½*/****
starring Nicolas Cage, Joel Kinnaman, Kaiwi Lyman
screenplay by Luke Paradise
directed by Yuval Adler
by Walter Chaw A History of Violence for Dummies, Yuval Adler’s slow-moving, never-ending Sympathy for the Devil is a Nicolas Cage vanity project in which America’s slavering hambone tries on some kind of accent, a scarlet dye-job, and a half-assed high-concept that’s familiar to everyone, it appears, except those responsible for carrying it off. Cage is The Passenger, a mysterious lunatic with a gun who carjacks father-to-be The Driver (Joel Kinnaman) in a hospital parking garage and forces him to drive down the Las Vegas strip to a neon-lit Edward Hopper bar where screaming fits can be engaged in for the bemusement of the easily bemused. “There he goes again,” one might say of Cage as he bares his teeth, bangs on the table, flashes his eyes, and raises his voice. Lest one think he’s merely punching the clock here, he’s also listed as one of the producers, so I have to believe that phoning it in, all dials turned to “11,” is the creative choice he’s making at this point in his career. Cage can be an exceptional actor when he wants to be, don’t get me wrong. I just wish he wanted to be more than once every ten years.
Once at the diner (named “Roadside Diner,” in honour of the Repo Man cum The Driver-ness of Sympathy for the Devil‘s minimalist chic), The Passenger instantly notes the “No Substitutions” caveat on the menu and, oh boy, fasten your seatbelts for some Five Easy Pieces, Cage-style! He accosts Waitress (Alexis Zollicoffer) about wanting cheddar on his tuna melt instead of “MÖTZ-er-ELLA,” then hollers at The Driver about pretending to be someone he’s not. Turns out, The Passenger is seeking to avenge some past gangland wrong done to him by The Driver, or someone who looks a lot like him, and has chosen this day, the day of the birth of The Driver’s baby in some delivery room where the mom is having complications in her labour, to redress his wounds. More than redress them, The Passenger seems intent on broadcasting his murderous vengeance in as obnoxious and self-aggrandizing a manner as possible. He could’ve just shot him, you know–but no, we have to sit through 90 minutes of agonizing, meandering bullshit.
It wouldn’t be any kind of spoiler to reveal whether or not The Driver is, in fact, who The Passenger thinks he is if you’ve ever seen another movie before, but out of respect for the handful of people who have chosen Sympathy for the Devil as their first, let me just say this movie doesn’t have anything to do with the Rolling Stones song. Mostly, the picture frustrates because it takes the entire runtime to get to where almost everyone has arrived after a few minutes–making us akin to the never-seen wife wondering where her husband is while the baby’s coming. “Are you parking the car, The Driver? Where the fuck are you?” is a terrible way to enjoy a movie. The rule of thumb violated here is that if you’re ripping off every single geezer-teaser, secret-identity, ex- soldier/assassin masterplot that could collectively populate its own streaming service by now, get the big reveal over with early and get on with it. An hour-and-a-half of holding in an urgent bowel movement is no way to live your life. What I’m saying is, if you’re dedicated to loving the pathetic spectacle of an actor in his dotage doing his threadbare signature shtick to ever-decreasing dignity like Jake LaMotta beneath 40 lbs of pasta in the last years of his nightclub act, well, please allow me to introduce this piece of shit.
