Rage (2014) Review

Time: 98 Minutes
Age Rating:
Cast:
Nicolas Cage as Paul Maguire
Rachel Nichols as Vanessa
Peter Stormare as Frances “Frank” O’Connell
Danny Glover as Detective Peter St. John
Director: Paco Cabezas

Following the kidnapping and murder of his daughter (Aubrey Peeples), a reformed criminal (Nicolas Cage) returns to his old ways to exact vengeance.

I saw Rage (also titled Tokarev) a long time ago, mostly out of curiosity because Nicolas Cage was in it, even though I heard that the movie wasn’t really that good. However, it definitely fits into the category of straight to DVD Nicolas Cage movies and doesn’t really have much to offer, whether it be the story, direction or performances. And no, not even Cage can make this movie entertaining in the slightest.

Out of Nicolas Cage’s bad movies, this fits into the ‘boring bad’ category along with other movies like Left Behind (though Rage still isn’t quite as terrible in comparison). The movie is about 90 minutes long but it takes a while for things to actually happen. The story is boring and convoluted, it’s the typical revenge plot but just done really blandly and poorly. The characters and the plot aren’t interesting enough to care about, there’s just no energy and there’s nothing intriguing going on. The ending is also really abrupt and unsatisfying, there’s not satisfying payoff in the third act. I wasn’t picking out issues with the actual plot throughout the runtime, I just was generally bored watching it.

The acting isn’t all that great. Nicolas Cage is fine enough as the lead character, but this is definitely one of his paycheck roles. Cage does get like one freak out moment however and it is truly glorious, easily the best (or at least most entertaining) moment of the movie. Outside of that, his acting ranges from being okay to sleepwalking through a lot of the movie, which seemed to be his acting style recently (hopefully after Mandy and Mom and Dad that has now changed). In terms of other noteworthy actors, Danny Glover is pretty good in the little screentime that he has, however his detective character is terrible at his job and that bit was a little distracting (one of the only parts about the characters/plot that I really had some issues with). The rest of the cast (featuring the likes of Peter Stomare) are sort of fine, not particularly bad but they don’t really leave any impact, or at least weren’t memorable enough to mention.

Rage was not directed all that well by Paco Cabezas, and he’s apparently done other movies in the past. Maybe Cabezas made better movies before but you wouldn’t know that just based on this movie. A lot of the action contains shaky cam, made worse by the editing which cuts a lot, there is particularly a car chase scene which is absolutely incomprehensible with so many cuts and you can’t follow anything that’s going on. Outside of the action scenes, the direction is just sort of average, not awful but nothing good either.

It’s really sad that a movie titled Rage and starring Nicolas Cage is incredibly dull. It is yet another bad Nic Cage movie, but really the worst part is that there isn’t anything entertaining about it, intentional or not. We get a couple stand out but brief Cage freak outs but that’s it. Even if you’re a big Nicolas Cage fan, you’re not really missing much by not watching Rage outside of those scenes, and even those can be seen online. You’ve probably not even heard of the movie but if you have even the slightest interest in watching it (even for an ironic viewing experience), it’s not really worth it. It’s not one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen by any means, but it’s really dull and generic, and really doesn’t have much to offer.

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