Mandy (2018)

"You ripped my favorite shirt!"

Nicholas Cage is one of our national treasures. He is an actor capable of subtlety, and beauty. He is also an actor that has no scruples about cutting loose in psychotic, GIF-able, absurdity. But he isn't just an asshole "going crazy." Cage knows where to draw the line: he can do both, in the same film. It makes watching his films, some of which are truly awful films, at least a bit fun. You can always, at least, count on Cage to be compelling.

Which brings us to Panos Cosmatos' sophomore effort, Mandy. I saw the trailer some months ago. It looked like a schlocky, B-movie masterpiece, and I knew I had to see it.

Well, there's no way in hell it was actually going to play here, in the Central Valley, but it IS available to stream on Amazon Prime.

Summary:

Red Miller (Nicholas Cage) and his girl, Mandy (Andrea Riseborough), live a quiet life in the woods. That life is shattered when a creepy cult rolls onto the scene. Red is sent on a mission of vengeance straight to the depths of Hell.

Pros:

The Man, The Myth, The Legend: Cage is at his delirious best in Mandy. He plays Red rather low-key and quiet in the film's first half, but that all serves as prologue to the lunacy he exhibits in the blood-drenched, LSD-soaked second half. There is a scene where, post tragedy, he stomps into his bathroom, replete with screaming 80s yellow-and-orange wall paper, and growls and yells and shrieks, and finally collapses, weeping, on his toilet, swigging a bottle of vodka like his life depends on it, which it may, dressed only in a baseball shirt and a pair of tighty-whiteys. It is the kind of scene that will almost certainly become internet famous out of context, but shows Cage's full range of commitment and craft within the beats of the story. It is lunacy. But the man is going insane. So it works. If you like watching Cage cut loose, Mandy packs one of his most deranged performances in some time.

This is Not a Film: This is a Prog Metal Concept Album: Writer/director Panos Cosmatos drenches his film in 80s midnight movie schlock and prog metal attitude. It is a paean to synths, ancient hermetic evil, and drug-fueled fantasia. He separates his film into three parts, complete with psychedelic title cards, and each act feels like a track on some kind of heavy metal concept album: The quiet idyllic life in the woods; the creepy maybe-supernatural cult; the final slog into what may actually be Hell. The movie is stuffed with strange horns that summon biker demons, enchanted blades, a crossbow named "Reaper," a strange bunker in the hills, a tiger in a cage (yeah), and a hero-forged ax of insanity (Cage forges his own insane bladed weapon to go to war with). Oh, and then there's the jars filled with LSD. This is not a movie for everyone, but Cosmatos knows that, and he plays to his audience with the kind of reckless abandon inherent in all great Prog Rock albums. The movie opens on the dulcet tunes of a King Crimson song, after all. Any movie with balls that big begs my attention.

Absolutely Gorgeous: Cosmatos and cinematographer, Benjamin Loeb, knock this trippy tale out of the park visually. Every frame comes packed with gorgeous technicolor, and expertly framed. There are little things: the way lights will blur across the entire frame in some kind of crazy lens flare; the fact that Mandy's face is almost always lit with golden light, and centered in frame whenever she is with Red, he just off-center, commenting on the nature of their relationship right away; the motion-blur and the face-over-face superimpose make those LSD sequences terrifying and memorable; the use of silhouette and neon color are pitch-perfect and make for striking imagery throughout. Say what you want about the plot, and I will, but this film's visual mastery is no laughing matter. It is one of the most visually beautiful films I have seen all year.

Hyper Violent: Nicholas Cage squashes a man's head with his bare hands. And he has a chainsaw fight with a towering hippy cultist. And he slashes the throat of a demon biker and has his face feverishly showered in blood. This movie moves slowly through its first two acts, but, once Cage goes on the warpath, it splatters the walls with gore. That's either your cup of tea, or it aint.

Haunting Score: I mentioned earlier that this film opens its score with a song by King Crimson, and that is rad. But this is ALSO Johann Johannsson's last score (before he died this year), and it is a doozy. Johannsson is at his moody, synth-y best here. There are sounds right out of the Devil's pit, and it accentuates the action perfectly. If you're a fan of his work, watch this movie for his score alone, and maybe be entertained by the film's batshit insanity along the way.

Cons:

This Whole Movie is Nicholas Cage: I wrote that in my notes. It is insane. It flies gloriously off the beaten path and sneers behind it, at all us rubes left slack-jawed in its wake. This means that the film might just not have been made for everyone. It is almost certainly going to disgust and confuse many. You've been warned.

Too Long: This movie probably needed to be a cool 90 minutes, but it skates in at just over two hours. That is too long. If you are tripping on drugs, and this film will make you feel like you are, two hours is a bit too much to handle.

Thin Characters: Red Miller works because of Cage's raw, lunatic charisma. But that doesn't change the fact that the character is underwritten. Andrea Riseborough adds a low-key charm to Mandy, but that doesn't change the fact that the character is underwritten (even if she gets the most character beats of anyone in the film). Look, this is not a character meditation. It is a series of events designed to put an ax in Cage's hands, and in that regard, it succeeds. But you might be left wanting MORE from its bare-bones story and hackneyed dialogue.

In Conclusion:

I was looking for some B-Movie delirium, and I got it, in spades. But it isn't just a piece of violent inanity: it is chock-full of beautifully crafted imagery and eerie sound-scapes. It's the best prog-metal album I've watched in years.

Should You Watch It?

I cannot, in good conscience, recommend this movie to everyone. It just is not the kind of movie that everyone can enjoy. But there are a select few for which films of the kind are a special kind of treat. Those people should watch this film, immediately.

Miscellany:

- The film received a five-minute standing ovation at the Cannes film festival.
- Legion M is the first fan-owned entertainment company of its kind, and it co-produced the film and its Johann Johannsson composed soundtrack.
- In the film, Red Miller views a commercial for Cheddar Goblin Mac n Cheese. This commercial was directed by Chris "Casper" Kelly, the man behind 2014's "Too Many Cooks." This adds another insane feather to the film's cap.
- Mandy  currently boasts a 94% score on Rotten Tomatoes with 95 reviews.