Make the Case: 5 Essential Nicolas Cage Films

3. Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

Nicolas Cage
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Even if Cage had not won a Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of a deeply wounded, intensely self-destructive man, who opts to drink himself to death amid the dazzling decadence of Las Vegas, this film would still make the list. If you want to call Leaving Las Vegas Oscar-bait, that’s fine. Even if the basic premise might lean that way, Cage’s performance does not. There is nothing artificial about his work here, and there is certainly nothing that could be considered a desperate bid for buckets and buckets of awards.

Cage brings his trademark mania to a man who for unknown reasons is broken by despair and self-loathing. His unhappiness suffocates his glitzy surroundings, to the point of blacking out the neon brilliance of Vegas at four in the morning. Cage tackles a viciously unlikable man, and manages to make us at least feel a little empathy. There is absolutely nothing romantic about his character. Cage’s evident refusal to play it safe in portraying a disintegrating alcoholic is encouraging. The fact that it is also a great performance, particularly in terms of the development of the relationship between his character and Elizabeth Shue’s hooker-with-just-a-heart-period (she’s great, too), makes the performance one of the better Oscar winners from the 90s.

 

4. Face/Off (1997)

Face-Off
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Let’s make one thing perfectly clear: Face/Off is pretty fucking ridiculous. Even so, even if you don’t take the movie seriously (and you shouldn’t), this is still a surreal adventure in filmmaking insanity that you really can’t get too mad at. Face/Off alternates between taking its story (in which a criminal mastermind and supercop literally switch faces) too seriously, and admitting that everything in this movie is kind of a brilliantly-staged trainwreck.

It’s a great product of its time, and is quite possibly the only good American movie John Woo has ever made. The action scenes are typically found in cop movie parodies these days, but that doesn’t make them any less impressive. Cage and John Travolta were both getting to the end of the days in which people would love them in just about anything. They both take to the ludicrous-yet-fairly-unique plot with enthusiasm so overwhelming, it’s hard to imagine they’re not sincere. Everyone honestly looks like they’re having a good time in this extremely expensive example of mindless entertainment that is quite frankly pretty entertaining. Watching Nicolas Cage play both ends of the popcorn movie spectrum for heroes and villains isn’t for everybody. For most, it’s should be a lot of fun.

 

5. Joe (2013)

Joe
Image source: YouTube

These days, Nicholas Cage is either borderlining self-parody, or he’s been in that territory for a long time. I won’t tell you which way to go on that argument, but I will suggest that amongst the grotesque awfulness of movies like Left Behind, both Ghost Rider movies, the remake of The Wicker Man (you should still at least watch that movie, if only because it belongs in the so-bad-it’s-pretty-amazing hall of fame), or Dying of the Light, Cage is still doing good work. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Kick-Ass, and Joe are examples of that. Of those three, Joe is definitely the best of the bunch.

Based on the wonderful, grim novel by Larry Brown, Joe is one of the least sentimental movies about childhood released in years. It is a cruel, unhappy story of a young boy (the pitch-perfect Tye Sheridan) who finds escape in his miserable existence in the form of a friendship with a weary, crumbling loner (Cage). It is also one of the best Nicolas Cage performances of all time. There is something refreshing about seeing an actor who is known for bug-eyed madness take to somber material with the necessary measure of crucial respect.

Cage is so restrained here, you almost forget that this is indeed the man who struggled so valiantly against imaginary bees in The Wicker Man. He isn’t underwhelming as Joe. He nails a character who is tired, yet compelled to come to the aid of someone who truly needs him. It is intriguing, almost infuriating evidence that Nicolas Cage is more than capable of continuing to do good work as an actor. His reputation can in fact be repaired. It just might not be a bad idea on his part to occasionally say no to a project that comes his way.

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