Nicolas Cage continues to make so many films that it’s getting harder and harder to pick out the occasional pearl from all the filth. But since “Kill Chain” is on free TV tonight, you can take a look without risk and see if it’s any good.
New films with Nicolas Cage appear almost every week – most of them are really bad (“Arsenal”, “A Score To Settle”), but some have absolute cult potential (“Mandy”, “Color Out Of Space”). “Kill Chain”, which airs tonight from 0.15 on Tele5, now seems to be one of those rare Nicolas Cage films that is somewhere in the middle: not a big critics’ favourite, but most viewers seem to have quite a good time with the noir tearjerker.
By the way, “Kill Chain” is rated 18 and up – so it’s definitely a bit tougher when heaps of gangsters kill each other in this revenge thriller.
THIS IS WHAT “KILL CHAIN” IS ABOUT
Somewhere in Latin America, two gangster types in leather jackets enter a hotel. Apparently they have the mission to kill the owner Araña (Nicolas Cage). But he first wants to tell them how he, as a former mercenary, ended up in this place in the first place (a story with many deaths). And speaking of dead people, there is also a dead man with a gun lying on the table just a few metres away – apparently there is more to the hotel and its owner, whose name translates as “spider”, than meets the eye…
In the course of its plot, “Kill Chain” comes up with several noir quotations – among them a lady in a red dress, a burnt-out sniper (“Veronica Mars” dad Enrico Colantoni) as well as a very, very evil femme fatale. Whether the resolution is then clever and makes sense, or whether it is simply full of logic holes and questionable character decisions, is as controversial between fans and critics as the quality itself. But as I said, you can just watch it on Prime and see if it’s something for you …
… and the most important thing is that Nicolas Cage once again acts like there’s no tomorrow. We just can’t get enough of his grimaces and contortions. Genius or madness? That’s for everyone to decide for themselves, because the performances of the Oscar winner (for “Leaving Las Vegas”) can no longer be judged according to the conventional criteria for good and bad acting.
