DYING OF THE LIGHT
Lionsgate
Reviewed for Shockya by Harvey Karten. Data-based on Rotten Tomatoes.
Grade: C
Director: Paul Schrader
Screenwriter: Paul Schrader
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Anton Yelchin, Alexander Karim, Irene Jacob
Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 11/17/14
Opens: December 5, 2014
Do not go gentle into Paul Schrader’s slight/ Rage, Rage as the “Dying of the Light.” Why rage? Perhaps because this vehicle for Nicolas Cage’s usual over-the-top acting has such a banal screenplay (never mind that it’s not believable, since that’s not a major requirement of thrillers) that you’d do better staying in front of your computer or TV and for no charge absorbing the more expertly crafted “Madam Secretary.” In that TV drama, Téa Leoni evokes our sympathy, our empathy, our credibility performing in a role that should remind most of us of Hillary Clinton. This Madam Secretary convinces us that what happens on the set may well occur in real life, while Nic Cage on his Romanian set—in a movie put together in all of five weeks—simply cuts up the scenery with same ‘ol formulaic revenge melodramatics. We’ve see it all, though granted, the use of a form of dementia for the good guy and a blood disease for the scuzz lend the outing a modicum of originality.
Paul Schrader, whose previous contributions include direction of “American Gigolo” (male escort to older women) and scripting of the classic “Taxi Driver,” situates Nicolas Cage as Evan Lake, a decorated CIA operative shown giving an absurd welcoming speech to new CIA agents. An extended scene finds Lake twenty-two years earlier under interrogation by a terrorist in Kenya, Muhammad Banir (Alexander Karim), who should have spent his time running the New York Marathon rather than slugging a tied Evan Lake around and clearing the way for Lake’s obsessive search for revenge a couple of decades later.
In the manner of such commonplace political thrillers, Lake’s superior, the CIA director, wants to keep the man stapled to his desk rather than release him into the field, refusing to believe that Banir is still alive, but with the help of his young friend and operative Milton Schultz (Anton Yelchin), Lake travels to Bucharest to locate the doctor who is getting rich sending an exploratory drug to Banir in Mombassa, then following the dots to Kenya’s seaport city to find his mortally sick target barely able to move from his chair. Nobody responsible for the violent deaths of so many innocents, Lake believe, should be allowed to die naturally.
Nor does “Dying of the Light” appear destined to live for long on the big screen, though DVDs are its likely fate in a matter of weeks.
Rated R. 94 minutes. © Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online
Story – D
Acting – C
Technical – B-
Overall – C