Sympathy for the Devil

Rating: 4/10

Director: Yuval Adler

Writers: Luke Paradise

Style: Horror

Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Review by Mike Szymanski

The sympathy should be for Nic Cage. My how the mighty has fallen. 

A youth staple who starred as a heartthrob in “Valley Girl” in 1983 and then went on to win the Best Actor Oscar for “Leaving Las Vegas” has taken on some pretty horrible roles, and this is one of them.

Like the film he won his Oscar for, this one is also set in Las Vegas. Cage opens with a card trick, but the trick is to actually follow what is going on and going wrong, if you even care.

The director is Yuval Adler, known for similarly obscure films, and written by Luke Paradise. The whole thing is co-produced by Nicolas Cage which is a bit surprising to see how slapped together the whole project is.

Joel Kinnaman plays a down-on-his-luck schlub which he does so well, who is named David and he crosses a crazy dude who takes him at gunpoint for a joy ride.

David is about to be a father and is driving to the hospital to be with his wife, when this scary guy with red hair and and a gun. That’s Cage, if you haven’t figured it out, and he does all sorts of crazy Nic Cage stuff, like bugging out his eyes, grinning crazily and doing all the crazy things he’s known for in his wacky bad-guy roles.

He does a lot of yelling. He belts out the lyrics of Alicia Bridges song “I Love the Nightlife” just before he boogeys around and shoots the place up.

If Cage’s clown-like character had a bit of a calm-down, or some other speed than full-throttle, there may be some fun to this movie, but otherwise, it’s a terror, not only for David, but for the audience.

Cage’s “Sit the F— Down” has already become a popular meme.

 Other than that, the dialogue is pretty weak.

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