Red (Nicolas Cage) and his wife Mandy (Andrea Riesborough) are living a lumberjack’s life in the Pacific Northwest in 1983. Intercut with scenes of their idyllic existence are scenes of a cult leader (Linus Roache) and his dimwit followers occupying the same woods. The inciting incident occurs at the halfway point, making it a spoiler to tell you what the movie is about, but suffice it to say that Cage becomes hell-bent on revenge. The filmmaker is Panos Cosmatos, whose
Beyond the Black Rainbow is a good litmus test for
Mandy and its trippy LSD heavy-metal aesthetic, ponderous synthesizers and unnatural colors. When it does eventually kick into high gear, Cage delivers the loudness and craziness his fans have come to expect. Indeed, you don’t even have to sign him to star in a movie like this; just start filming and he’ll show up, summoned by the vibrations in the air. It’s about a man and woman who run afoul of cultists, it ends with a chainsaw fight and also there is a tiger for no reason. Nicolas Cage couldn’t
not star in this if he wanted to.
By
Eric D. Snider