RATING: ****
Cast
Tom Welles: Nicolas Cage
Max California: Joaquin Phoenix
Dino Velvet: Peter Stormare
Eddie Poole: James Gandolfini
Mrs. Mathews: Amy Morton
Amy Welles: Catherine Keener
Directed By: Joe Schumacher
8mm is one of those movies that disturbed me right to the core. In fact, this is probably the only movie I've ever felt like walking out of the theatre while watching it. Why? Because the movie is dark, disturbing, and the end holds little joy. However, it is an amazing movie even if you take these factors into consideration. I can't exactly describe why, but I just know its a good film.
The Plotline: Tom Welles is a self-employed private investigator who is hired by a rich widow who's husband died, and upon finding a safe, she finds a snuff film (for those who haven't seen the movie and/or don't know what a snuff film is, a snuff film is a violent pornographic movie in which a person is killed), and she wants Welles to find out if its real or not. Welles knows what he's doing and finds out the girls' name: Mary Mathews through Child Find and the police, and tracks down her mother, Mrs. Mathews, and finds out she went to California. He goes to California and goes into the seedy underbelly of the pornography world as he tries to find out who made the film so he can try to find out if its real. He meets up with Dino Velvet, the maker of the movie, and he finds out that it is real. That's when the proverbial shit hits the fan, and a whole bunch of things go wrong. Well, I know that isn't much of a plotline, but I'm not here to give you the plotline, because I don't want to give anything away.
Alright, now, what did I think of this movie? I thought it was a great movie, but it disturbed me to the core. Why? Because the main message of the movie was that evil is in our own backyard. The kind of people who would make a snuff film in which a teenage girl is brutally butchered, are our next-door neighbours, the people we live and work with. People always want to assume that evil is 'out there' as a prof of mine once said. But it isn't, and that realization still haunts me. Not only this, but in almost every movie I've ever seen, the 'good guy' is always the restrained kind, the kind that will turn the other cheek. I was very surprised, and disturbed to see this turned on its head with Cage's character. When he bludgeons Eddie Poole to death with the butt of a gun and then burns his body... I almost walked out of the theatre. You don't often see the main protagonist turn towards evil (or what society has dubbed evil... you really can empathize with his situation, and most people would think very strongly of doing what he did). Its hard really to see him after he comes back home to his wife and children after killing Eddie and Machine... the contrast is done on purpose, and the viewer does feel comfortable at the end of the movie in what Welles has done. Evil for evil is the concept of this movie.
In many ways, this movie reminds me of Seven, which operates on the same premise. However, I think that the cynicism of Seven was a lot more powerful. Nevertheless, this is a very dark and disturbing movie. I recommend that you watch it at least once... and then try to look at your neighbour the same way again.... K.R