSunk by way too much indulgence of scene-chewing, teeth-gnashing actorliness.
01/06/03
An engrossing and grim portrait of hookers: what they think of themselves and their clients.
11/22/02
Too defensive and earnest about its topic to be either fun or illuminating.
09/17/03
An instant candidate for worst movie of the year.
12/27/02
Top CriticA well-intentioned effort that's still too burdened by the actor's offbeat sensibilities for the earnest emotional core to emerge with any degree of accessibility.
12/16/02
Cage makes an unusual but pleasantly haunting debut behind the camera.
09/04/02
Top CriticBack to the housewives with ya, and now that Cage has the vanity project out of his system, he can go back to making more movies with Spike Jonze.
03/07/04
As the sulking, moody male hustler in the title role, [Franco] has all of Dean's mannerisms and self-indulgence, but none of his sweetness and vulnerability.
12/19/02
Top CriticEarnest and tentative even when it aims to shock.
12/26/02
Top CriticThere's too much forced drama in this wildly uneven movie, about a young man’s battle with his inescapable past and uncertain future in a very shapable but largely unfulfilling present.
12/27/02
Enchanted with low-life tragedy and liberally seasoned with emotional outbursts ... What is sorely missing, however, is the edge of wild, lunatic invention that we associate with Cage's best acting.
12/27/02
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