Review of 8MM (1999) by Jake D — 28 Sep 2010

Columbia Pictures should have kept "8mm" in the can. If you thought.

Nicolas Cage's previous movie "Snakes Eyes" was crappy, director Joel.

Schumacher's second-rate, slipshod, murder-mystery about a runaway.

Girl, a snuff movie, and our pornographic society may alter your.

Opinion. Co-starring Joaquin Phoenix and James Gandolfini, "8mm" lacks.

Originality, kinky intensity, and catharsis. Although the filmmakers.

Take audiences on a tour of the sleazy hindquarters of American.

Society, "8mm" balks at pushing the envelope in its depiction of.

Decadence. Never as disturbing as the Al Pacino movie "Cruising," the.

George C. Scott film "Hardcore," or the Charles Bronson's thriller.

"Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects," this darkly lensed pseudo-suspenser.

Simmers far too long before the plot comes to a boil. Fans of "Se7en".

Scenarist Andrew Kevin Walker may wonder how much Columbia diluted his.

Script to yield such comatose claptrap.

When an industrial czar's rich widow, Mrs. Christian (Myra Carter of.

"The Witches of Salem: The Horror and the Hope"), opens her recently.

Deceased husband's safe, she discovers what she suspects is a snuff.

Movie. In this one-reel film, a young girl appears to die at the hands.

Of a leather-clad sadist. The elderly Mrs. Christian hires clean-cut,.

Buttoned-down Tom Welles, a small potatoes private eye, to determine.

The authenticity of the snuff film. Welles accepts the assignment.

Without high hopes. He treats it as a missing person's case. Once he.

Has identified the girl as May Anne Matthews (Jenny Powell), he.

Contacts Mary Anne's working class mom (Amy Morton) and snoops around.

The runaway's room.

The trail takes Welles to the West Coast where he hires a smart-aleck.

Porno-store clerk, Max California (Joaquin Phoenix), with an.

Encyclopedic knowledge of kink to guide him through the underworld of.

Hardcore pornography. Max warns Tom before he begins his tour, "There.

Are things you're going to see that you can't unsee." Max is a tough.

Young man who has not let the filth and pornography affect him. When.

Tom Welles meets him, Max has a clover of a cheap porno novel wrapped.

Around a copy of Truman Capote's bestseller "In Cold Blood." Throughout.

The case, Tom grapples with the question that bugs him about the dead.

Millionaire: "Why did he want to film a little girl being butchered?".

Tom keeps L.A. porno producer Eddie Poole (James Gandolini of "True.

Romance") under surveillance until Poole leads him to a guy who.

Produced the snuff movie, the infamous Dino Velvet (Peter Stormare of.

"Armageddon"), who has his headquarters in New York City.

Tom and Max fly to the Big Apple, contact the fiendish Dino, and give.

Him the front money for the movie. Tom has one condition: they must.

Allow him to observe them as they film. At this point, Tom sends Max.

Packing out of harm's way, before he confronts the pornographers in an.

Abandoned warehouse at the edge of town. The killers surprise Tom and.

Turn the tables on him. "Satan ex machine," quips the nasty Dino with.

Relish as he shows Tom that they knew about him from the start. Further.

Disclosure would spoil what little suspense Schumacher conjures up.

"Se7en" scenarist Andrew Kevin Walker has inked a lukewarm.

Murder-mystery yarn shot on surprises but long on clichés. The.

Co-scenarist on "Hideaway" (1995), Walker provides standard set-pieces.

Such as a rain swept graveyard fight, a "Silence of the Lambs".

Confrontation in a creepy house, an "In Cold Blood" style murder.

Sequence, and a "Death Wish" vigilante hero. The villains epitomize.

Stereotypical predators who pose little threat to the sanitized knight.

Hero. The action plods more often than it pulsates. Obviously,.

Schumacher deploys atmosphere (i.e., set design) as a smoke screen to.

Cover up the pornographic material that good taste and censorship.

Prevent him from showing. Indeed, as prudish as "8mm" is, the.

Filmmakers had to contrive something more than prurience to attract an.

Audience.

"8mm" makes the most of Nicolas Cage and shows Joaquin Phoenix at his.

Best. Cage imbues "8mm" with his unique brand of underdog charm and.

Antithetical heroism. Cage plays Welles as a sad-faced Sam Spade with a.

Nagging wife (Catherine Keener) and an infant daughter. Young,.

Ambitious, mobile, and polished, Tom devotes himself to his family.

When he isn't on a case, he's raking the front yard. Tom is the heart.

And soul of "8mm," and the filmmakers make him tough, resourceful, but.

Vulnerable and hen-pecked. Tom Welles serves as the conscience and.

Custodian of morality of "8mm." A great deal of John Wayne's Ethan.

Edwards from director John Ford's "The Searchers" jostles for.

Prominence in Nicolas Cage's performance. Eventually, Tom begins to.

Obsess over poor Mary Anne Matthews and her plight. Cage struggles to.

Make straight-arrow Tom Welles a flesh and blood fellow, but Schumacher.

Doesn't abet him. Tom Welles doesn't have much of a back-story. "8mm".

Is another exercise in masculine control, and the film charts his.

Growth from law-abiding private eye to lone vigilante.

The bad guys in "8mm" wear their villainy like placards. Four villains.

Menace Tom Welles, but the fourth is not unmasked until the climax. All.

Deserve to die, and as the offal of humanity they earn miserable,.

Ignominious deaths. As a porno-movie producer, Eddie Poole (James.

Gandolfini) elicits nothing but contempt as the kind of verminous scum.

Who sodomizes women, guzzles liquor, curses blasphemously, and dresses.

Like a lout. He is a repository of politically-incorrect and socially.

Unacceptable traits. As another porno producer, Dino Velvet (Peter.

Stormare) hams it up with a crossbow and the beard of a vaudeville.

Villain. Chris Bauer creates evil incarnate as 'Machine,' the.

Leather-clad star of S & M videos who kills because he enjoys it.

Machine's speech at the end of "8mm" serves as a commentary on the face.

Of evil.

Altogether, "8mm" is a dull, clammy, little exercise in voyeurism and.

Perversion. Columbia Pictures and director Joel Schumacher couldn't.

Have contrived a better bedtime story for the Super Court Justices to.

Lull themselves asleep to than "8mm.".