Nicolas Cage makes so much low-rent junk these days that it’s hard to keep up. And unless he cranks up the Cage-iness the films’ other typical traits (no money cheap effects clunky plotting etc.) crush the cheap thrills.
So a hearty round of applause to Outcast a medieval swordplay flick that not only has a little style to spare but Cage in one of his most delirious performances yet. By this point it’s hard to tell whether he actually holds audiences in contempt or is just plugging away paying the bills. And really if it gives us Cage yelling about donkey farts and magicians who really cares?
The film opens in the midst of the Crusades tearing up the Middle East circa the 12th century. Stuntman-turned-first-time-director Nick Powell plunges into the kinetic swords ’n’ sandals action with knights slicing and dicing arrows making a loud thunk as they hit shields and chests alike. Also: the poor horses in these movies! They’re always getting knocked down.
Anyway our “hero” crusader Jacob (Hayden Christensen) is as bloodthirsty as they come ready to slaughter every last man woman and child in the nameless city under siege. This doesn’t sit well with Gallain (Cage) Jacob’s mentor and fellow grunt. Cage growls with an unidentifiable voice or what audiences know as his characteristic terrible “British” accent. He’s already in full-on crazy Cage mode and it’s glorious. He looks baffled by his presence in the movie as if he went to bed and woke up the next morning on another planet. If you’re not fed up with his shtick by now (and really why would you be?) there are a lot of laughs to be had.
Gallain pleads with Jacob to quit while he’s ahead. Jacob says no dice and goes berserk. We then skip forward a few ancient years to ancient China. This is a welcome addition as it adds mad kung fu action to the swordplay. We’re introduced to Shing (Andy On) a jerky prince and a ruthless solider who feels ripped off after dear daddy reneges on his birthright placing the seal of the kingdom in the hands of his younger brother and sister. Y’know the usual courtly intrigue stuff. After handily dispatching his dad and framing prince junior he goes after his siblings.
Shing’s soldiers quickly catch the kiddies. Jacob hiding out in rural China and decked out like some sort of Asian Zorro (and with a stylin’ faux-hawk to match) comes to the rescue. He’s still a vicious killer — an awesomely improbable scene where he throws a broadsword and impales someone’s head to the wall is a characteristic bit of delightful cartoony violence. That is when he isn’t chasing the dragon and totally tripping balls due to PTSD-induced memories of Crusades-inspired bad behaviour.
Outcast often feels like a more meandering film than it is racing from plot point to plot point in its long first act with Jacob bumbling around and largely failing to protect his young charges. Powell gives it appropriate period grit and gloss like a low-rent take on Akira Kurosawa’s superior samurai adventures. For all of Jacob’s dull blundering it’s more of an upscale epic than you’d expect from a Cage action flick sort of like Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven on a more intimate scale. People stare meaningfully at each other and speak in elliptical sentences. Redemption is to be had but not by everyone.
Things get much much better when Cage gets back in the game this time as “The White Ghost” (better than “White Devil” I guess) a local Robin Hood who resembles WWE champ The Undertaker if he was a crack-smoking ninja who also happened to look like Nic Cage. Anyway he also gained one squinty eye during his trip to China and likes to argue with his tongue-less wife. (All in a day’s work for this rogue.) The film lives and dies repeatedly based on the degree of Cage’s insanity. It’s hilarious and if Outcast is remembered for anything it’ll be a supercut of his best moments.
Christensen on the other hand is a total buzzkill haunted by bad memories that leave him a moping stumbling mess. He and Cage are in two completely different movies and that’s fine. Because only one of those movies matter and we know which one don’t we?
OUTCAST directed by Nick Powell starring Nicolas Cage Hayden Christensen and Andy On opens on Friday February 6.
