8 MM (1999)
Review by Justin Felix
Written by Andrew Kevin Walker.
Directed by Joel Shumacher.
Starring Nicolas Cage, Joaquin Phoenix, and Peter Stormare.
Rated R (contains intense graphic violence, nudity, and profanity) 123
mins.
Synopsis: Private detective Tom Welles is hired by a wealthy widow to
uncover the origins of a snuff film owned by her late husband. After
uncovering the authenticity of the film, Welles descends into an underground
world of perverse pornographers seeking vigilante revenge on the
filmmakers.
Comments: 8 MM is one of the more disturbing mainstream
movies I have seen
in a long time. Though it doesn't present a snuff film (a movie which
documents a person's murder for real, usually during or after some form of
sexual act) as explicitly as the cult classic Mute Witness and
violence as
shockingly as, say, Natural Born Killers, 8 MM stays in your
head long after
you see it. It is not fun to watch; see something else if you get upset by
realistic, sadistic violence. This film's violence and perverse sexuality
skirts closely into NC-17 territory. For those with strong stomachs,
however, 8 MM is an intelligent, worthwhile thriller, especially
during its
second hour.
Nicolas Cage, after a couple ho-hum movies, returns to material which allows
him to utilize his strong acting abilities. As Tom Welles, a private
detective and caring family man to a wife and newly-born daughter, Cage
skillfully and convincingly portrays a decent man whose unwavering energy
slowly transforms into obssession and violence as he is pulled into a
nightmarish world of underground pornographers and brutal sexual deviants.
Serving as a guide to this world is Joaquin Phoenix, who plays a struggling
songwriter named Max California. California, despite his name, is a
surprisingly intelligent and complex character, and Phoenix does a very good
job at slowly pulling the audience to sympathy for the character. The real
star of the movie, though, must be Peter Stormare. Stormare played the
"really, really evil guy" in Fargo, and his character, Dino Velvet,
in this
movie seems about ten times more evil and unpredictable. His performance is
very chilling.
8 MM's success may hardly be surprising. It was directed by Joel
Schumacher, who, hopefully, saw this film as an apology for the absolutely
dreadful Batman and Robin. Before directing the last two
Batman duds,
however, Schumacher was responsible for several well-made horror flicks:
Lost Boys, Flatliners and Falling Down. 8 MM
certainly joins the rank of
these minor classics and is perhaps most reminiscent of Falling Down
in that
both films present an average man who self-destructs before the audience's
eyes. 8 MM was written by Andrew Kevin Walker, who also penned the
Academy
Award-winning thriller Seven a few years back. Like Seven,
8 MM is full of
dialogue which haunts you well after leaving the theater. Welles is
searching for answers. How could anyone possibly drug and then slowly,
methodically, sadistically kill a teenaged girl to make a film? When
confronting one of the perpretrators at the end, the murderer responds that
there are no reasons. He just enjoys it. That, Walker seems to suggest, is
where the real terror lays: not in the crime itself but in the fact that
rational motives do not exist.
A couple minor faults led me to my four-star rating (five stars is the
highest rating I give). One, I found it a little difficult, early on, to
accept the fact that a hardened private detective would get physically
disgusted when first seeing a snuff film. Yes, snuff is a horrible thing,
but a detective of Welles' caliber has probably encountered awful things
before. Second, some of the clues Welles gathers are too convenient. He
discovers, for example, the victim's diary in her private bathroom, despite
the fact the the police, the FBI, and her own mother have all investigated
the room before. Finally, the closing scene seemed trite and improbable
considering the rest of the film.
Despite the above criticisms, 8 MM is an engrossing story. One of
the best
scenes in the film occurs toward the end as a crazed Welles, who no longer
seems like a hero, brutally beats one of the pornographers responsible for
the snuff film. He pulls a gun on the man and, for a relatively long amount
of time, struggles to decide whether or not to kill him. He then leaves the
building and calls the victim's mother, in the middle of the night, to
basically see if she would support the action. The entire scene is tense,
unpredictable, and emotionally charged. Rarely, anymore, do horror films or
thrillers provoke suspense in me as 8 MM, with scenes like this, did.
8 MM is most certainly not for the faint of heart. This is a graphic,
oftentimes unflinching, look into the darkness which resides in both
ordinary and extraordinary people. If you're prepared for a film of this
nature, I give it an enthusiastic recommendation.
Rating:
(Out of five)
All of Justin's reviews are archived on the
Internet Movie
Database
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