The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent is so intrinsically Nicolas Cage

Nicolas Cage has a reputation on-screen and off, but never before has one movie embodied his wild persona to this degree.

Nicolas Cage is something of a wildcard.

Known for his heightened on-screen performances and eclectic off-screen antics, Cage has a reputation for being unpredictable.

From ’90s superstar in beloved blockbusters such as Con Air and The Rock to being a prolific presence in smaller projects that most people have never even heard of, Cage likes to work. He may be an Oscar winner but he’s proven that he’s not above working for work’s sake.

Even with that teeming filmography (he released seven projects in 2019 alone), Cage has never had a role like he does in The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent. Never before has a job required him to harness everything that is intrinsically him – and it wouldn’t work if Cage hadn’t acquired this offbeat persona.

Because never before has he had to portray a fictionalised version of himself, Nicolas Cage the movie star. And movie stars have so many neuroses.

The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent, directed by Tom Gormican from a screenplay by Gormican and Kevin Ettan, is a bonkers, self-aware and unrestrained project that features, among many other things, a scene of Cage necking a de-aged, Wild At Heart version of himself.

And that’s probably not even the craziest thing that happens.

The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent is in cinemas this week.

Nick (for clarity’s sake, Nick is the fictionalised version of Cage) is despondent after he misses out on a game-changing role he really wanted. He’s so downbeat, he going to retire from acting, waxing a lyrical farewell statement about the grandiosity of storytelling and myth-making.

But before he can bow out, he’s going to take one more gig – attending a Spanish billionaire’s Mallorca birthday party for a $1 million fee.

The billionaire in question is Javi (Pedro Pascal), a super-fan who wants nothing more than to hang out with his idol and hopefully have him read the movie script he wrote with Nick in mind.

Despite some initial misgivings, Nick and Javi bond in talky bromance scenes that ape the vibes of Before Sunrise, Nora Ephron rom-coms or even Seth Rogen’s stoner comedies as they connect over a love of culture, Stanislavski and Paddington 2. This ode to male friendship really warms the cockles.

Pascal has dialled up his mega-wattage charm to three thousand, so, like Nick, the audience will become enamoured with Javi. So when CIA agents (Tiffany Haddish and Ike Barinholtz) approach Nick to ask them to spy on Javi, who they claim is a ruthless crime lord, Nick doesn’t know what to believe.

Pedro Pascal at his most charismatic.

Now he has to do what he’s pretended to do in the movies – be an action star. But as Javi keeps reminding him, Nick has mad driving skills (thanks to Gone In 60 Seconds) and can run like no one else (as he did in National Treasure).

The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent seamlessly pivots from bromance to an action adventure story, and it’s all intentionally telegraphed – but in a more wink-wink way than Cage’s self-referential, meta Adaptation.

There are countless nods to Cage’s oeuvre and to the entertainment industry in general – citations of John Cassavetes or Mandy come thick and fast – but it never delves that deep in terms of actually examining Hollywood myth-making.

But it doesn’t need to, because the goal of The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent doesn’t seem to be some ponderous think-piece. Cage and the filmmakers clearly set out to make something that entertains. And it does. It does in spades.

Rating: 3.5/5

The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent is in cinemas from Thursday, April 21