Nicolas Cage stars in Zion Sono’s samurai Western rescue story in a desert to the core.
Three years ago, Sundance Panos ‘Cosmatos’ discussed Mandy, a violent, strangely strange film that counts among the most valuable products of Nicolas Cage’s all-for-a-pay period. Lightning from cult movies does not hit twice Prisoners of the Ghostland, a cage starring (mostly) English-language effort by prolific Japanese director Sion Sono. A mashup of idioms that sends Cage into a kind of underworld to save a young woman (read: re-kidnapping) for a little tyrant, it ranges between too simple and incomprehensible, and spends much of his time between those poles in the ‘I’ understand, but I do not care “zone. It is destined to be quickly forgotten, and it will have to play a hardcore genre festival to find an appreciative audience of any size.
Cage plays a man identified only as Hero, which is strange since we meet him while he rages while robbing a bank. Okay, he may not be the thief who shoots half a dozen innocent people, but he’s definitely a villain.
Years later, he rots in a jail cell when he is pulled out by a white-faced blowtorch named The Governor (Bill Moseley). The governor rules a bizarre collection of buildings that seem to be in the middle of nowhere – a sort of samurai-themed theme park mishmash (including a geisha brothel) whose inhabitants are like actors in a Western robe dress. kimonos. The cult-like, fleeting atmosphere here can be remembered Straight to Hell, but the ghost town that Alex Cox envisioned was much nicer to be over.
The governor said Hero is a man of unparalleled skills – just the man who finds his ‘granddaughter’ Bernice (Sofia Boutella). She disappeared into some vague, dusty Bermuda triangle beyond the governor’s reach; unlike Hero, we know that she left the old man’s care voluntarily. (Enthusiastic, even under cover of night.) To make sure Hero didn’t handle his load incorrectly once he found it, he was locked in a black leather jumpsuit with explosive charges on his elbows, neck and ear. each of the side (as the Governor pronounces it) “testicles.” The latter will be activated when a sensor tuned to his brain waves thinks his mind may be in love. (Readers may be thinking now Escape from New York, and if they want to approach it now instead of reading the rest of it, they will make the right choice.)
Hero drives off and immediately gets trapped in Ghostland, a Beyond Thunderdomelike desolation from which the doomed inhabitants can never leave. He quickly finds out that Beatrice, who spends most of the film, behaves like a zombie. But his attempts to leave with her go awry, and at some point he even loses a (as Hero shouts it) ” test-i-CAAAAL! ”
Describing the nature of Ghostland can eat up different paragraphs here, and it will probably sound much more interesting than it is on screen. Suffice it to say that residents live in the long shadow of nuclear technology, as well as bombs and power plants that accidentally become destructive, and that the film’s production and costume designers had a lot of fun without worrying about what things look like. as it seems. Several scenes watch the locals maintain a relentless tug of war with the second hand of a giant clock, trying to prevent its forward movement, for “if time begins to move, everything will explode again.”
All this madness would be an ideal environment for, if nothing else, some patented Nic Cage fools. But even at his most energetic here, the actor calls it in: It’s easy to spot the rules a movie fan would quote in their imitations of him – “hi-fucking-ya!”, Anyone? – but Cage here is a dim shadow of his strangest self, and his sincere self never appeared on the set.
No, this film belongs to the martial artist Tak Sakaguchi, who does not even have to speak to command the screen in the too short, too few rows that contain him. When he plays the manager / bodyguard of the governor, Yasujiro, he is magnetic even before he starts cutting and slicing the violent residents around him. A samurai whose past is explained in a single sentence, and his story is more captivating than things that the film takes tens of minutes to explain. Nevertheless: Reminds me why he is trying to protect and kill Hero?
Venue: Sundance Film Festival (premieres)
Distributor: RLJE Films
Production Company: XYZ Films
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Sofia Boutella, Nick Cassavetes, Bill Moseley, Tak Sakaguchi, Yuzuka Nakaya
Director: Sion Sono
Screenwriters: Aaron Hendry, Reza Sixo Safai
Producers: Michael Mendelsohn, Reza Sixo Safai, Laura Rister, Ko Mori, Nate Bolotin
Executive producers: Natalie Perrotta, Nick Spicer, Aram Tertzakian, Yuji Sadai, Toyoyuki Yokohama
Director of Photography: Sohei Tanikawa
Production Designer: Toshihiro Isomi
Costume Designer: Chieko Matsumoto
Editor: Taylor Levy
Composer: Joseph Trapanese
Cast: Chelsea Ellis Bloch
102 minutes