8mm: Acht Millimeter

There is a lot to be said about skill. Joel Schumacher is responsible for Batman & Robin, one of the most horrendously made movies in the past 15 years. One could have said upon leaving the theater in 1997 that Joel Schumacher is one of the worst directors working today. Two years later, Schumacher creates something, albeit with commercial sensibilities, that succeeds on many levels. 8mm is a murky, scuzzy passage through the miserable, dystopian criminal world of snuff films, taken on by a private investigator who is dismayed and scarred by what he unearths. It probes the resources of violent exploitation films, but not as a violent exploitation film. It would more accurately turn your stomach than amuse. Andrew Kevin Walker, who wrote Seven, and again establishes a protagonist who confronts evil and nearly loses his sanity in an effort to understand its reasons. The answer comes almost at the end of the film, from its most vicious character, but his rationale wittingly refrains from going as deep as the psychological world of his deeds. Joel Schumacher has an attraction to sinister, perhaps Gothic environments, even if his previous films that follow that pattern aren't so great, like The Lost Boys. Here, with Mychael Danna's sorrowful score and the great Robert Elswit's guilty, peeping camera, he fashions an impression of apprehension even in the few scenes where the story takes solace in Cage's home life. One director would not be wrong to shock us with a comparison to the unsuspecting atmosphere of Cage's residential street or the opening airport shot, but Schumacher perceives the looming subterranean goings-on beneath the unsuspecting.

The intent of the story is to consider a rather everyday individual and provoke him into such a troubling conflict with pure evil that he himself is pushed to torture and murder. He lives an unexciting but mostly happy life with his wife Catherine Keener and their infant daughter. He went to a good school on an academic scholarship, however while his contemporaries went through the most conventional motions to become lawyers, doctors, bankers, he chose a line of work comprised of following, shadowing, investigating, staking out, watching. For the sake of a comfortable living, he accommodates an upper crust circle of socialites and politicians. Nevertheless, this case which he almost does not take is unique. He is sent for by the attorney of a rich widow whose husband has just died. Whilst rummaging through the inside of her husband's safe, she and the lawyer find an 8 mm film of what seems to be the vicious slaying of a teenage girl by a large masked man. Cage convinces himself that the film, while horrifying, is simulation, but the widow wants him to confirm this for sure.

8mm doesn't consider the story's dilemmas merely as opportunity for money-making set pieces like action scenes. When Cage has the chance to take revenge, he doesn't have the command of his motivation because he does not have the same capacity for murder that his prospective victims have, and he essentially calls a character wounded by this person and provokes her to talk him into it. That is a novel approach the protagonist's vengeful turning point, and it elicits subliminal moral uncertainty that the audience has to take in hand.

8mm is a conventional studio thriller, but it is a real movie. It is all content and the suitable approach to that content. It is about human's aptitude for malevolence, conjecturing just deep it can go and how little we care to know of it in ourselves.

Firstly, this film is hugely under-rated. For those reviewers who call this film a "waste of time" or place it in the "hall of shame", maybe they should go back to watching more obvious and simple films.

8mm focuses on "snuff" movies and follows Nicholas Cage as he ventures into the dark underworld of the pornographic industry. I'm not a great fan of Nicholas Cage (I still wonder how he ever made it as a movie star), but in 8mm felt he redeemed himself from past performances. Other actors in the film put on great performances, notably Joaquin Pheonix, and James Gandolfini (of Sopranos).

What makes the film worth watching though is the emotion, dark imagery and tense moments throughout the film. The storyline too is very well thought out although does have a few holes and untouched areas that may have helped develop the film further. There is no Hollywood ending, forced propaganda, or marketing. What you do get is graphic scenes, moderate violence, and an insight into "snuff" movies (which really is quite disturbing).

Having said that this movie is not for the faint hearted, so if you're a "puppy-dogs and ice-cream" kind of person I'd suggest watching something else. If however, you feel you will be able to stomach such a film then prepare yourself for a moving film, which will leave you feeling that little bit darker at the end.

