One of the more unusual Hollywood careers that cinema audiences have had the opportunity to watch play out over the years has been the career of Nicolas Cage. There was a time in Cage’s career where he was known for his blockbusters – The Rock, Con Air, Gone In Sixty Seconds – and then came a period of straight to DVD movies – so many in fact that it almost felt like a weekly occurrence.
Then came his resurgence. Roles in films like National Treasure and The Croods made him a household name with families while Kick-Ass and Ghost Rider once again made him popular in the world of pop culture. To be honest even many of his straight to DVD movies – films like Season Of The Witch – were fairly decent films in which Cage brought 110% to the screen.
Today Cage is almost back to the top. Over recent years he has appeared in the critically acclaimed Pig and also fan favourites Renfeld and The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent. Now Cage takes on one of his craziest roles to date – that of a serial killer in the new crime thriller Longlegs.
Written and Directed by Oz Perkins ( Gretel & Hansel) Longlegs centres around young FBI Agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe – It Follows) who finds herself working under the tutelage of Agent Carter (Blair Underwood – Deep Impact) when she begins working on a number of murders that seem to be linked by mysterious letters left by someone who identifies themselves as Longlegs.
The crimes themselves are horrific – normally fathers that have killed themselves and their entire families – and while the rest of the FBI seems baffled by these crimes Lee’s psychic abilities seem to be putting all the puzzle pieces together for her. But while she shines at work her personal life is a mess – she has no social life and her relationship with her mother, Ruth (Alicia Witt – Dune), is almost non-existent.
Longlegs has all the right ideas to make it a sensational film but sadly this is a film that never reaches its full potential. The screenplay itself is lazy – rehashing things that screen fans will have already seen in movies like Silence Of The Lambs and even TV’s Medium. True fans of the crime thriller genre will also easily be able to pick the ‘link’ that ultimately solves the crime at hand because sadly it is clumsily sign-posted throughout the film.
There are some things about Longlegs though that will draw the audience in. First of all there is the tone and atmosphere created by both Perkins and his cinematographer, Andres Arochi (first time working on a feature), which really has a power of drawing the audience right into the mystery. The tone itself is perfect for a film that is not sure whether it wants to be a horror or a thriller. On that note I should warn anybody who is about to watch this film that there are some pretty graphic crime scenes depicted right throughout this film.
On the flipside of that though is the fact that while the atmosphere of the film works perfectly the film itself is way too slow and needs better pacing if it wishes to keep its audience’s mind on what is happening on the screen. This is a film where many audience members will find their minds wandering to more mundane things while they are trying to concentrate on the film.
The second thing that saves this film are the acting performances of both Maika Monroe and Nicolas Cage. Monroe’s performance of the interesting Lee is potentially award-winning. She is at times the only thing making this script seem interesting and she even manages to break through the slowness of the film by being an actress that can make a scene work even if it is just a camera trained on her while she sits at a desk.
Then there is the performance of Cage who goes to a whole new maniacal level as he plays one of the most interesting serial killers to have ever graced a cinema screen. Cage is used sparingly throughout the film but whenever he appears he is at his brilliant best and manages to ‘steal’ every scene that he is in. It feels like Perkins just told Cage to ‘go crazy’ with his role here and Cage delivers a performance that mirrors exactly that.
Fans of arthouse cinema may find something redeemable in Longlegs but for most audience members this will just be a slow-burn thriller that never really reaches the heights that it should have. This is a film largely saved by the brilliant performances of Monroe and Cage.
3/5 Stars
