Taglines: Revenge is a hell of a ride.
Sympathy for the Devil movie storyline. Like the pain scales that doctors show patients in order to assess their level of discomfort, whether or not you’ll appreciate the new Nicolas Cage movie, Sympathy for the Devil, depends on how high you’re willing to go on the Cage scale of screen acting. Are you a level 2 or 3 fan, preferring the subdued, solemn turns in films like Leaving Las Vegas or the recent Pig? Or are you more of a level 8 or 9 person, partial to the batshit crazy performances in Deadfall, Vampire’s Kiss, Bad Lieutenant and Mandy?
Cage’s latest outing is probably a 7 or 8 on that scale, with the 59-year-old star playing a loudmouthed gangster who hijacks an innocent driver (a very restrained Joel Kinnaman) and spends the rest of the movie torturing him both physically and psychologically, while dropping a few bodies in the process. Cage chews up every scene he’s in and seems to be having a blast — he’s always over-the-top and never boring to watch, in a film that delivers the goods for those who like him best when he’s just about lost his mind.
Directed by Yuval Adler (The Operative) from a script by newcomer Luke Paradise, Sympathy is a short and sinister Las Vegas-set thriller that asks viewers the following basic question: What would you do if you were about to arrive at the hospital where your wife was to give birth, and Cage suddenly climbed into the back seat of your car, looking like a cross between Ming the Merciless and a magician at Caesars Palace? Also, he’s holding a gun to your head and talking a mile a minute in the way only Cage can do.
That’s the predicament faced by Kinnaman’s nameless driver, who’s subjected to all sorts of brutal treatment by Cage’s nameless passenger as the two hit the road and head out of town toward a rendezvous in Boulder City. At first blush, Cage seems to have mistaken Kinnaman for a mob accountant who ratted out their boss back in South Boston (Cage’s Boston accent is highly approximative here), and has been hiding out in the Vegas area for years.
But Kinnaman keeps claiming his kidnapper is mistaken — that he’s just an average Joe caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, with the wrong passenger sitting beside him. Thus begins a cat-and-mouse game that stretches all the way to a big — and not totally convincing — twist in the final minutes. Along the way, Cage’s character kills a cop (Cameron Lee Pierce), does a convincing imitation of Edgar G. Robinson, tells a long and weird story about having a stuffy nose as a kid, and lip-syncs Alicia Bridges’ disco hit “I Love the Night Life” while traumatizing a waitress (Alexis Zollicoffer) at a roadside diner.
That last scene goes on for a good reel or two, putting Sympathy up there with Pulp Fiction and Natural Born Killers in the pantheon of movies featuring explosive diner sequences, where customers get more than their money’s worth of violence and mayhem. Indeed, Paradise’s script has a very 90s vibe to it, from the gruesome action to Cage’s constant banter to the guessing game we keep playing as we start to wonder who, in fact, is the real “devil” of the title.
It’s nothing original, but it’s watchable and even a bit fun thanks to the star’s nonstop antics. Adler, an Israeli filmmaker whose award-winning 2013 debut, Bethlehem, was a powerful thriller about his homeland’s political conflicts, shoots things simply and capably, avoiding overcutting while favoring medium or wide shots to follow the action. The movie is set entirely at night, allowing cinematographer Steve Holleran (Missing) to slap on lots of red filters that channel the satanic fury of Cage’s off-the-wall creation. Together, director and DP manage to capture the actor in true form, but they never contain him.
Sympathy for the Devil is a 2023 American psychological thriller film[2] directed by Yuval Adler and written by Luke Paradise. It stars Nicolas Cage as The Passenger and Joel Kinnaman as The Driver. The film had its world premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival on July 22, 2023, before its theatrical release on July 28, by RLJE Films.
In September 2022, the film was presented to buyers at TIFF. In March 2023, RLJE Films acquired the North America, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand distribution rights. The film had its world premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival on July 22, 2023 and was released in theaters on July 28, 2023. It will be released by Signature Entertainment in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Sympathy for the Devil (2023)
Directed by: Yuval Adler
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Joel Kinnaman, Alexis Zollicoffer, Cameron Lee Price, Oliver McCallum, Burns Burns, Rich Hopkins, Nancy Good, Kaiwi Lyman, Danny Tesla, Annisse White
Screenplay by: Luke Paradise
Production Design by: Burns Burns
Cinematography by: Steven Holleran
Film Editing by: Alan Canant
Costume Design by: Ermelinda Manos
Set Decoration by: Reino Kallberg
Art Direction by: Anthony Fitzgerald
Music by: Ishai Adar
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: RLJE Films
Release Date: July 28, 2023 (United States)
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