What’s this all about?
Criminals invade the giant mansion of a rich, unscrupulous douchebag, where they hold the d-bag and his family hostage. There’s a great deal of screaming, shouting, the waving of guns, and long, pointless explanations of character motivations.
I know that I often complain that characters lack motivation, but I also don’t need to know the family history of a burglar, unless it adds something to the movie.
There are also a bunch of twists, misdirects, and backstabbings, none of which are interesting, surprising, or clever in any way.
Who is Nick in this one?
Nick plays “Kyle Miller.” He’s a diamond merchant, or something. He ignores his wife and kid, and is always “hustling.” It turns out he’s also broke, but not broke, but that’s supposed ot be a twist.
Who else is in this one?
Nicole Kidman plays Kyle’s wife, “Sarah”. She designed their house, or something. It doesn’t matter. She also fights with her teenage daughter. That also doesn’t matter. I don’t know what was going on in Kidman’s life when she made this, but she’s way too good to be in this movie. To be clear, her performance in this film is very bad. I just know she can do better.
You won’t recognize anyone else in this move.
Did you see that?
Towards the end of the film, it is revealed that Nick has literal palettes of cash hidden in the house. This pile of cash catches fire in an improbable way, and for a fraction of a second, we can see that the money all has Nick Cage’s face on it. I think it’s meant as an “Easter egg” of some sort, as it’s never acknowledged by the film’s characters. If that doesn’t tell you how dumb this movie is, nothing I can say will. -Michael
There was a bit where Nick threw a chair through a window setting off a security alarm. Which made the phone start ringing. The bad guys eventually picked up and just said “I’ll have to call you back” and hung up. You would think that would be an instant summoning of the cops, but then the phone starts to ring again. What are we supposed to think here? That they called back and it rang dozens of times too. No answering machine or voice mail? Then they pick up and at first try to say they have the wrong number so the security company says they are calling the cops, so they put the teenage girl on and force her to give the password and say she’s having a party and not to turn them in. And they buy it. Please. That is not how any of this works! -Sarah
What were Nick’s best parts?
At the end of the movie, Nick acts like he’s dying. I wouldn’t say it was a good performance, but it wasn’t the worst death scene Nick’s done. -Michael
There really is no good scenes here, but I did kind of like the scene where Nick has been beaten up, shot, and is standing in the middle of a fire when he gives one last, weak plead to leave his family alone and then passes out. It was actually a pretty good fall. -Sarah
What were Nick’s worst parts?
While his family is being held hostage, the robbers are trying to get Nick to open his safe for them. Nick launches into a high-energy “negotiation” speech. It’s over-the-top and awful. Imagine an infomercial presenter, who has been told to turn it up to 11, you’re pretty close to this scene. -Michael
Nick’s worst performance was definitely when he got shot. He made a noise like he was startled by a spider. Actually, I’ve been startled by a spider once and I made a more convincing sound than he did. Just ask my husband. -Sarah
(Editor’d note: Can confirm. I for sure thought Sarah had been shot that time a spider startled her. -Michael)
How was the movie?
This movie tries to tell a story about wealth, the appearance of wealth, and the real value of family, but instead, it’s just a bunch of assholes doing asshole stuff. There’s no payoff to the many twists, and the only cool scene is when Nick’s daughter intentionally drives her convertible into a tree while unbuckling a kidnapper’s seatbelt. -Michael
To be honest it was amazingly boring for a movie with so much yelling and action. And the acting was shockingly bad. I know, how much expectation could I have had for a random Nick Cage movie from that era? But it had Nicole Kidman in it! That should have elevated it. -Sarah
Yeah, but did you like it?
I did not. It was loud, but not fun. -Michael
Honestly, it did suck pretty bad, but towards the end, it entered so bad it just might be good territory. -Sarah
Where can I watch it?
Of course, it’s free on Tubi. Why do we have other streaming services at this point?
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