The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) Dir. Tom Gormican

43 films in 10 years. 43! That’s Nic Cage’s movie output in just a decade. The man is known for working hard no doubt but the quality control is questionable also. Out of all of those you could pick perhaps half a dozen at best as truly well-made and critically acclaimed movies.

However, Cage seems to know what is a paycheck and what may be something more substantial. And it’s this knowing (The Knowing being one of his films lol) that has led to this new comedy action film.

Here he goes “full meta” by playing himself as a struggling actor who is missing out on plum roles whilst his ex-wife and daughter have been neglected as he focuses on his career. His luck turns, somewhat, when he’s offered $1 million from billionaire Javi Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal) who lures him to Majorca and tries to convince him to make a film with him. Initially reluctant they bond over their love for cinema but Cage is then approached by the CIA who believe Javi is involved in shady arms dealing and kidnapping.

Through a series of misadventures, drug-taking and shoot-outs the film mixes fun action and a nod-and-a-wink awareness of the silliness of the whole thing. Pascal and Cage work together brilliantly as a funny duo with acerbic dialogue and obviously a fair few references to Cage’s past films. Cage (the character) is even visited by a younger ghostly version of himself acting as an obnoxious conscience of sorts.

And he’s often channelling the style of many of his roles from his oeuvre too, but despite these easter eggs it tries very hard to make the fan service accessible, and give context to the uninitiated, which again makes it all the better in its own right.

A great laugh per minute ratio, funny supporting roles delivered by Sharon Horgan and Tiffany Haddish and Cage doing what he does best, the film is definitely in the upper echelons of Cage’s (many) films.

Cutting to the chase, if you don’t like Nic Cage or aren’t aware of at least a few of his films (and some of his personal issues – Cage really did work himself out of debt) then you may struggle a bit with this.

But although a fan myself (here’s our top Cage films article) I too had big doubts about its meme-centric central idea. And that therefore could be used to say I gave it a higher rating owing to low expectations. BUT I so rarely laugh much at mainstream (and overly sanitised) ‘comedy’ films these days so this was a more than welcome change to that.

It ends up being massively entertaining, a weird gonzo adventure that could have just been a meme-inspired one-note-joke that runs out of steam quickly. But there’s a surprising amount of heart and the weirdness and irreverent humour is broad enough to amuse without (too much) indulging.

★★★★½

Michael Sales

Available on UK home release 11th July