Nick Cage is back, “not that he went anywhere.” In this meta romp of a bromance, Tom Gormican turns Nicolas Cage’s delightful satirisation of his film career up to 11.

You may or may not know the trajectory of Cage’s career. With famous relatives (he’s the nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola), he deliberately avoided trading on his name and overcame some embarrassing early movies (Valley Girl (1983) which I LOVED at the time but is now super cringey) to gain cred as an intense method actor in break out hits like Birdy (1984) – with its killer Peter Gabriel soundtrack – where he purportedly had teeth removed without anaesthetic to better inhabit his traumatised character.

A slow and steady rise in box office, launched him into the A-list and he became an unexpected action hero in iconic hits like Conair (1997), Face/Off (1997), and National Treasure (2004). Mega rich, he blew his millions on dinosaur bones, castles, islands, and cars and now seemingly stars in any movies, no matter how B grade. Where most stars would fade into mediocrity, Cage has somehow built a new career in films that gently satirise himself as an actor, relying on our understanding of how seriously he took himself in the past.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent right is in many ways the story within the story of how the world perceives him. Cage seemingly plays himself, an actor desperate for work and unsure how hard to push his past status but unable to put a lid on his intense belief in his craft. In keeping with his hero characters of the past, he of course has an ex-wife, a daughter he doesn’t understand and a massive debt.

Queue the offer of $1 million to attend the birthday party of Javi Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal far more goofy then when Prince Oberin in Game of Thrones). Soon Nick is thrust into a real live action movie where his “shamanic intuition as a thespian” may or may not work.

It’s a delight from start to finish and even if you’ve never watched a Cage film, you’ll understand the tropes. It doesn’t pass the Bechdel test – the female characters are all satellites to Cage or Gutierrez – but the overwhelmingly masculine excess of the narrative seems in keeping with all of his big Hollywood action films. The bromance between Javi and Nick is deeply satisfying and makes up for underutilising Sharon Horgan (as Nick’s wife Olivia), Tiffany Haddish (as well-meaning CIA agent Vivian) and nepobaby Lily Mo Sheen (as stereotypically petulant daughter Addy).

I think this is how we want our stars to be – committed to the fictional world, but never taking it too seriously.

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