Mandy

Just a brief review here summed up in two words...Absolutely Mental.

First off, any movie that opens with a song by King Crimson should get our attention. MANDY is a hallucinatory, revenge / horror film set in the early 1980's. Red Miller (Nicolas Cage) is on a mission of bloody vengeance after a cult full of psychopaths does the unspeakable to the title character (Andrea Riseborough).

Oh, but it's so much more!

Whether you're a rabid Nicolas Cage fan, or you can't stand him, especially, if you can't stand him, you must see him here! Part Charles Bronson, Part Bruce Lee, Part Bruce Campbell, and all Cage! This is the role he was born to play! He forges his own weapon! He takes on demon bikers! He lights a cigarette with a burning, severed head!

Director Panos Cosmatos pulls out every stop, even outdoing his BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW! This movie is LSD itself! In case you were wondering, yes, there is a chainsaw! Two, in fact! Dueling chainsaws! My sweet Lord! The finale will alter your reality and change your religion! All this, and cameos from Bill Duke and Richard Brake too! Watch this ASAP!...

There are those who easily forgive transgressions by misguided people and seek to have them treated and return to society as productive people. For those, this is NOT the type of movie.

Perhaps the most appropriate review title here is "Entertainingly Insane." The best clue regarding this movie is what the director says, "The actual story is not so important, what matters is how you shoot it and edit it." In other words, how it looks and feels is most important, and that comes at you full force in this movie.

I would not normally seek out this type of movie but recently I read that Nic Cage says during a period when he was in debt by several $Millions he took lots of roles and made some questionable movies because he needed to earn money.

This probably isn't one of those, I saw a recent interview on a late night show and when asked to name his five favorite movies he has made, "Mandy" was on that short list.

Set in the Pacific Northwest, it was filmed mostly in Belgium where they found some very interesting locations, which adds to the visual design. The movie has lots of red in it, particularly red lights at night, and lots of gore and blood. At its core it is a revenge movie, to destroy a misled religious cult with a fanatic as its leader.

At home on DVD from my public library.

I really enjoyed this film. Honestly, I'm really close to saying that I loved it. This movie is wonderfully inventive, beautifully shot, and totally unlike anything else I've ever seen before. Plus, you get to see Nick Cage fight with chainsaws. What's not to like?

If you think killing John Wick's dog is dangerous wait until you see what happens when you rip Nic Cage's favorite shirt.