Steinesongo Too many fans seem to be blown away

Rijndri Load of rubbish!!

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

pietclausen Never saw this film in 1999 and was eager to see Nicolas Cage in his earlier films. Having now viewed it, I am not disappointed but for 2018, the slow and painstaking buildup in getting to the truth doesn't work anymore. Life is too rushed nowadays and would be found a boring drawback and cheesy movie.I can't say I liked it, but am pleased to have seen it. This 2 hour movie gets my watchable rating of 6. The last half hour of the movie made it work for me.

svetaguschina I don't understand why this movie in the biography of Nicholas cage is not marked as best. I love that movie. Yes, this film is sometimes too perverse. But... this movie is so realistic. This film, I think, is the best movie in biography of Nicolas cage (after the "City of Angels"). It is very well revealed the talent of the actor. The first time I watched it in 2010 in Russia. Much later than it was published. And this film made me very very touched. I would recommend it again to see.

rpvanderlinden The first thing I'll say is that I felt like taking a shower after watching this movie. Then I resolved to stop watching black-as-night movies like this. Then I admitted that I found the movie to be unique and bracing. There are so many movies out there that revel in violence and mayhem, and treat the impulse for revenge almost as a virtue. This is not such a movie. Tom Wells, played superbly by Nicolas Cage, is given a simple, but lucrative, private eye job - determine the veracity of what appears to be a snuff film, then go home to his wife and little girl (he's chosen because he's taken to be stupid, and not a troublemaker - wrong on both counts).You see, Wells has a conscience, and is a straight-arrow, middle-class guy. But the deeper he digs into the underbelly of the sex industry, the more horrified he becomes by what he uncovers, and the more sympathy he develops for the teen-aged "star" of the film in question. Then, violent reactions are aroused, and he plunges into the grotesque maelstrom of this world he probably barely noticed in his nice, safe life.I ponder the news, and I don't even want to imagine the horrors of sex-slavery and child-molestation, but I know these things have permeated our society, that women, as in this film, are dehumanized as "pussy". And what kind of men are they who are the customers, the "johns", the pimps, the purveyors? Their victims are real people, however naive they are, but here they are mere commodities. We're used to evil being presented, as in horror films, as something unhuman, outside of ourselves, but here it's all too human, all too mundane. Evil might be Joe the mechanic down the street. There's a scene in the film in which Wells is browsing the pornography in a deeply underground shop. He comes across a section labelled "kids", and a chill ran up my spine. I don't think that the film-makers were as interested in the snuff film per se, as in giving us a tour of this squalid other-world. And what a tour it is! The movie is lewd in suggestion only, and no more violent than many other films of its kind, so what accounts for its visceral jolt? Some of the scenes and images, the way they are filmed, have quite a impact, and the shudders I felt were real. I think that I became totally invested in the Wells character, and because he cared about the girl, I cared too. I could truly feel his pain, and not in the usual jokey sense of the phrase. We talk about graphic sex and violence, but in this movie, it's the emotions that are graphic. Wells' dive down the rabbit hole is truly awful. When he cries to his wife, "Save me!" it's not his physical self he's talking about. And here, too, is a movie in which the sex and violence are not there as a turn-on.Glancing at some of the critics' comments, I was really surprised. Some were truly outraged by this movie. They wrote as if they were deeply, personally offended by it. The only other time, that I know of, when this occurred, was with the movie Peeping Tom (similar subject matter), and that destroyed director Michael Powell's career. How dare he! Peeping Tom was eventually declared a masterpiece, and 8MM ought to be up on the ladder somewhere. As ugly and unpleasant as the story is, there is a place in movie heaven for films with integrity such as this.

Leofwine_draca Joel Schumacher may have bombed out with the atrociously-received BATMAN AND ROBIN, but his latest thriller is a complex, thrilling movie which gives us a detailed character breakdown of the hero, who himself is partially seduced by the dark side and not altogether good. It's not often we get psychological insights like this in mainstream movies, but Nicolas Cage is able to pull the role off, and still come out on top as a likable figure.The movie starts out well, depicting the classy side of the obscene, before gradually moving into murkier and murkier depths, eventually leading to a conclusion where Cage commits acts just as bad as the people he's after. Cage is fast becoming one of my favourite actors of recent years, and he once again excels himself. A solid cast is built around him, including an intelligent, likable sidekick with Joaquin Phoenix, an up-and-coming star, and also the actress playing his wife, who portrays her mental suffering excellently. In fact, there isn't a bad performance in the whole film, from the grief-stricken good guys to the drugged up bad guys, who simply have no compassion and no regrets about what they do: it doesn't even bother them.The subject matter was enough to put a lot of people off this film, but it really isn't that bad, apart from quite a few sexual situations, this is nothing worse than what you'd see late night on Channel 5. The most disturbing thing of all is the actual snuff film itself, especially the drugged, dozy eyes of the young victim as she gets butchered to death. This is pretty hard to take, especially when we learn how she was just a normal girl, who got seduced by promises of a career in the movie industry. This is pretty close to reality and it could happen, which is why it's all the more disturbing. When we meet the bad guys in the final half of the film, it's not that bad as they're just like you and me, making money.This is perhaps over-emphasised at the end of the film, with the unmasking of the central character Machine, who acts as an executioner in the snuff film. He turns out to be just a normal, overweight man with glasses; there's nothing strange about this man who could be a friend, or neighbour. On the outside he's perfectly normal. On the inside, he's a twisted pervert. Much of the violence is kept off screen, except at the end where Cage goes around bringing much-deserved vengeance to all the scum and sickos involved.8MM turns out to be an intelligent, thoughtful look at one man's obsession and the depths to which the human race will sink. It's got it's fair share of flaws, but these have unfairly meant that it's got something of a bad reputation, probably from cinema goers hoping for the CGI effects or explosions of the latest blockbuster, or for something really profound. It's underrated, and surprisingly good.