I highly recommend this film. 8/10

When I watched 8 MM, I didn't know what to expect, but I noticed that Joel Schumacher directed it and I am a fan of his. Also it stars two other terrific actors like Nicholas Cage and Joaquin Phoenix, so usually that equals a great film. 8 MM turned out to be a terrific dark drama that I'm not so sure that I understand it's low rating. I was actually expecting it to be in the 7.0 range when I went to check it out on IMDb, but it's in the low 6.0's. I understand that it's an extremely dark movie that not too many people would wanna take a look at, but for what it was, I thought it was great. It took us into the deep dark world of porn and what some sick people get off on. It's not just about that, but also it takes us into a detective type of drama that makes it into a scary type of thriller.

Tom Welles is a detective that is given a strange short movie called a "snuff film", where a beautiful young girl is being brutally raped and then murdered on film. While it's supposed to be fake, it looks incredibly real and terrifying. Her relative asks him to find out wither it is fake or real and if she's still alive. This means he has to go deep into a world of brutal porn that is out of his league. With the help of a porn salesman, Max, they go to find out if this girl is really alive or not, but end up getting into some serious trouble when the directors and "actors" find out about them.

8 MM is in no way for the faint of heart, there are some extremely disturbing images that I really wouldn't like to see again, I'm sure most wouldn't either, but this is a great dark drama that I would recommend for a watch. Nicholas did a great job, but Joaquin really takes the show here. He made his character incredibly believable and almost sympathetic. Joel really made me believe the story, he shot it wonderfully and didn't over do anything. I would recommend this film for a watch, it's a great thriller that is impressive as well as scary.

8/10

Some sensitive-minded people may surely be disturbed by the dark revenge and self-justice in this film, but "Se7en"-author Andrew Kevin Walker has done another fine work with his script! Although the storyline is obviously taken from Paul Schrader´s "Hardcore" (1974,?) the film is suspense-packed, violent and endowed with good performances of its actors, especially Peter Stormare did a brilliant job with playing the weird bondage-porn director Dino Velvet! I also was truly surprised how good director Joel Schumacher had created a morbid atmosphere, just in unhappy memory of his disastrous "Batman & Robin"-flick..! Another pleasant fact is, that "8MM" doesn´t deal with the Hollywood-typical stereotypes and clichés, so finally we´ve got something we could really call a dirty mainstream production - or at least a nice try of it!

When it came out, "8mm" became notorious for its dark and perverted subject matter. Any and all warnings that are given in association with this film are warranted: this is a dark, dark, thriller, and one that revels in a lot of sordid subject matter. How this was never threatened with an NC-17 is beyond me.

Tom Welles (Nicholas Cage) is a well-respected private detective. One day, he gets a call from a recently widowed, and exceedingly wealthy woman named Mrs. Christian (Myra Carter). It seems that when Mrs. Christian was going through her husbands things, she came across a film reel that appears to be a "snuff film" (a "snuff film is where someone is actually murdered on screen, not merely acting like it). Tom is hired to find out if the film is actually real.

Andrew Kevin Walker wrote the suspense hit "Seven," and the two films bear a number of similarities. Both deal with grisly and bizarre subject matter, and take no prisoners when they show it all. But "Seven" had something that "8mm" doesn't: a sense of atmosphere. Try as he might, director Joel Schumaker can't establish an ominous atmosphere, which mutes the film's impact.

The acting varies. Nicholas Cage is effective as Tom Welles, though that's to be expected because this is a role that Cage could play in his sleep. Joaquin Phoenix shines as Max California, the porn star clerk who becomes Tom's sidekick. The rest of the cast is not so great. James Gandolfini is okay as Eddie Poole, but Peter Stormare (Dino Velvet, a mysterious hard-core porn producer), Anthony Heald as Mrs. Christian's lawyer, Daniel Longdale, (looking strikingly similar to Geraldo Rivera) and Catherine Keener (Tom's neurotic wife)are awful.

"8mm" works, but it's not masterpiece. The story is easy to follow, as long as you don't stop to think about how the film gets from one scene to the next. But the final 20 minutes are bad; they're not credible, and everyone acts like they've lost their brains.

"Seven" contained an ingenious twist ending, and while "8mm" doesn't offer that, it takes a few unexpected turns, and the story is not formulaic.

This is a good film, but not a great one. Recommended, if you can get it for cheap.