What’s this all about?
Rage, originally titled Tokarev, tells the story of a reformed criminal whose daughter is kidnapped, and the frantic search to rescue her. No, we haven’t already covered this one. You’re thinking of Stolen from 2012. Or maybe Trespass, from 2011. Or Drive Angry, also from 2011.
Anyway, it doesn’t pay to be Nick Cage’s daughter, especially if he has a mysterious past, and/or is a reformed criminal.
This one has a twist ending that I won’t spoil until later, so that’s new, I guess.
Who is Nick in this one?
Nick plays “Paul McGuire,” owner of a successful construction company. He has a teenage daughter, and a practically teenage second wife. In his youth, Nick was part of the Irish mob (I think) in Mobile, AL (I only know that it’s set in Mobile because Wikipedia told me so), and he and his pals pulled off a robbery of some Russia gangsters before Nick left the criminal life.
Who else is in this one?
Peter Stormare (the ill-defined Captain/Sergeant guy from Wind Talkers) plays Frances O’Connell, the wheelchair-bound head of the Irish mob.
Danny Glover (who is certainly getting too old for this shit) plays “Detective Johnson,” the cop investigating the kidnapping of Nick’s daughter. He knows about Nick’s past, for some reason.
Did you see that?
Here comes that spoiler that I warned you about. Nick’s daughter doesn’t get rescued. They find her dead.
Her funeral is the most stereotypical movie funeral ever. At one point, a little kid actually starts singing “Danny Boy,” like the director was afraid that we’d forget that these were Irish Americans.
Does this really happen? The last time I saw it was when Moira Rose sang it at Bob’s brother’s funeral on Schitt’s Creek. Surely “Danny Boy” can be retired from serious movies now. -Michael
The final scene was so ridiculous. Nick stabs himself out of some sort of weird guilt or maybe to protect his wife, but before he dies, the guys chasing him get there to kill him. So are we to think he knew his own murder was unavoidable, so he wanted to beat them to it, but failed? I’m honestly not sure about the plot, but I am positive that it was just a bad way to end the film. – Sarah
What were Nick’s best parts?
As Nick and his wife prepare to go out for a night of fine dining and carousing, Nick has a discussion with his daughter and the two teenage boys that are hanging out at the house. Nick calls one of the boys into the kitchen to help him with something. While there, Nick suggests that the boy should ask his daughter out, and the two have a discussion about life, women, and the mysterious nature of both. It’s not a particularly deep conversation, but it felt more natural than just about any other piece of dialog in the film. -Michael
I liked the scene where Nick confronts the boy who he has now realized killed his daughter with Nick’s own gun. It might just be that I liked the twist and didn’t see it coming. It’s not that the acting was particularly better than the rest of the scenes here. Nick was pretty consistent in this movie, he was just phoning it in and not really giving his acting much effort. – Sarah
What were Nick’s worst parts?
While chasing down some Russian gangster, Nick corners the man on the roof of a building. He then proceeds to literally beat the man to death while screaming. He isn’t screaming things at the man, he’s just doing a long, continuous scream. It’s a stupid as it sounds.
When he gets finished, Nick picks up a gun and shoots it a bunch of times at the already dead man. It was all very gratuitous. -Michael
After Nick’s daughter is taken, he goes to his two best friends to ask them to help him find his daughter. Within this scene he gives them the most awkward and just plain weird hug ever. – Sarah
How was the movie?
This movie tried for a twist, and I’m going to spoil it here. I’ll give you a breakdown. As a youth, Nick and his buddies robbed a Russian gangster. That gangster didn’t know who robbed him, but started a gang war trying to find out. Nick was allowed to leave the Irish mob, and went “straight,” becoming a successful businessman with a wife and a daughter.
Years later, Nick’s daughter, who is at home hanging out with two friends, gets kidnapped by professional kidnappers. Immediately suspicion falls on Nick’s past. Nick and his buddies start rounding up Russian gangsters to beat confessions out of, but come up empty.
Nick’s daughter is found dead, shot with a Russian gun.
Nick starts a revenge war against the Russians. The perplexed Russians can’t figure out why Nick thinks they did this, and one of Nick’s buddies tells them that they assumed it was payback for the previous robbery.
The Russians hadn’t ever figured out that Nick was behind the robbery, but now go after Nick and his buddies, killing the head of the Irish mob in the process.
Nick then realizes that the Russian gun that killed his daughter is in his own closet; stolen during the youthful heist. Nick questions his daughter’s friends, and learns that one of them accidentally shot his daughter while playing with Nick’s stolen gun, and that the friends then staged the kidnapping to divert attention, but Nick has already destroyed everything in his own life in his misguided quest for vengeance.
It’s not a terrible twist, as these things go, but it’s delivered in a very convoluted manner, and obviously, a lot more attention was given to scenes that looked “badass” than actual coherent story telling.
The movie was kind of a drag, with a disappointing payoff. -Michael
Michael’s description above makes it sound like a decent movie. It was not. It was hard to follow and just kind of boring. – Sarah
Yeah, but did you like it?
It wasn’t good. It didn’t offend me. -Michael
No. I was bored. – Sarah
Where can I watch it?
It’s free on YouTube.
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