Review of The Weather Man (2005) by Hannibal O — 19 Jul 2008

First, I have to say that I've never been a huge Nicolas Cage fan. I've never been overly impressed with his acting skills...not even Leaving Las Vegas. The only time I really enjoy him is when he plays badass crazy characters like in Wild at Heart or Face/Off, but unfortunately he doesn't play those roles anymore.

This was not a bad film. It falls under the Plain White Guy Undergoing Suburbian Angst genre (aka American Beauty). There are hilarious moments in this film, but Gore Verbinski, the director, is never quite able to gel it together and give us the coherent richly-layered story that American Beauty was able to give us.

This film feels more like a patchwork of scenes with varying degrees of success. Its obvious the filmmakers were trying to create another American Beauty here. All the character types and themes from that film are present here.

However, the thing with this film was that I really didn't give a shit what happened to Cage's character. I didn't care whether or not he would get the job for Good Morning America or whether he would keep his family intact or make his father proud.

His character just meanders through a bunch of scenes and the audience does the same. Michael Caine was ok here and that was not his fault. The writer simply didn't give him much to work with. By the way, the camel toe scene was absolute classic and thats the problem.

..there were not enough of those scenes. Some complain that the film was too dreary and depressing. That wasn't an issue for me. The story is set in the middle of winter in Chicago and its about a guy who lacks purpose for fuck's sake - of course, its going to be depressing.

That reminds me. One very annoying thing about this film was the inclusion of quirky little details to the characters. For example, Cage's character always has food and drinks thrown at him. These story elements can work great, but when they don't, they become VERY distracting.

Another example is the camel tow and I think that worked just because it was so hilarious and it actually fit with the character and the story. Anyway, I didn't think it was bad so much as I thought it was frustrating because it could have been a very good film.