BEFORE: Another Cage movie that managed to fall through the cracks over the years - it seems I find a couple of these every year. This one gets me within spitting distance of my 10-day tour through British history, even if I still haven't landed on a name for that section of the chain. Britfest 2019? The David De-Cameron? All This and World War Too? Still working on it....
Nicolas Cage carries over from "It Could Happen to You".
THE PLOT: A Chicago weather man, separated from his wife and children, debates whether professional and personal success are mutually exclusive.
AFTER: It's a bit hard to say when Nicolas Cage made the turn, from playing sympathetic characters (usually the central figure of a movie) to unsympathetic ones. For the last few years, he's played a bunch of semi-background characters, often people who mentor the central character, like in "Snowden" and "Kick-Ass", or someone who's not really a hero figure at all, like in "Joe" or "Dying of the Light". Maybe this film was some kind of pivot point, because here he's the central character, but sort of an anti-hero, somebody who wants everybody to feel sympathetic for him, but as an audience member, it's really challenging to find that emotion. Do you know what I mean? The kind of person who thinks he's a nice guy, and deserves more, but ends up blaming everyone else for his misfortunes, instead of taking a long, hard look at himself and finding his own faults.
There is a certain down-side to fame, even the questionable level of fame attained by local news anchors and weathermen. Do weathermen really have fans, people who want their autographs? I don't know of anyone who collects such things, because really, what do they do? If it wasn't THIS guy bringing us the weather, it would be another guy or gal with a precipitation-related pun in their name, right? Like Storm Fields or Amy Freeze - but the only thing I ask out of a weather person is that they NOT be annoying, which apparently is a tough ask. It seems that lately there's been a push to hire more weather people that look more like a cross-section of America, and I'm not sure that's a step up. I've got nothing against plus-sized women, but we've got a female meteorologist in NYC who blocks out half the map, and that's just not practical.
But it's tough to be a Chicago weatherman, no doubt, especially if people are blaming you for the bad weather (do they think the weatherman CAUSES bad weather?) and are constantly throwing sodas, slurpees and shakes at Dave Spritz, out of frustration stemming from his forecasts. (Dave mistakenly thinks that people are jealous of his high-paying, high-profile job, but I think an easier answer is that Chicago residents just hate weather.). Weather is by nature impossible to predict, yet still we expect a certain class of people to take their best guesses day after day, and refuse to acknowledge that hey, at least someone tried. And the effect on Cage's character here is that he keeps absorbing the blame, and not fighting back, thus becoming the city's doormat.
The domino effect that this has had on his family is that he's divorced and an absent father, and it's a point in his son and daughter's lives where he really could be making an impact. However, it's been so long since he's been an active dad that he doesn't really seem to know what he's doing, and at that point it's easier for him to do more harm than good. As a result (?) of him not being there, his teen son is in rehab and has no idea that his adult counselor is putting the moves on him, while his pre-teen daughter is overweight and buying cigarettes, and is unaware that her classmates are teasing her for the way she dresses. The sole voice of wisdom is Dave's father, who's got good advice but is dealing with his own medical problems, plus he's an author who peaked way too early and has been resting on his Pulitzer and Book Awards for much too long.
Dave absorbs all of these problems, plus the constant barrage of fast food from angry Chicagoans, but a doormat personality isn't very interesting to build a film around, plus it's probably only a matter of time before he hulks out and explodes in a fit of rage - and that would be one of the better scenarios that could result. The producers of "Hello America" have placed him on the short list of candidates for a national morning talk-show weatherman gig, so he's got to find a way to hold it together until that decision is made, plus with all the sadness going on around him, he's somehow got to muster up the strength to pick up the phone when they call.
The film would like us to believe that by taking archery lessons (he bought them for his daughter, but she lost interest as soon as she realized that practice and discipline would be required) Dave is able to gain focus, sort out his hang-ups and come to terms with his situation in life, but that's a little too pat, too simplistic for a complex world. The same result could be achieved by just not being an asshole to everyone any more, to treat people in a way he would like to be treated. See, no bows and arrows required - plus NITPICK POINT, I'm pretty sure it's illegal to walk around any big city with a hunting bow like that.
So, the pieces didn't really come together for me here, and it's a bit hard to find some universal truth as a take-away, all I have to offer is the song it reminded me of, which is Paul Simon's "Train in the Distance", especially these lyrics:
"What is the point of this story / What information pertains
The thought that life could be better / Is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains."
But just maybe, there's a line in the film that sums up the cinematic moral quandaries of the last week. Dave remembers his father telling him that "the hardest thing to do and the right thing to do are often the same thing." And in a week where burying a dead hooker in the desert outside Vegas, pushing a button to kill someone, buying a pair of shoes for an Israeli politician and NOT telling a waitress about that winning lottery ticket were portrayed as the easier things, I'm inclined to agree.
Also starring Michael Caine (last seen in "Quincy"), Hope Davis (last seen in "Rebel in the Rye"), Nicholas Hoult (ditto), Gemmenne de la Pena (last seen in "Erin Brockovich"), Michael Rispoli (last seen in "Rounders"), Gil Bellows (last seen in "Kill the Messenger"), Judith McConnell, Tom Skilling, Peter Grosz (last seen in "Rough Night"), Stephen Hilger, Bryant Gumbel (last seen in "The Hard Way"), Anne Marie Howard, Dan Flannery, Poorna Jagannathan (last seen in "Thanks for Sharing"), with cameos from Cristina Ferrare, Ed McMahon (last seen in "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind"), Wolfgang Puck (last heard in "The Smurfs").
RATING: 4 out of 10 drafts of a terrible novel
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