The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)

Nicholas Cage is an actor who has a fan base that is very attached to him, and the connections fans have with him are not strictly related to the quality of either his acting or his films. From this emotional symbiosis between fan and actor, the movie crafts a metanarrative that also explores the relationship between the actor and his on screen persona through the lens of contemporary Hollywood filmmaking. Middle aged Nic Cage plays middle aged Nic Cage who has trouble both finding work and paying his bills, as he grapples with who he was, who he is, how to be a competent parent to a teenager, and exactly how to make ends meet. That is how he ends up accepting a job to attend the birthday party for a lot of money. The affable Pedro Pascal (now forever in my mind cast as the Mandolorian) plays up his own ultra-likeable persona as billionaire super fan Javi Gutierrez, olive-exporting magnate who may also be an international gun runner who shells out big bucks to have his hero at his house. Pascal's grin never seems to fade around Cage, he’s just that happy to be around the man behind the myth, and to some extent, it is very relatable. Cage gets roped into trying to untangle who exactly is the bad guy here but the CIA, and while this may sound both juvenile and tedious, it really is a very fun romp that I unexpectedly enjoyed from start to finish.