8mm (1999)

I've been fascinated with urban legends since I was a kid. The whimsical and scary ones are the ones that always captured my attention, but the one that's terrified me most of all is the concept of "snuff films." The idea that someone's videotaped a murder and sold the video for profit just sends shivers up my spine. Granted, footage of actual deaths does exist. You can find R. Budd Dwyer's televised suicide on YouTube, for crying out loud. But for the most part, snuff films are generally classified as being as much an urban legend as Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster.

But snuff films have long been fodder for horror filmmakers. Movies like A Serbian Film and Vacancy have had characters fall prey to snuff film producers, while the infamous Faces of Death (and its various sequels and knockoffs) mixed real footage of actual atrocities in with dramatized, fictional footage. This brings us to the movie I'm reviewing now, the simply-titled 8mm. I've actually wanted to see 8mm for quite a while, mainly because I'm a fan of its star and because its concept intrigued me. But I've been putting off watching it for years, so I might as well go ahead and dive in now.

Meet private investigator Tom Welles (Nicolas Cage), who as the movie begins is contacted by Mrs. Christian (Myra Carter), the widow of a recently deceased millionaire. Mrs. Christian discovered a reel of eight-millimeter film that appears to depict the torture and murder of a teenage girl while cleaning out her late husband's safe, and she wants to hire Welles to determine whether the film is authentic or just a very convincing fake.

Welles's investigation is quickly fruitful, as he manages to identify the girl in the snuff film as a missing girl from Ohio. A trail of clues leads him to the seedier side of Hollywood, where he's befriended by an adult bookstore clerk calling himself Max California (Joaquin Phoenix). But as Welles and Max descend into the underground porn industry and delve deeper into the mystery surrounding the snuff film's origin, they discover a dark world from which they may not be able to emerge.

I approached 8mm knowing that it hadn't been met with very many positive reviews during its theatrical run, but with a hope that it wouldn't really be that bad. I've disagreed with a movie's Rotten Tomatoes rating on more than one occasion in the past. But all truth be told, 8mm is just a mediocre effort all the way through. Considering some of the elements it had to work with, this is a movie that could have been awesome had it been crafted properly. But the final result is a barely adequate movie that's not much more than the sum of its parts.

At the helm of this little adventure is Joel Schumacher, this being his first directorial effort following the disaster that was Batman & Robin. And while I didn't think his work on 8mm was that bad, it feels more like a generic, run-of-the-mill thriller than anything else. The score composed by Mychael Danne is actually pretty good and there's some decent noir-like camerawork from cinematographer Robert Elswit, but Schumacher never really builds any serious atmosphere or tension. He's trying, I'll give him that. You really get the feeling that he was trying to make some kind of weird amalgam of Twin Peaks (only with perverts instead of weirdos) and The Silence of the Lambs with a touch of Michael Mann's Manhunter thrown in for seasoning. But Schumacher sadly never gets above mediocrity, which is rather unfortunate.

A big part of why it's unfortunate is because the movie was written by Andrew Kevin Walker, who had previously written the thoroughly awesome Seven a few years earlier. The script features a concept and a number of moments that would have been a lot more fascinating in a better-made movie, but that's not to say that the script is devoid of flaws. The dialogue gets trite at times, the story starts feeling very formulaic, and some of the characters could have stood to be better developed.

But these flaws can't all be blamed on Walker. The story I heard goes that Walker refused to tone down the script at the studio's request, so Schumacher took it and retooled it himself. I don't know why they couldn't have simply trusted Walker, because Seven more than proved he knew what he was doing. I'm honestly not sure if the problems with the script were due to Schumacher's retooling or if it was just one of Walker's lesser efforts. But I do know that the script could have been much more intense and provocative. Instead, we're left with a movie that tries to shock yet is rarely successful in doing so. It's simply another case where something with a metric ton of potential is wasted.

I can say the same thing about the cast, too. There are some talented actors in this movie, yet none of them really knock it out of the park. Take, for example, our leading actor. Nicolas Cage has a few moments where he shines here, but for the most part, he just seems a little... I don't know, flat, I guess. It's not a particularly bad performance, but he doesn't do anything that couldn't have been done by a dozen other actors. Cage is a good actor in good movies and hilarious in bad ones, but in movies like 8mm, he's sadly forgettable.

There are some performances among the supporting cast that aren't bad, though. Catherine Keener is sympathetic in her tiny, thankless role as Cage's character's wife, while Peter Stormare plays his role, that of a producer of extreme bondage porn, with a sleazy gusto. James Gandolfini is okay but also forgettable as another porn producer, but everyone in the movie is outshined by Joaquin Phoenix. His character is a smartass who thinks he's seen it all, yet approaches everything with a sort-of wide-eyed fascination. It's a fun, charming bit of acting from Phoenix that, while it might not be on his career highlight reel, is still worth checking out.

That actually sums up the whole movie. It's not a great movie, nor is it actually really bad either. But it's worth checking out on a boring Saturday night if you're into the thriller genre. It never drags, and there are a few scenes that are certainly effective. But if you choose to avoid 8mm, you aren't missing out on anything either. It's a decent enough movie that could have been so much better with a little spit and polish. And to its credit, it's at least better than that direct-to-video sequel that came out a few years ago. So it's got that going for it, I guess.

Final Rating: **½