Dying of the Light (2014) Reviews

• A dark and brooding affair, Dying of the Light plays out exactly as the title suggests.

  lnvicta2015-05-03

  This is a dark movie. Not only for its content; it's literally dim for most of the movie. I guess it's meant to provide an atmosphere that parallels what is happening in Evan Lake's (Nicolas Cage) mind, and the murky atmosphere is one of the few things Dying of the Light has going for it. The plot is this: Lake works for the C.I.A. and is experiencing some mental twitches in his old age like hallucinations, lapses in memory, and the works, which obviously isn't ideal for a C.I.A. operative, so he has to go rogue. He has flashbacks to a mission he was part of that scarred his psyche - he was tortured for information, and flashbacks to this scene happen over the course of the movie, and Evan won't stop until he finds and kills his former captor. Nicolas Cage carries this movie on his shoulders because his character is really the only semi-developed part about it. Granted, one interesting character is not nearly enough to save this gloomy mess of a film. I can't blame writer/director Paul Schrader because he and the producers had some sort of fallout and the producers ended up changing a bunch of stuff in post-production, so I blame the producers. The editing is horrendous, the action sequences are intermittent and awkward, no character other than Cage's is interesting in the least, some scenes are too melodramatic, others are just dull. I mean you can tell this movie has more layers than it lets on, but it never goes deep beneath the surface like you want it to. It plays it relatively safe and straightforward despite having an interesting premise and an empathetic protagonist. Now, Nicolas Cage can definitely pull off the salt-and-pepper look. Especially when he goes full on Arab (or whatever it was) with a badass goatee and tinted glasses. He really encapsulates the part of Evan, and it's by far the deepest and most flawed character Cage has portrayed in a while. The problem is that we don't see enough of him. We don't have a chance to get attached to this character on more than a surface level because the pacing of this movie is so terrible. On a scene-by-scene basis, it's extremely hard to keep track of what's going on, of what's important and what isn't. It just becomes a headache after a while and you just want to see Cage kick some ass, and he kind of does, for like a minute anyway. The climax is incredibly underwhelming. It's just like, here, this is the end. There's no impact. No reason to care. The antagonist is garbage. Cage's sidekick is boring. None of it is memorable. The movie has so many cool ideas that it alludes to (Evan's dementia and how it impacts his work) that are never delved into deeper. I wanted to hear more monologues from Cage - more scenes of just him battling his psyche. Anything to pull this movie from boredom. Unfortunately, it never happens. This movie isn't worth it. Even for die hard Cage fans such as myself, Dying of the Light is hard to sit through despite an engaging performance by Cage. Any time Cage is off-screen, the movie loses all intrigue. That's not a good sign. If only a director's cut was able to see the light of day, then maybe the Dying of the Light wouldn't be such a tedious mess. As it stands, it's just a very forgettable misfire of a film.

• I don't understand the negative reviews..

  tomco-198642015-06-26

  I've used this site for nearly 2 decades. Yet, this is the first time I have felt compelled to sign up or comment. Nicholas Cage's performances was.. Nicholas Cage. As expected. He did well. The movie? Thought provoking, and I thought the contrast of them both having diseases was intriguing. I thought the conclusion was interesting. Would have liked to see the bad guy killed by Cage, but I think it's due to the fact that he realized they were both gone anyway. What I find truly disgusting, is that this movie had poor reviews. I'm wondering if people's expectations of movies has gone to total crap. While I didn't find this the most awesome movie I've ever seen, I also surely didn't think it was a bad movie. I have often found that critic reviews are so harsh they can hardly be trusted at all. But, when viewers find a movie that has not at all shown that it is a lemon, call it a lemon, I'm really wondering what has happened to us.

• Another Nicholas Cage in Romania crapfest

  siderite2014-12-05

  The story idea is interesting and Nicholas Cage played reasonably, so this could have been good. Anton Yelchin can be a good actor, too, with the right direction. Unfortunately the script was absolutely terrible. It was slightly funny to see Romanian actors being dubbed in post production by someone who obviously did not know the language or to see that the SRI headquarters is a small office building in the center of Bucharest or that Ferentari is also nearby, but that was the full extent of my entertainment. Ironically, Irene Jacob's Romanian was almost perfect. The basic plot is that a veteran CIA agent, obsessed by the man who tortured him 22 years before and the only one who thinks that man is still alive, gets some evidence on where to find his tormentor. Plagued by dementia he goes through Romania and Kenya to find this dying bed riddled old man that for decades has been the subject of his nightmares. If handled correctly, this could have been a wonderful piece on how pointless it is to hold grudges and how the world changes around us and discards us when we fail to function. But no, it was a complete disaster, with every opportunity missed completely. Bottom line: a movie bad enough to not be worth watching, but not bad enough to be even remotely funny.

• The ear was literally the most fascinating part of this movie

  Snorreplop2014-12-08

  Nicolas Cage is Evan Lake, a dedicated veteran CIA agent in the last stages of his career. He has been riding a desk for the last years and does not like it. The most elevating moments are the motivational speeches he is asked to do for the new CIA agents in training. When the trail of an old enemy, presumed dead for decades, surfaces and coincides with Lake being diagnosed with a terminal form of dementia, the choice is easy. He is going to settle one last score. The story has some potential, but unfortunately the movie never gets past the B-movie predicate. The ear I mentioned in the summary seems to live a life of it's own. My attention kept being drawn to it. In one of his battles with terrorists, Cage's character gets tortured. He gets a cut in his ear. After twenty years the cut is still there and looks very awkward. At some point I swear I could see the edges of the cut move together and mouth some words to Cage. After rewinding I thought I faintly heard these words: "Nicolas, get out of here, you are too good for this. Save your career before its too late!"

• Production Problems = This Film

  chrisjhembury2015-01-11

  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.