What goes on in this movie, is there a plot? What the heck happened to movies with plots any dang way?

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning CIA agent Evan Lake (Nicolas Cage) was, years ago, held captive by vicious terrorist Muhammed Benir (Alexander Karim), who inflicted some savagery on him. Years later, a new lead has emerged that suggests Benir is still alive and active, hiding out in Northern Africa, but Evan has also started displaying the early signs of dementia, and the agency suspend him until further notice. But with the help of eager young recruit Milton Schultz (Anton Yelchin), he puts together his own private crusade to track down Benir and settle an old score.Arriving seemingly out of nowhere, this marks what seems like part of a downward direct to DVD spiral for Nicolas Cage, which he seems to have brought on himself with a lot of bad choices over the years. A shame, since Dying of the Light is a relevant and topical thriller, that could have had great potential as a cinematic thriller. But, it seems there was a big clash between the director and the cast, and the film studio that took over from the one before it, and the end product is one that they all seem to have disowned. The end result is something that's not that bad, but just could have been a lot better.He may have just been getting in to character, but it's hopeful Nicolas Cage isn't really looking that old these days. Writer/director Paul Schrader obviously had his hopes on something big, and it must have been quite a horror to have the rug pulled from under his feet the way it was. One can only hope that's not the reason why something that could have been truly stirring and dynamic, is in fact quite so flat and tepid. **

I am always up for a good movie about the caustic incompetence agency. This one offered a different angle, being more about a man suffering an aggressive brain degeneration disease and wanting desperately to avenge his torture from twenty-two years before. One must ask why it took him twenty-two years to develop what overnight becomes an idée fixe, but I guess that was the point of his having this particular brain disease, which causes alterations in judgment and hypersensitivity and overreaction. Nicolas Cage plays the CIA agent undergoing rapid brain degeneration, and he is pretty convincing. How he finds his aggressor is quite a bit less so. It's another case where only through a major contrivance on the part of the script writer is there even a story here to portray. When he finally finds himself in a room with the man who tortured him, Cage suddenly changes his mind—apparently also because of his brain disease! But then when a group of goons come after him and end up harming his friend, the former CIA agent suddenly realizes that he must do what he came to do and goes back to kill the guy, which is only accomplished after a bloody and ugly contest between the two. So, yes, there's some action here, but this production doesn't come close to the Bourne trilogy.

A film which will always be best known for the fact that towards the end of 2014 it's director/writer Paul Schrader (writer of such classics as Raging Bull and Taxi Driver), producer Nicolas Winding Refn and stars Nicolas Cage and Anton Yelchin campaigned against its very release due to what they felt was a severe case of studio interference in their product, Dying of the Light is an incredibly "random" film that has moments of utter madness in an other wise unspectacular plot that creates a film that could've benefited from allowing it's zanier elements to take hold to ward off the feeling that this is in fact, an incredible boring thriller.You get the sense that at it's very core Light wanted to be a much more kookier tale, a vision no doubt concocted by the unique minds of Schrader and Winding Refn, but whatever Light was intended to be the studio clearly got spooked by what is was seeing. If, as we've been lead to believe, the studio did in fact lock the creators out of the editing suite there can be some form of excuse as to why Light feels like such a generic and uneventful tale of revenge and a man's battle of personnel and more physical demons. This generic nature of the tale is the predominant feature of the film but we get slight moments of madness and downright bizarre dialogue that will be source of long standing joy for Cage fans, that makes Light a must see for fans of the wild eyed maniac.With a prosthetic ear and typically noteworthy hair, Cage's performance as dogged CIA agent turned rouge revenge seeker Evan Lake is often a joy to behold. From Lake's speech to a room full of new recruits, a sitting on a cold bench in the heart of a Russian winter "Don't try to put a bib on me!" or a casual sniffing of a fern plant, Cage is allowed to let loose on occasions here and it creates an undeniably fun and hilarious turn in what was no doubt supposed to be a serious role with musings on everything from national pride to dementia commentary. It's in Cage's off kilter performance that Light could've been something truly special in an off the chart way but it's not hard to see why the studio could sense that it may have just been too much for the world to handle.With a seen a million times before revenge tale of CIA agent vs. the big bad (here a sick, chair bound terrorist), Dying of the Light has been made to feel like a safe and uneventful thriller that so dearly wanted to be something let loose from the chain. There are moments of pure madness that against better judgement one can recommend, but in the end this is a lesser "Crazy Cage" film that fans of his particular line of work would be better suited to watch a repeat viewing of Wicker Man for their kick of looney.1 and a half anti Obama rants out of 5