Runtime: 98 minutes
Directed by: Brian De Palma
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Gary Sinise, John Heard, Carla Gugino, Stan Shaw, Kevin Dunn
From: Paramount/Touchstone
RIP Ryuichi Sakamoto
Mr. Sakamoto was someone who I know more for his music albums and how his songs through the years were keystones in developing various electronic genres rather than either his acting work or his movie scores. As I was saddened to hear of his death and one of the most popular movies he scored was this De Palma picture I hadn’t viewed before, it was an easy choice for me.
Nicolas Cage was fully Nicolas Cage here; what I mean is that he had his hilarious over the top moments but also more serious ones where he showed off his acting chops. Cage plays Rick Santoro, a dirty Atlantic City police detective who attends a big boxing match in town where the Secretary of Defense is guarded by Rick’s military hero best friend Gary Sinise. Suddenly, someone shoots the Secretary during the fight and as he investigates, the viewer sees more and more footage revolving around the incident and this reveals what actually happened and why. The lovely Carla Gugino played a key role.
To mention the one negative right away, the events of this night take place during a hurricane in town. Yes, the town (let alone the casino) was full of people during this storm; the logic of this I was incredulous over. The purpose of this was for a big ending which sounds like something you’d get in a 1930’s epic and I’ll leave it at that. Unfortunately, what we the viewer saw was an alternate ending; I don’t know what the original ending would have been but I do know that what we got wasn’t great.
That and some small quibbles aside, this was still a pretty good time for me. My fandom of the director may color my opinion-of course I enjoyed all the expected De Palma flourishes, including one scene where split screen was a real benefit and the opening is a GREAT simulated one take Steadicam shot which lasts for many minutes. The cast full of familiar faces-John Heard, Stan Shaw, Mike Starr, Luiz Guzman, etc.-was a benefit as was an interesting Sakamoto score which worked for the film. Ultimately, it was me enjoying this paranoia conspiracy yarn plus the De Palma verisimilitude which make me give this a nice rating despite its issues.
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