What’s this all about?
Dying of the Light tells the story of two sick old men, pointlessly fighting each other over poorly-defined ideals, until both of them die alone, having wasted most of their lives.
Seriously, though, it’s the story of a CIA operative who has dedicated his life to the pursuit of an African terrorist, who has, in turn, dedicated his life to destroying Western civilization.
The former is in the grips of rapidly worsening dementia, while the latter suffers from a rare form of hereditary anemia that forces him to hide in squalid back rooms while seeking out the treatment that he needs to survive.
In the end, there’s an uneventful showdown between the two men, followed by an even more unfulfilling climax, and none of it matters, or is the least bit interesting.
Who is Nick in this one?
Nick plays, “Evan Lake,” an aging CIA operative whose job seems to primarily be giving the same rousing speech to each year’s new crop of CIA agents. It’s not a good speech. It’s fraught with grammatical errors and jingoism that I’d think CIA prospects would be immune to.
Anyway, he has no family or life outside the bureau, and he longs to get back in the field to hunt down a terrorist who cut his right ear with scissors in the opening credits. Everyone else thinks this terrorist is long dead, and is uninterested in chasing down a guy who doesn’t really seem to have done much beyond roughing up Nick one time.
We learn fairly early in the film that Nick is suffering from a debilitating and fast-progressing dementia.
Who else is in this one?
Anton Yelchin (“Chekov” in the J.J. Abrams reboot of Star Trek) plays Milton Schultz, a young CIA agent, and seemingly Nick’s only friend. He becomes Nick’s partner in his quest to bring terrorist “Banir” to justice.
Yelchin’s performance in this film was not great. I know that Yelchin was born in the Soviet Union and came to the US as an infant, so I would not expect him to have an accent (despite his performance in Star Trek) but for some reason, he seemed to be doing the “American accent” that non-Americans tend to do when playing Americans. Maybe this is just how Yelchin normally talked. I don’t know. Either way, it was distracting and weird.
Did you see that?
During a scene in which a confused Nick finds himself in a Ruby Tuesday restaurant (incorrectly called “Ruby Tuesday’s” by the film’s cast as if they were Midwesterners) without memory of how he got there. Yelchin comes to his aid, and upon entering the restaurant says loudly, into space, “Hey, let’s get this man some food over here. And a cup of coffee!” to which an off screen server hilariously replies, “you got it!”
Why does this trope exist, and why do filmmakers continue to use it? This behavior would never get you any food in any restaurant that I’ve ever been in, and I’ve been to Ruby Tuesday. They need to know, you know, what food, and who is paying. How is Ruby Tuesday staff supposed to know what to feed some random guy?
For the record, we never see any food get delivered, which, in my experience, is accurate to Ruby Tuesday. -Michael
When Nick used the bathroom in the main villains lair it had one of those old time toilets where the tank is hung high on the wall and there is a pull chain to flush it. I have no idea if that was appropriate or not for the area of the world there were in for the time, but I was amused by it. -Sarah
What were Nick’s best parts?
At the film’s midpoint, Nick gets pulled into an office with his director, who brings in a doctor who is somehow aware of Nick’s condition, even though he’s told no one about it. Nick yells at the two of them for overstepping the boundaries of their roles. It’s believable, and amazingly not screamy. -Michael
Nick does an amazing job of playing someone that is losing control of their emotions. He goes from perfectly normal to flipping out masterfully and as Michael mentioned above, he does it without his normal trope of screaming suddenly. In his screaming scenes the tension was built and by the time he was screaming, it felt appropriate. -Sarah
What were Nick’s worst parts?
In “showdown #1,” Nick has finally placed himself in the same room as the terrorist “Banir,” who is, himself, a decrepit old man. Nick has been chasing this villain for his entire career, and has planned his death for years.
Nick dramatically reveals that he is not, in fact, a physician coming to treat Banir, but the guy whose ear Banir chopped years ago. Nick introduces himself, and explains that he’s come to kill the old man.
He then promptly falls into a dementia fugue, and loses track of what he’s doing. Banir makes fun of him before Nick leaves, without killing Banir.
I think this was supposed to be a deep, meaningful scene about dementia, or the futility of terrorism and revenge, but it’s really just two old men pissing around and accomplishing nothing. Nick’s performance is goofy and stupid, and the payoff is non-existent. -Michael
The final showdown or fight scene between Nick and his nemesis was ridiculous. I will give Nick that he gave it his all, but two old, sick, and feeble men rolling around on the floor fighting to the death. I’m not sure there are actors good enough to make that suspenseful and believable. Certainly not Nick. I found it hilarious. -Sarah
How was the movie?
This is the worst kind of Nick Cage movie. It’s bad, sure. But worse than that, it just isn’t interesting. There’s not a single character that I cared about. Despite the film’s efforts to make me sympathize with Nick, he still comes across as a weak loser, who has wasted his life for no apparent reason. His cause seems neither just nor poignant.
The villain’s character is so thin that I don’t know if we’re supposed to feel moral ambiguity about him or not.
The deaths of both men are insignificant.
I feel like at the end, the viewer is supposed to be welling up with tears over the tragedy of Nick’s life, but I was more worried about the tragedy of the 90 minutes that I won’t get back. -Michael
The movie was wish fulfillment for people like my mother. People in their 70’s that are losing their abilities/mind and like to pretend they aren’t or that it doesn’t even matter. Why the film thinks people in this condition can still sometimes function at a level they make Nick out to be in this film is ridiculous and too unrealistic. -Sarah
Yeah, but did you like it?
It’s both dull and gross. Skip this one. -Michael
It was okay, I guess, for a bad movie. I couldn’t watch it without getting snarky though. If that was your goal though, it’sa good one. -Sarah
Where can I watch it?
Its on Tubi, because of course it is.
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