Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Sion Sono
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Sofia Boutella, Bill
Moseley, Nick Cassavettes, Tak Sakaguchi, Yuzuka Nakaya
Has Nicolas Cage finally paid off his infamous debts? His recent
career choices would suggest so. Having spent much of the 21st century
appearing in any old schlock for a pay-cheque, Cage seems to have refined
his choices in the past couple of years to the sort of movies he's naturally
drawn towards. This year we've already seen him headline two very different
movies in
Willy's Wonderland
and
Pig, but both see him play taciturn characters and both feel destined for
future cult status.
Now Cage is working with a filmmaker that seems the most natural fit for
his talents since he worked with David Lynch all those years ago. Japanese
director Sion Sono has made some of the weirdest movies of the past
couple of decades, so Prisoners of the Ghostland should be a
match made in heaven.
Cage has described Prisoners of the Ghostland as "The wildest
movie I've ever made," which is quite a claim. It's surprising then to find
upon watching Sono's film that it's remarkably generic and derivative,
little more than a poorly-conceived melding of samurai cinema with John
Carpenter's Escape from New York (or perhaps, given its
cartoonish tone, Escape from LA is a more fitting
comparison).
Cage is a Snake Plissken stand-in simply known as Hero. After spending
several years behind bars for a bank robbery that resulted in multiple
deaths when his partner in crime (Nick Cassavettes) got an itchy
trigger finger, Hero is sprung by the governor of Bank City. He's enlisted
to find and rescue the governor's grand-daughter Bernice (Sofia Boutella), who has seemingly been kidnapped by the bandits that live in the
wastelands beyond the city. Just as in Escape from New York, he's fitted with a device that will kill him if he fails to comply and
complete the task. In this case it's a full body suit that will blow off his
balls if he gets any amorous ideas about Bernice.
If it seems we're set for an Escape from New York knock-off,
the plot quickly seques into Mad Max 2 as Hero finds himself
unwittingly coming to the aid of a small community that has been living in
fear of the governor. Don't expect any of the road rage of the
Mad Max films though, as bafflingly, there's an entire montage
of trucks getting rigged up only for the movie to forget to employ
them.
Prisoners of the Ghostland often feels like Sono is throwing
a lot of shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. In its small details it's
visually inventive, like the villagers who spend all their time pulling on a
rope attached to the second hand of a giant clock in the belief that doing
so prevents time from moving forward. The production design is striking in
its East meets West mashup of the Old West and feudal Japan. There's a well
choreographed sword duel in the climax, a reminder of how Asian filmmakers
have a more natural affinity for this sort of action cinema than most of
their western contemporaries.
But Sono's film just never kicks in. Even Cage seems lost here, though it's
hard to think of another American actor you could cast in this role. After a
fun introduction that caters to Cage's unique physical tics, Hero becomes a
rather dull protagonist. He's outshone by Bill Moseley as the
governor. A veteran of genre cinema, Moseley gets a meaty introduction here
that allows him a rare moment in the spotlight. It's reminiscent of Michael
Parks' great turn in the otherwise awful Kevin Smith thriller
Red State. Like that film, Prisoners of the Ghostland plays like a
movie that's been purposely assembled in the hopes of one day being declared
a cult favourite. That's a misguided way to make a movie, as filmmakers
can't make cult movies, only audiences can.
Prisoners of the Ghostland is on UK DVD/bluray from November 15th.
