Feature | Lights, Camera, Action! – Dying of the Light (Movie Review)

Dying of the Light (UK Rating: 18)

Is there a hint of prophesy in Dying of the Light's title? The Dylan Thomas reference is all too obvious but, over recent years, Paul Schrader's films have only shown flashes of the talent that roared onto the screen in the late '70s and early '80s. He seems to have lost his touch and, in a literal sense, that's what's happened with this film.

Schrader was both writer and director but, once filming was over, the production company took the film right out of his hands, so the version in cinemas is the studio cut. It goes without saying that Schrader was none too happy with the situation - nor was star Nicolas Cage or Nicolas Winding Refn, executive producer and one-time intended director. As they had signed a non-disparagement clause in their contracts, though, the most they could do was protest by being photographed wearing "non-disparagement" T-shirts. Thankfully, Lights, Camera, Action! isn't restricted in the same way.

Experienced CIA field agent, Evan Lake (Nicolas Cage) has been confined to a desk job he hates for some years after a traumatic experience. In that time, he's become obsessed with finding the man that tortured him, even though the official version is that he was killed. On the day that he hears his nemesis may actually be alive, he's also diagnosed with a form of dementia, which results in his compulsory retirement. However, he has other ideas and teams up with young colleague, Milt (Anton Yelchin), to track down his old enemy, wherever he happens to be.

Also, for supposedly professional agents, he and his younger sidekick are pretty inept when it comes to tailing their targets. Strangely enough, one of them spots he's being watched: it might have something to do with the fact that the pair are both so obviously staring at him. It's either that or Cage's ludicrously big astrakhan wool hat.

The dialogue fairly clunks along as well. When Cage interrupts a meeting being held by his CIA boss, his opening gambit is, "Sorry to impose on our relationship." Eh? Who on Earth speaks like that in the first place? Any intentions of examining such themes as the post 9-11 war on terror and patriotism are reduced to black and white gung-ho tub-thumbing - but it's an empty tub, because it all sounds very hollow, and the use of dementia as what is essentially a plot device is just downright tasteless.

4/10

Subpar

Unless Schrader is released from his contractual obligations, which looks highly unlikely, nobody will ever know how the director's version of Dying of the Light could have turned out. As it stands, it misses every mark by a mile. At one point in the film, Cage declares that he's "gonna do something worth remembering." If that was the intention, then everybody involved in the film will have to keep trying. It's not even memorably bad.