Radican at the Movies: In-depth review of Nick Cage’s amazing performance as himself in “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent”

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, which is now out available in 4K at all major retail stores, stars Nicolas Cage playing himself in a tremendous action comedy. If you’ve been a fan of Cage’s career and followed his personal life, this movie makes for a unique look at an actor looking in on their own life. The movie allows Cage to channel so many of his major roles, but mostly relies on his action and comedy chops.

In The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Cage’s personal and professional life are spiraling downward (sound familiar?). Cage is offered 1 million dollars to appear at a dangerous billionaire fan’s birthday party at his mansion in Mallorca, Spain. Cage plays himself at a time where he’s desperate for parts. At one point during the early stages of the movie, a desperate Cage reads for an agent who is waiting to leave their meeting and the lines he recites to try to land the role are used later in the movie in a tremendous scene.

Not only is the fictional Cage down on his luck when it comes to his career and finances, but his family is falling apart. That’s when Cage gets the call to attend Javi Gutierrez’s (Pedro Pascal) birthday party in Spain for a big payday.The CIA gets involved and recruits Cage to help them out once he gets to Spain, as it turns out that Javi is an international arms dealer. Tiffany Haddish and Ike Barinholtz star as bickering CIA agents that work with Cage to attempt to take down Javi.

Not only does the movie work during the early going as an exercise of life imitating art with Cage playing himself and eventually befriending Javi, but it turns into a buddy comedy of sorts for a while during the middle portion.Eventually the movie transforms once Cage’s ex-wife and daughter are brought into the picture by the bad guys during during the CIA’s investigation of Javi. The movie turns into an action film down the stretch and Cage and Pascal shine here with Cage, the action star, taking center stage to close the movie out.

This movie has a lot of heart. Cage begins working with Javi on his movie script during the early stages of the movie just to humor him, but as their relationship strengthens and the plot of the unfolds and the CIA turns the heat up on Cage to help them in their investigation of Javi, the relationship that Cage and Javi form is a lot of fun to watch on screen both during the comedic parts of the movie and once the action portion of the movie takes over. 

There’s a great scene during this portion of the movie where Javi shows Cage his collection of memorabilia dedicated to Cage’s career in a scene you’ll definitely want to hit pause on. I quickly noticed the diapers from Raising Arizona during this scene and an unforgettable wax model of Cage in a suit behind glass holding two golden guns. There’s so many nods to Cage’s movie career that if you’ve watched a ton of Nick Cage films as I have, you’re really going to enjoy this film a lot. 

Overall score: (****½): This is a really good movie that is a must-see in 2022. I really enjoyed Cage playing himself and Pascal played a tremendous part in making this movie as good as it was in his co-starring role as Javi.

I would have loved to have seen more of “Nicky,” which was a younger version of Cage played by Cage in the movie that was a figment of his imagination. I don’t want to spoil too much by talking about that character. However, it is a ton of fun to see Cage interact with a version of his younger self. It might sound like meta overload, but Cage’s performance as himself works so well here on so many levels. 

You can purchase The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD, and digital now at all major retailers.

Contact Sean at pwtorchsean@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @SR_Torch