Dying of the Light

source: Dying of the Light

The acting was great. This movie did need more characters, and interacting themes to be better. Lack of more action / romance did make it boring... and I am not much for revenge. Yet the list of drugs suggested to give to Evan Lake was not a surprise. This caught my interest to continue watching. The speech he made before being escorted out, is how a lot of people in our country feel right now. Drugs are turning people into who they are not and would not be if normal, not on a drug. Zoloft causes crazy behavior, magnifies what one desires and could be used by the Government to even cause bad behaviors wanted to create crimes to get more control over weapons and wealth that our people possess. I was hoping to see this association. Zoloft can cause what his disease was to cause. I like what's fun (comedy romance) to watch, and consider myself a peacemaker, so to watch this type of movie isn't my style. But I did watch it because of the references to the drugs, I know aren't good, in what it does to people and the expression of how many of our people feel about our government. Addressing the religious issues would have made this movie better. NO one talks about our religious differences nor what we have in common. Tonight we had just watched "Agora" and this was worth watching more so as a historical display of religious prejudice, whereby people use religious and political power to play emotional states of people into civil war. In "Dying of the Light" there was no display of what's good, except for the loyalty of a friend... I enjoyed that part. The acting was great.

When the first publicity you hear about a film is the fact that accomplished director Paul Schrader (Wrote Taxi Driver and Raging Bull), Academy award winning Actor Cage and Producer Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive) all denounce the film by wearing matching shirts quoting their contracts that say they are unable to publicly denounce the film it doesn't inspire confidence in the final product . This is because the director and co were booted out the edit suite and the backers edited the movie to there liking. I suppose one way or another you really do get what you pay for. This might explain the slightly mis matched film in front of you. In future maybe just have a better contract before you take the King's shilling..... And so the story goes... Evan Lake (Cage, sporting his probably natural grey hair) is a seasoned CIA agent looking at a terminal illness that will rot his brain is suddenly given the chance to take down the terrorist that tortured him decades earlier. After he sales pitches his mission to his boss who points out to Cage that the now elderly terrorist his after hasn't been active in 20 years, is now terminally ill, facing a painful death that will kill him soon anyway so what's the point? Screw it Cage loses his temper, then his job, then goes rogue with a young weird voiced colleague (Anton Yelchin) who's willing to risk it all (His Job! His freedom!) if its gives him some field work!... that's seriously his motivation. (spoiler) In a nutshell.... After a slow endeavor, then a semi meaningful confrontation, comes a random, violent and crazy rushed conclusion with all diplomacy out the window with Cage even declaring " Salam alaikum a*****e!" in his deadly showdown with a heavily crippled elderly terminally ill terrorist! Afterthought..... I had read that perhaps the initial intention of the story was showing the effects of burnt out agents, or post traumatic stress who knows, no answers here. The film doesn't back up the plot really despite how hard it tries in its last shot of quickest plot tidy edit I've seen in some time. More disturbingly perhaps the title was given the most literal meaning it could of done in the last three minutes so any metaphoric idealism over the title's true meaning can be brain energy better saved for Sudoku or Candy Crush on the ipad, these editors want to give you exactly whats on the tin. There was brief bit of acting delight from Cage where he denounces his boss's and CIA's actions in modern American history after his lifetime's dedication to the service, that to me was the height of the acting and script writing in this film, unfortunately it was near the start. Summary... What had potential is now a strange unbalanced film that will never quite show us what the filmmakers were planning. Would love to read the original script to see exactly what the true intention was. One thing is for sure I bet the director's commentary will be hilarious.

Another Cage film. Who cares if its bad or mediocre... ladies and gentlemen. Its Nicolas Cage and he's always fun and entertaining to watch n pretty much all his films next to that "literally" god forsaken "left behind" piece of ##################### OTHER THAN THAT... Cage is good and as the fanboy I am gonna say Nic does a pretty decent job here. With that said... the films script is very weak and the film gets quite boring at times. The start looks promising... but after that its pretty much downhill from there. If you want a CSI hunting bad guys (plus revenge stuff) packed with stereotypes... hell all we need is Clint Eastwood with a magnum 38 to seal the deal... THEN YOU ARE GOOD. Sorta... If not... pass on it unless you want to chill and watch Nic cage kick some ass. Though if its the ass kicking you are after...I recommend Tokarev instead... THAT is a good film. To all the haters. Bite me To all my fellow fanboys and girls. Nic's the man! Rock on! Bottomline: More of Nicolas Cage... period.

"Dying of the Light" offers one of Nicolas Cage's best performances. Cage is a highly capable actor who often seems more capable than his material. He never phones in his performance, but sometimes he seems to be playing himself. Here he plays a character ten years older than himself who is world-weary, defeated by the system, frustrated in achieving his goals and battling significant health issues and personal demons, while battling the usual interpersonal conflicts and physical obstacles. His performance is very convincing. The movie is not great, but is a decent film with good production values (other than distracting and excessive use of Steadicam shots). The plot is a bit bare bones with less intrigue and subplots than the opening sequence in a Mission Impossible film. The ending is not particularly logical or gratifying. The film goes to great lengths to lay out the moral they intend to convey, but never really conveys it through the story. The sensei/grasshopper relationship has been done much more skillfully in dozens of other films. Most of the supporting roles seemed a bit flat, with the notable exception of Silas Carson who stands out as Dr Sanjar. None of these other elements are bad. They are adequate, but could have been better. But Cage's performance really stands out.

