La sentinelle

It is well Known, or maybe only well Known Among Film Geeks, that this Film has been Disowned by Director Paul Schrader and other Principals Involved in Making this Movie, and it is, Among Other Things, a Film Fanatic's Frustration.

The Director has Advised that No One See this Film.

One has to Question the Sanity of Producers that Hire the likes of Edgy Existential Film Artists and then Decide it is too Edgy and Existential for the Box Office, take the Thing Out of Their Hands and Tinker with it like a Naughty Kid Pulling the Wings off Flies. Shame Shame.

What the Movie Going Public is left with is Not a Bad Movie. enough of Schrader's Fingerprints Remain to make it an Offbeat CiA Thriller. What Doesn't Remain is the Cinematographers and Directors Visual Palette as it was "Digitally Manipulated". Shame Shame.

Nic Cage, in another Self-Realized Performance that Cannot be Ignored. He manages to be just a Heartbeat from Over-the-Top and it is usually a Fascination to Behold. If Cage does Anything Anymore it is a Willingness to Work.

The Movie may not be Appreciated for what it is, as Opposed to what it Could Have Been, it is still Worth Catching, as is all of Their Work, both Schrader and Cage are Interesting, No Matter the Product.

Nicolas Cage is Evan Lake, a dedicated veteran CIA agent in the last stages of his career. He has been riding a desk for the last years and does not like it. The most elevating moments are the motivational speeches he is asked to do for the new CIA agents in training.

When the trail of an old enemy, presumed dead for decades, surfaces and coincides with Lake being diagnosed with a terminal form of dementia, the choice is easy. He is going to settle one last score.

The story has some potential, but unfortunately the movie never gets past the B-movie predicate.

The ear I mentioned in the summary seems to live a life of it's own. My attention kept being drawn to it. In one of his battles with terrorists, Cage's character gets tortured. He gets a cut in his ear. After twenty years the cut is still there and looks very awkward. At some point I swear I could see the edges of the cut move together and mouth some words to Cage. After rewinding I thought I faintly heard these words: "Nicolas, get out of here, you are too good for this. Save your career before its too late!"

A nice, although dark thematically, thriller about a CIA veteran agent who has the opportunity to settle his differences with a long time enemy.

This film was taken away from director Paul Schrader in post-production and re-edited by the producers. So it could be better if the director has the chance to present it the way he intended.

Anyway, Nicolas Cage is sufficient as the CIA veteran who struggles with serious health issues and against the willing of his Agency to catch a terrorist who is presumed dead. He shows frustration and pain but also the will to complete his task and have an honorable closure.

It's not a complicate spy thriller but the suspense escalates in a steady rate. The narrative seems hasty though and the course to the finale could have been build up more properly.

Overall: A decent thriller with a Nicolas Cage who really tries...

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Like most Nicolas Cage flicks, the movie lies somewhere on the boarder line of very good and very bad. This one is leaning on the broader of very very bad.

As much as I love a Nicolas Cage movie, one has to always question if I really want to see Nicolas cage in a Nicolas Cage movie. This movie about a aged CIA agent who gets to go after his supposedly dead arch enemy before he retires. Although, unlike most action movies this guy gets to live a pretty awesome two days before retirement scenario, but it may have been a better movie if we did not have to rely so much on the Nick Cage school of bad acting.

In all fairness, it was not Cage's fault that the story and the film making were very dull, and uninteresting. Just his fault that he did the film for a paycheck and seem to pretty much be phoning it in, along with Anton Yelchin you was using the same phone.

Yeah, see something else of stay home.

This isn't a spy movie it's a disaster movie and the disaster is the movie. The only high points are when the no longer remotely sexy but nevertheless intelligent and interesting Irène Jacob appears. It makes you realize that there is a woman who has Helen Mirren or Charlotte Rampling potential (that's the interesting part). Some may object that Mirren and Rampling are still hot. Then Jacob is definitely your gal. Me, I enjoy their conversation, not their decrepitude.

Anton Yelchin is totally miscast and his part is a train wreck. First he's a nerdy eager beaver goody two shoes then he suddenly becomes a totally unconvincing cold Rambo killer, except when he has to physically engage the bad guy, at which point he reverts to the nerdy 70-pound weakling. His mousy baby face is suited to neither of those roles and he doesn't manage to pull off the innocent-looking tough guy act; in fact it seems never to have occurred to him to try.

As for Nick Cage, he takes his usual gawky, brooding, bipolar demeanor to its logical conclusion and totally loses it, both as the character he plays and the way he plays him. He is all over the place.

The movie as a whole has a Walmart look, as if the producers anticipated that it would bomb and cut costs to the bone. No doubt that's why it is located in, or rather outsourced to, Romania.

The rest of the cast and the thin, thin plot of the movie, the less said the better off we are all.