Review of Mandy (2018) by Colginator — 12 Oct 2018

If Nicolas Winding Refn and David Lynch had a baby, then that baby got really in to fantasy and heavy metal, Mandy is the film that baby would eventually make. It's a film of pure insanity, where a man can fight a demon, slit its throat open, snort cocaine, have his face melt off and that scene will still not even be the strangest part of the film. It starts of simply enough, with Red Miller (Nicolas Cage) and his girlfriend Mandy Bloom (Andrea Riseborough) living a peaceful life in the wilderness. But then one day Jeremiah Sand (Linus Roache), a Manson type leader of a crazed hippie cult, sees Mandy and decides to send his cult to kidnap her since he believes they are destined to be with each other. This propels Red to go on a bloody quest of vengeance using a crossbow, an axe and eventually a chainsaw. It's basically like your typical rom-com (just with a few more demon bikers).

Overall it does have the same general set up to a classic revenge film like Death Wish, with a hero is wronged and decides to deliver his own brand of justice. The difference being that Mandy uses imagery that feels like it's been pulled from hell. Whenever evil appears, the screen fills up with a blood red glaze and gives a very primal feeling of dread. Then at other times the imagery feels like we're looking at the world through the eyes of a 80's heavy metal fan, full of imagery which feels like its been ripped from from classic album covers.

Though at the core of this crazed ride is Nicolas Cage, who has always been known for his insane performances and may have found the perfect film to showcase his talents. Throughout the film he's able to go switch seamlessly between rage and misery, whilst somehow still embracing the more darkly comedic elements of the film. In one single take sequence, Cage delivers such a variety of emotions that it could be the fastest I've heard an audience go from laughter into shocked silence.

Mandy is definitely not a film for everyone and it's unlikely to ever get any mainstream success. But with Cage finally finding the perfect film to match his crazed onscreen persona, it also seems destined to become a cult classic.