8MM

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

I walked into the movie theater last Friday not expecting at all what I was about to see. I'd heard about it, thought "Oh, another Seven". Same screenwriter, but I was way off track. I can stomach a lot, having no problem stuffing down popcorn during very graphic scenes. In 8MM, my coke had trouble going down. 8MM did not have consistent gory/violent scenes, but the way the movie was made made you fill in the blanks of what the makers of the movie could not screen. And if you pay attention and immerse yourself, you fill in more blanks than you really think you could, or want. As Max put it: "the devil changes you." The perversity and deep rottenness of the human minds displayed in 8MM is what disturbs you. Then you realize, that "snuff"-movies are real, that there are individuals twisted enough to endorse/enjoy/take part in it. And worst of all, that these individuals don't look like monsters, they're perhaps just overweight nearsighted men who look like your dad, your son, your brother, even yourself. And if you don't look out,(no matter how secluded you think you are in your suburban home, with a wife, a daughter, and a dog named Shep) you dive into the pit of perversion and rottenness as well, finding no way out. In conclusion: excellent music, acting very sufficient, the plot: a must see. Just don't bring popcorn, and prepare to walk out of the movie theatre disturbed, asking questions, and a little bit more suspicious of those walking around you, and yourself.

Every time I think of Joel Schumacher I cringe. Is Batman & Robin really so bad that it makes me want to disregard the rest of his films? He's not a bad director, hell I enjoy some of his work, yet I still cringe when I hear his name. Let's take a look at 8MM, something that is the polar opposite of B&R.

It stars Nic Cage as a private investigator, hired to find out if the content on an 8MM tape found in a safe of a recently deceased millionaire is real. The tape is referred to as a snuff film, which is a pornographic film that ends with the murder of the female. So, already we have ourselves a pretty dark and disturbing film here. Yet, as I watched it I felt that is played it a little too safe.

Upon research you will find out the writer and the director had a falling out over the film. The studio wanted it to be a bit lighter, and the director agreed. While the writer, who also wrote Se7en, wanted to keep the gritty disturbing feel he had originally wrote. The final product is a film that tries to be more hardcore then it actually is.

Nic Cage really seemed to be playing by the numbers here. He is more monotone then usual I thought and didn't really seem invested in his character. Joaquin Phoenix on the other hand immerses himself into this world. Playing the sidekick who is smarter then he looks. The supporting cast also includes James Gandolfini, doing what he does best and Peter Stormare. Both stretch out beyond the page and embody their characters. With Gandolfini, we've seen him do this character before. But with every performance there is just one little thing that makes them all seem different every time.

I was really underwhelmed with this flick. It was a bit longer then it needed to be, just over 2 hours. You go along for the investigative ride and are interested with the story, but at the end you just feel empty. Never connecting with the relationship between the main character and his wife he neglects. Some scenes that were meant to be powerful came off as comedic to me, specifically the "Give me permission to hurt them" bit near the end.

I did enjoy the film, but wanted more. The ingredients were there to make a really good film, but the final product falls a bit flat. It's a rental, or if you are really a big fan of anyone involved . I will say this though, I wouldn't mind if Cage went back to making movies like this instead of the filler he's been cranking out the last few years.

The intensely intriguing storyline of 8MM follows the haunting search by a private investigator (played superbly by Nicolas Cage) for the makers of a grotesque and disturbing snuff film in which a young woman is murdered. Starting by looking through endless missing persons files (in an attempt to identify the victim), Cage ultimately follows leads to the world of underground seaze films and the people who are involved in making them. Throughout his creepy investigation, Cage becomes more and more disturbed by the Snuff film and stops at nothing in an attempt to track down answers to what really happened. This film is So intriguing and suspenseful, there are scenes that will leave your heart pounding in anticipation of what's to come. I don't know if I have ever seen such an intriguing and suspenseful Drama/Thriller ever before! This film is so realistic, there are times when you feel as if what is going on is real, and you begin to feel more for the characters than you usually do in a film. The last 20 minutes of the film are heart pounding and breathtaking! Director Joel Schumacher delivers one of the most mind haunting dramas you will ever see and gives us a story that won't be easy to forget. It's dark, moody, creepy, brilliant, and disturbing! And when all the pieces finally come together, you'll be glad you went along for the ride. Wow, It's a sick world we live in!! I give this movie 4 out of 4 stars!

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.