Review of Mandy (2018) by Gregory E — 10 Oct 2018

Gotta love what Panos Cosmatos has achieved. This is a movie with the same deranged Nicolas Cage of the last 10 years (the one that has been repeatedly rejected by the cultural elite), in a B-Movie story that seems inspired from a comic in a Heavy Metal magazine, with a revenge- "lady in the fridge"-structure of a cheap Charles Bronson flick, and still the Italian-Canadian director managed to earn the critics' praise.

And perhaps justly so. Cosmatos has already displayed its own style in just its second film. "Mandy" is a good balance between artsy ambition and pulpy entertainment.

"Mandy", however, thinks it's much riskier than it really is. This movie doesn't even have the best chainsaw duel captured on screen (that honor is for Dennis Hopper vs. Leatherface). But maybe that "crazy brake" is strategic. Perhaps it's precisely this concession that achieved that difficult balance.

And when a balance is a crazy, bloody and coked out Nicolas Cage being widely accepted, that's a triumph in my book.