I can't say I've ever seen a bad Nick Cage movie. Some better than others of course, but he always seems to carry the movie no matter how badly written or executed. However, in this case I don't think he needed to carry it much. It's no classic and yes this movie won't resonate through time, but if you go into it aware of this, it's a pretty decent movie. There was enough suspense, for me anyway, in the build up to the eventual meeting and Nick Cage's progressive decline in health added to that tension. The ending did have a somewhat typical Hollywood drama associated with it, like Mike Myers rising after you think he's dead, but even with all that, I found the movie carried itself well, acting was very good and any plot holes were easily dismissed. A recommend this as an evening rental, enjoy.

A nice, although dark thematically, thriller about a CIA veteran agent who has the opportunity to settle his differences with a long time enemy. This film was taken away from director Paul Schrader in post-production and re-edited by the producers. So it could be better if the director has the chance to present it the way he intended. Anyway, Nicolas Cage is sufficient as the CIA veteran who struggles with serious health issues and against the willing of his Agency to catch a terrorist who is presumed dead. He shows frustration and pain but also the will to complete his task and have an honorable closure. It's not a complicate spy thriller but the suspense escalates in a steady rate. The narrative seems hasty though and the course to the finale could have been build up more properly. Overall: A decent thriller with a Nicolas Cage who really tries... .

First of all, the IMDb synopsis is not exactly true. It says "Evan Lake refuses to retire from his career in the CIA and goes rogue to hunt down his terrorist who tortured him during a mission gone awry years ago." What they left out is that he has dementia, is actually dying from it, and he is trying to find ways of dealing with the oncoming symptoms while searching for the terrorist. Had they put that in the synopsis, I would've known what to expect. However, I thought this would've been an action adventure, which - for the most part - it is not. When Cage displays the symptoms of dementia, from the hand shaking, the forgetfulness, and to the stammering and blank look on his face, it goes to his acting range, which is great. However, again, it's not what I expected the movie to be. Even though the movie was about 90 minutes, it seemed sooooo long. It dragged and dragged and dragged some more. I think the real terrorist in the movie was the storyline. If you want to watch this movie because you're a big fan of Cage's action adventure films, I do not recommend this movie. Only in the last 3 or 5 minutes of the film do I see the shoot-em-up character that Cage usually plays, and it was a welcome relief. However, that version of his character is only there for about 2 minutes out of the entire film. If great acting is all you need, and you want to see a movie about the twilight of a man's life who wants to go out making a difference to better the world, even if it costs what's left of his life, then this is for you. At least now you know what the movie's about, instead of the very lame and almost non-existent synopsis IMDb put up. I gave this a 6-star rating, mostly because of Cage's talent.

This isn't Cage's best film, but his performance was good, and it was different in that he depicted a superannuated CIA agent with an illness and who was still obsessed with taking down a terrorist before his time is up. The relevant message which is important is his depiction of the CIA for what it has become, and bravely, Cage announces, as is the case, that the CIA has its head up Obama's ass and has lost its values. This is truth. Although, I think to some degree that the reverse is also true. In any case, while it is not a dynamic thriller, until the very very end, it carries itself along and as I said, it is clearly an attempt to make a statement about America's intelligence community - which sore fully needs to get its head out of a few dark places and get focused on true values.

The big story associated with this film is that its director, Paul Schrader, was locked out of the editing room and denied final cut. Subsequently, Schrader and the stars have disowned this version. However, despite their reaction out of principle, DYING OF THE LIGHT isn't that terrible. It's merely underwhelming. Nicolas Cage gives a decent performance as Evan Lake, a veteran CIA agent with recently diagnosed dementia. Upon receiving some intelligence which indicates that a former target may still be alive, he decides to go after them before his disease puts him out of commission permanently. At its core, this film has an interesting concept that is never fully realized to its full thematic potential: two nemeses have one final reckoning while each are battling a debilitating disease. From what I saw, Nicolas Cage put in some good character work, and even gets to "rage" a little bit, but he was still hampered by an editing job that seemed to be going for a more streamlined thriller. Due to this, it felt like there was a fair amount of character development missing, mostly from supporting players but also from Cage himself. His disease doesn't take as big of a role as you might think, given its severity. As far as the rest of the cast is concerned, everyone did a good job but they really weren't given a whole lot to work with. Anton Yelchin was the only other name actor I recognized, and his presence seemed rather perfunctory. Perhaps he would have had a larger role in Paul Schrader's cut, but we'll probably never know unless it gets released on Blu-ray/DVD. All of the technical aspects of the film were good, although it did have the rather depressing color palette associated with low-budget Eastern European thrillers. The editing in the fight scenes was a bit choppy, but the camera-work was OK for the most part otherwise. The score also wasn't too memorable, but it still fit the material to a degree. The only part of it I genuinely liked was the track that played over the closing credits. Overall, I wasn't expecting a masterpiece and of course I didn't get one. However, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be either, somewhat to its detriment. Scenes began and then ended without much incident and didn't contribute much to the overall story. A part of me wished that it was worse because at least then it would be memorable. What I got was purely middle-of-the-road and, dare I say it, a little dull. Those looking for a fired-up Nicolas Cage performance should look elsewhere. You'd be perfectly justified in skipping this.