By Geno McGahee
“What the fuck would he want with a snuff film?!” — Tom Welles (Nicolas Cage)
Nicolas Cage is one of the best actors of our generation. There aren’t too many guys that can deliver lines like he can, and if there is ever a movie where his great skills are on display, it’s the 1999 8MM. When you get somebody exploring sexual deviancy and the underground world of illegal porn, you are most likely going to have a winner, and when you add Cage to the equation, you have all the ingredients for a classic, and that’s exactly what you get with this film.
We begin with Tom Welles (Cage), a private investigator looking for the big score and when it arises, he jumps at it. Mrs. Christian (Myra Carter) phones him when she finds an 8MM roll of film where a young girl is apparently murdered. Welles agrees to investigate and now has his big case, and Cage kicks in with his great overacting as he watches the snuff film, cringing at just the right points. Christian wants to keep this investigation on the down low and he agrees, not contacting the authorities and instead, searching out the leads himself and tracking down what may be a killer, or killers.
In the tape, a man with a leather mask kills a girl violently. Thankfully for Welles, the killer has a tattoo of a pentagram on his hand, narrowing the field down a bit. Had it just been a man in a leather mask and sexually perverted, I’m sure that half of my family would have been questioned by Cage. The leads bring him to California, where he befriends Max California (Joaquin Phoenix), a cashier at a porn store. Now, Cage’s acting in this movie is superb, but so too is the acting of Phoenix. It’s so bad it’s good, as he speaks in a strange way, stretching his words out a little bit too much. It’s amusing.
Together Max and Welles tackle this problem together, using California’s contacts and knowledge of the sexual underworld to help the cause. It leads to Eddie Poole (James Gandolfini), the owner of a porn movie business. Now, when it comes to playing a sleaze, there aren’t many better than Gandolfini. When questioned about the snuff film, Poole panics, and calls his partner, Dino Velvet (Peter Stormare), in Manhattan, New York, but the phone is bugged and Welles now knows that there are at least two people involved in the murder. With Max in tow, they head over to the big apple to seek out Velvet, another great sleaze. Wow, this sexual underworld is full of scumbags. Why can’t there just be one guy in this film shown in a nice light. A guy that says: “Hey, I’m a nice guy, I just like hardcore porn.” That’s all I’m asking.
While looking through the porn by Velvet, he sees the leather masked man, who goes by the name “Machine.” Machine (Chris Bauer), takes pleasure in hurting his subjects in the Velvet films, and now Welles has another piece of the puzzle. It’s all coming together, but the closer that the duo gets to the people behind this murder, the more dangerous it gets.
There are some twists and turns in this one, and when Welles has all of the pieces of the puzzle together, he is in very hot water, and so too is his wife and daughter. With Velvet and his cronies on his tail, he has no other choice but to defend himself and his family. It’s kill or be killed, and Cage goes on a violence spree, leading to one scumbag after the other.
8MM is a great film, featuring Cage, Phoenix, Gandolfini, and Stormare at their bests. They brought their A games, and when you add that to the great story and screenplay, you have a winner. I highly recommend this one people.
Scared Stiff Rating: 7.5/10. Nicolas Cage delivers…AGAIN. This guy is great.
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