The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent Review
7/10
Nicolas Cage is at an odd point in his career. He has become a living meme and a joke to many. When someone obtains the status of internet legend, it can be a blessing and a curse. It gives them a bigger audience and wider adoration, but that meme status simultaneously demystifies and worships somebody. They are no longer seen as a person with flaws and positives. They are now seen as a kind of clown for the public to laugh at. This can also happen when an actor becomes a brand. They stop challenging themselves and no longer take risks because that is not what the corporate investors will allow.
Cage, for all his missteps, never stopped pursuing challenging roles. He has certainly been in a fair share of awful schlock. Despite those pitfalls in his filmography, I can think of no other actor in Hollywood who could have played the role of Red in Mandy, as great as he did. He has been one of my favorite actors since I was a kid. He has so many brilliant performances that no other actor has outdone. Anything from Raising Arizona to Leaving Las Vegas. That brings me to The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. When I first saw the trailer, I was hesitant to get hyped. I loved the idea of a self-aware Cage playing a version of himself, but that meta-approach to comedy usually falls flat for me. So, when I finally saw the film, I had mixed feelings.
It is far more grounded than I was expecting. There are moments of absurdity, such as when Cage has extended conversations with a younger version of himself. It also tries to balance the goofiness of the premise with more reflective moments. Plot-wise, we see Cage at a crossroads in his life and career. He is disconnected from his ex-wife and daughter. He hasn’t had a substantial role in a long time and is in debt. His agent, played by Neal Patrick Harris, offers him an unconventional job. He is to go to an Island in Majorca and be the guest of honor for Billionaire playboy Javi.
The story becomes more complicated when the CIA informs Cage that Javi may not be as wholesome as he appears. He is then tasked with spying on Javi to find out the whereabouts of a kidnapped girl, Maria, the daughter of a Catalan anti-crime politician whom they suspect Javi is trying to pressure into dropping out of the election. Javi is played by Pedro Pascal and he is absolutely fantastic. The bond that forms between him and Cage is genuinely wonderful. That becomes the heart of the story. When the film focuses on their growing friendship, it is fantastic. Unfortunately, that is not always the case.
The film tries its hand at meta satire, presenting a version of reality that is conscious of how silly the situation is. The problem with that narrative approach is it can feel like a crutch. Just because you acknowledge how ridiculous something is, doesn’t make it any less goofy when you do the exact thing you’re making fun of. If I proclaim how insane it would be to headbutt a wall, then I do that very thing and yell out “I’m so meta!”, that doesn’t make me clever. There is a point in Unbearable Weight when Cage and Javi decide to write a script together. These are some of the best and funniest parts of the film. This is a tad derailed when they bring up the possibility of a kidnapping plot in their script and the film pokes fun at how vapid and brainless Hollywood films can be when they pivot in a more spectacle-focused direction.
Well, then the film literally becomes what it is making fun of. I get that joke and the meta irony of it, but I felt it didn’t go over the top enough. The more bombastic action scenes later on are far too bland to carry the meta-narrative. I don’t think they should have gone full-on Fast and Furious in terms of silly territory, that would have been too far in that direction. I think it should have been more like Cage’s previous action films like The Rock or Face Off. There are very few films that can make a Fourth Wall-breaking story work well. One of Cage’s previous films, Adaptation, was a rare exception. That is because it didn’t rely entirely on that concept; there was substance to support the rest.
That is where Unbearable Weight falters for me. Beyond the fantastic chemistry with Cage and Pascal, it doesn’t have enough material to balance the rest. There was a film a few years back called JCVD, starring Jean Claude Van Damme. That one was much darker and more melancholy, but it took Van Damme and stripped away all his former glitz and glamour and presented him as a flawed human. It made me sympathize with a person I used to think of as a caricature of himself. I don’t think Unbearable Weight should have been as somber as JCVD. I just felt it hovered in between two worlds, not introspective enough to have emotion and not silly enough to be a meta rollercoaster.
What we do have is an entertaining buddy film with great performances and glimmers of potential greatness. Cage is great as himself, of course. Even in terrible films, I always find him entertaining. I loved the budding friendship between him and Pascal. It is presented in such a genuine way. Javi loves film just like Cage and their conversations about art and what films mean the most to them are heartfelt and hilarious, especially the recognition of the magnificence of Paddington 2. Despite my issues with the film, this is what makes it worth seeing. I do think it could have been much more, but if you’re looking for a fun self-aware comedy, then Unbearable Weight fits the bill.
