*
This movie is pretty unremarkable, especially when you consider that it was released only one year after Cage's most over-the-top performance (Deadfall) and only one year before he won an Oscar. I liked this film quite a bit when I was a kid, but it just doesn't hold up to an adult viewing. In fact, it sucks.
Nicolas Cage, Dana Carvey, and Jon Lovitz play three brothers who rob a bank in a small Pennsylvania town. Before they can leave the town, they get snowed in and are forced to spend the holidays with the people they just robbed. The town shows them hospitality and the brothers start to feel guilty. It's all very predictable, and it's not much fun to watch.
George Gallo's direction is substandard, the jokes aren't funny, the characters and their relationships are totally unbelievable, and many gags are repeated way past the point of being amusing (if they ever were in the first place). For example, in order to demonstrate that Carvey's character is a kleptomaniac, Gallo felt it was necessary to have dozens of scenes that show him stealing things. It's really the only thing he does for the whole movie, and he's one of the main characters. I got the impression that these scenes were supposed to be funny, but I'm not sure why. A quick trip to IMDB shows that Gallo has been working steadily as a writer, director and producer since the mid-80s, and it looks like everything he's done is shitty.
Cage does okay. He seems to at least be trying. Usually his performances are either 100% crazy or 100% detached. Here he actually blends the two a bit. He has a weird voice that I'm not sure I've ever seen him use before. It's kind of like his Con Air voice, but without the southern accent and not as slow. It also reminds me of Christian Bale's Batman. The rest of the cast is pretty bad. Carvey is at his worst, and Lovitz is pretty much just being himself, as always. Madchen Amick plays the local girl that Cage falls in love with. The role doesn't really give her any room to do anything interesting. It's sad to see how she followed the greatness of Twin Peaks with a string of such poor movies.
Most of the problems in this film could have been overlooked if it had just been funny, but it just wasn't. Not even a little bit.
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| craziness:
* ½
He plays it mostly straight, but there a couple scenes where his insanity seeps in. He occasionally does the thing where he randomly shouts one word in the middle of a sentence (always enjoyable). There's also a scene where he's yelling at his brothers in the car, and he brings back his bizarre Vampire's Kiss accent for just a few words. |
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| hair implausibility:
*
It looks a little weird in a couple scenes, but it's not bad. You can tell he's starting to become aware that his hair might pose a future problem for him. |
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| love interest implausibility:
* * *
This one isn't really Cage's fault, but writer/director, George Gallo's. Cage plays the character in a not too creepy way, and the age difference is only 6 years, but the relationship is just not written in a believable way. |
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