Plot
Tom Welles (Nicolas Cage) is a surveillance expert on the rise. He's living the American dream with a wife, Amy (Catherine Keener), infant daughter, and a house in the suburbs of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. After the completion of an assignment for a U.S. Senator, Welles is summoned to the house of a recently deceased captain of industry. His widow, in settling his estate, has discovered an 8MM film in her late husband's private safe. The silent short depicts the apparent murder of a young woman by a large, masked figure, what is known as a "snuff" film. Greatly disturbed by the film's contents, the widow hires Welles to find the identity of the woman and determine if she is still alive. Welles finds the girl's identity and follows her trail from the time she ran away from home to Hollywood. Once there, Welles meets adult bookstore clerk Max California (Joaquin Phoenix) to act as Virgil to Welles' Dante. As the two begin their descent into the world of underground pornography, the detective grows more and more distant from his family, as if he cannot shake the taint of the world in which he now walks. Tom and Max eventually meet pornographers Dino Velvet (Peter Stormare) and Eddie Poole (James Gandolfini). By this time the detective finds he can no longer walk out of the inferno. ~ Ron Wells, RoviReview
To some critics, 8MM represented director Joel Schumacher hitting rock bottom after ruining the Batman franchise, with Nicolas Cage joylessly coming along for the ride. But unsavory subject matter alone is not enough to condemn this uncompromising look into the fetishistic underworld of hardcore pornography, which the viewer enters through a hardened family man and private investigator (Cage) investigating an apparent snuff film found in the private belongings of a dead billionaire. Film noir at its best, or maybe worst, 8MM gained notoriety for its perhaps unsurprising level of brutality, particularly in the frankness of the pornographic images that stretch its R rating. But Schumacher and Cage deserve some credit for the unflinching way they immerse themselves in the subject matter without apparent regard for the stain to their reputations. Furthermore, the film avoids some of the more nauseating clichés that often attend any film in which the hero's darling wife (an underused Catherine Keener) and infant daughter are among the first introduced. Its relentlessly unhappy outlook will turn off some viewers, and there are none of the stylistic advances that characterize the best in film noir. But the sheer audacity of this perverse yet fascinating topic may awaken the curiosity of those who can hold their meals down. ~ Derek Armstrong, RoviCast
- Nicolas Cage - Tom Welles
- Joaquin Phoenix - Max California
- James Gandolfini - Eddie Poole
- Peter Stormare - Dino Velvet
- Anthony Heald - Longdale
- Catherine Keener - Amy Welles
Credit
Gershon Ginsburg - Art Director, Mali Finn - Casting, Jeff Levine - Co-producer, Mona May - Costume Designer, Alan Edmisten - First Assistant Director, Joel Schumacher - Director, Mark Stevens - Editor, Joseph M. Caracciolo, Jr. - Executive Producer, Mychael Danna - Composer (Music Score), Gary Wissner - Production Designer, Robert Elswit - Cinematographer, Joel Schumacher - Producer, Gavin Polone - Producer, Judy Hofflund - Producer, Thomas Nelson - Sound/Sound Designer, Eddie Yansick - Stunts Coordinator, Andrew Kevin Walker - Screenwriter| 8: The Mormon Proposition (2010 Film), 881 (2007 Film) | |
| 8MM 2 (2005 Film), 8th Army in Korea (1963 Film) |
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