# 8MM (1999)

### reviewed by
Ulrich.Schreglmann

    Review: 8MM  (Spoilers)

"Tell me," the sidekick from inside the porn scene asks the hero played by Nicholas Cage after they've watched a couple of really UGLY movies together in the line of duty, "were you turned on by these?" "No. No I wasn't," Cage replies. "But you weren't exactly turned off, either, were you? Devil's changing you already."

It is hard to believe he wasn't turned off. I was. Big time. Even literally turned away. Whenever the films in film became too ghastly to look at they probably wouldn't show them on the big screen anyway, but I wasn't going to chance it. And I'm certainly not going to go into that flick a second time to find out. In a way the movie was so horrible because we don't see the violence but Cage's reaction to whatever it supposedly is he's seeing, and his face distorted in disgust may have been a lot more effective than anything we could have witnessed ourselves. Inspiring so much confidence, Cage is unbelievably good at conveying any emotion to the viewer with just a few facial muscles.

That movie was extreme for something in or close to mainstream--so extreme in fact it's actually slipping beyond the threshold of the plausible. That's mainly because it's in its moodiness so revolting it actually FORCES you to take a step back and think about what you're seeing.

And WHEN you think about it you can't help pondering that this is a little TOO dirty for actual underground porn scene. Not "dirty" as in "Naughty, naughty!" but dirty as in literally expecting the rats and the cockroaches to crawl out of the linoleum there. While parts of the world may actually look like that the fact that you see nothing but this level for what seems to be well over two hours makes it appear more like the world through the eyes of a vigilante idealist guardian of mores gone gaga.

Many of the elements are classic film noir--decent professional private investigator with clientele among the high and the mighty and the filthy rich is hired by an industry magnate's widow to find out whether her powerful and revered late husband was actually a monster under his facade of, well, intimidating callous high-roller. Of course he was, it turns out. And of course his lawyer, who looks like Geraldo Rivera, was knowingly devil's advocate. When would they ever turn out not to be.

Just like the average movie shows you only the beautiful vistas of town this movie specializes in the ugly, shot through shutter a little too dark with filters letting mainly cold colors pass, to make you especially depressed. Bleah! In fact the whole movie is literally so dark throughout that when at but one instant there is a sweeping vista of L.A. basking in midday sunlight hitting your eyes without warning you're actually blinded for a moment.

Cage's detective is a decent boy, Phillip Marlowe type, though happily married with child--the idealist family values aspect. He's being called to investigate whether a so-called "snuff movie" found in the aforementioned late industry czar's personal vault--an S&M porn movie in which the victim is actually being killed--is real or fake. His widow would like to know whether the man she loved for most of her life was merely a forgivable pervert or an actual monstrous menace to society.

In the course of his investigations Cage, P.I. descends into an exaggerated world of evil and ugliness your run-of-the-mill idealist seems to be fascinated by. As for me, after an agonizing couple of minutes my disbelief just snapped in two from too much suspension. We see rows of shelves where kiddie porn photos are being sold and duly have your "Ugh!"-button pushed but can't help noticing that the place looks SO much like you ought to put a torch to it--not because of what is available there but because of what the place looks like anyway--that you go straight through revulsion and out the other end.

He finds the people who did the movie and hires them with his client's money in order to find out who they are and to expose them. Alas, they're on to him, because the decent old lady's late husband's attourney turns out to have been in on the making of the movie and to have warned the other bad guys. Apparently--in good old noir tradition--he never expected our dutiful young investigator to get this far in the first place and is now in the act of damage containment. This is when the film changes from bottom-of-an-inkwell depressiveness to an actual suspenseful thriller for just a few minutes, when action is required of our hero to survive, only to then descend into a "lone avenger" bit leaving me strangely cold; but that's possibly just me.

If this review sounds overly negative I'm not sure whether that is what I've intended to convey. The movie is a bitter, bitter, bitter pill, but it's meant to be. If you can stomach it it's certainly worth watching once. There are even two or three scenes deliberately hilariously funny, like the scene where the porn paraphernalia sales dude is seen reading some schmaltzy novel under the cover of erotic literature in order not to "embarrass yourself in front of your fellow perverts," or when he tells a guy, mercifully off-screen, that "this place is like a gas station. You pay before you pump." (There was also some rather shameless product placement in that flick. Now I want me one of'em battery operated vaginas! Just kidding.)

On a final note I can only say that if I'm naive and that flick was actually a REALISITC depicition of the underground porn scene I prefer to remain naive and ignorant, thankyouverymuch! ("Whataworldwhataworldwhataworld..." *Mutter, mutter, mutter!*)

(C)OOL mcmxcix "There's nothing good--unless you do't." (Erich Kästner)

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