Director Yuval Adler’s “Sympathy for the Devil” is a movie for the Nicolas Cage fan base, those people that love to see Nicolas Cage go berserk and completely the chew the scenery for ninety minutes. It’s as if Yuval Adler went on set and told Nic Cage to just be Nic Cage, because out of all the Nic Cage performances in his repertoire this is the Nic Cagest you’ll see. He Nic Cage’s the hell out of this movie. “Sympathy for the Devil” is part horror movie, part survival thriller, part crime thriller and part mystery. It’s “Collateral” but on acid.
Joel Kinnaman plays an everyday driver who is stunned when a man pops in to his car ordering him to drive. Despite his insistence he’s not an uber diver, the passenger (Nicolas Cage) holds him at gunpoint and orders him to drive for him. Despite pleading for his life, the passenger takes him on a blood soaked terror rollercoaster through the roads, hell bent on torturing the driver who is completely baffled as to why he’s being targeted. But as the night wears on and people die, both men start to learn a lot about themselves.
“Sympathy for the Devil” is such a bizarre movie and it is definitely the kind of gonzo ride that is right up Nic Cage’s wheelhouse. Joel Kinnaman is very good in the role opposite Cage as the movie center primarily on these two men, both of whom carry on some of the most out of this world, surreal conversations. Cage seems to be improvising for most of his time on screen presenting a weird faux Boston accent and mugging for the camera every chance he gets. With his red dyed coif and beet red two piece suit, he’s a villain that is an absolute cartoon.
And yet he’s incredibly charismatic and flamboyant enough to keep the audience’s attention. The whole mystery of why he picks up Kinnaman’s character works to the detriment of the film, though, as after an hour it felt like the script was dragging the events on as far as it could. Director Yuval Adler paints “Sympathy for the Devil” like a literal trip through hell, framing every shot in tints of deep reds and adding a chaotic aesthetic that makes everything feel so maddening and tense. The more the journey goes along the more things start to make so much sense; director Adler asks his audience to really invest in this mind fuck of a horror movie, and the investment surely pays off to the very end. I had a great time with this and I’m positive Cage fans will love how completely untethered he is here.
In Theaters on July 28th.