Review of Mandy (2018) by Denis D — 16 Oct 2018

"Mandy", directed by Panos Cosmatos, is a movie, which was highly anticipated ever since it was shown earlier this year during the Sundance festival. Now the film is finally released digitaly and via video on demand. Is it as good as critics claim it to be? No, it's better.

"Mandy" is one of most stylish films I've seen to date. Long, disturbing shots in psychedelic colours with Johann Johannssons genius soundtrack in the background create a unique crazy feeling from that what you see on the screen.

Add on top of that an Oscar-worthy performance from Nicholas Cage and you'll get the best part in his entire career. Cage managed to create a charecter, who is a mad killing machine on path of vengeance, using mostly just his mimics and creepy eyes. The main antagonist Jeremiah, played by Linus Rorche, is one of the worst and most disgusting charecters in years. You'll hate him throughout the whole movie, but eh, that's what bad guys are for, right?

Action is also really solid. Quite often it reminds the best cutscenes from Japanese videogames like "Resident evil" and "Devil may cry". Fight and violence scenes are bloody badass. You probably seen that chainaw duel scen in the trailer... well it's far not the coolest battle in the movie.

If everything described was kind off expected from "Mandy", a great plot was a real surprise for me. At first, it looks like a common payback story, but if you look at it more carefully, you'll see, how Red (Nickolas Cage) driven by revenge is going mad, gradually descending to his own Hell. It is shown in all sorts of ways, for example murders are getting more violent, psychodelics increases, even environments become blurry and surreal.

"Mandy" is an amazing, original film, which isn't afraid to take risks, which is rare in our commercial age. All of them completely pay off and that's why, in my opinion, "Mandy" is the best movie of 2018, so far.