Arsenal

Action

Available on VOD: 16 maart 2017

Director: Steven C. Miller

Cast: Nicolas Cage (The Bad Lieutenant, Drive Angry, Leaving Las Vegas, Kick-Ass), John Cusack (2012, Drive Hard, Cell, Hot Tub Time Machine), Adrian Grenier (Entourage, The Devil Wears Prada, Marauders), Lydia Hull (Van Wilder, Escape Plan 2), Johnathon Schaech (That Thing You Do, Marauders, The Prince)

A powerful action thriller, ARSENAL tells the intertwining stories of the Lindel brothers, Mikey (Johnathon Schaech) and JP (Adrian Grenier), who had only each other to rely on growing up. As adults, JP found success as the owner of a construction company, while Mikey became a small-time mobster, mired in a life of petty crime. When Mikey is kidnapped and held for a ransom by ruthless crime boss Eddie King (Nicolas Cage), JP turns to the brothers' old pal Sal (John Cusack), a plain clothes detective for help. In order to rescue his brother, JP must risk everything and unleash his vengeance against King's relentless army of gangsters.

Reviews

• Wegotthiscovered.com: The actor gives the kind of performance that awed directors let Brando give at the end of his career: one that's completely OTT.
• Omenly.com: Nicolas Cage (Eddie King) throws around his nuttiness and violent yet amusing reactions in a way that keeps the audience interested.
• Cutprintfilm.com: Any moment Cage is on screen here becomes hypnotic. You're drawn into every single bizarre choice the actor makes, completely uncertain of what he's going to do next. In one of the film's best scenes, Eddie's brother Buddy (Deadfall director and Cage's real-life brother Christopher Coppola) shows up to reprimand Eddie for his sloppiness. What follows is a slow-motion dance of carnage, with splashes of blood flying up into Cage's glorious mustache.
• DallasFilmNow.com: Arsenal frames its relentless beatings doled out by Nicolas Cage against slow-motion effects and a melancholic hymnal of sorts.
• Filmschoolrejects.com: Cage is mesmerizing whether he's talking, sobbing, hissing, or ranting - his War of the Gargantuas reference is especially endearing.
• Goodefficientbutchery.blogspot.nl: Cage is here to do exactly what you expect him to do: shout, yell, scream, spaz out, and totally Cage it up.
• Joblo.com: Cage's whacked-out performance is what makes ARSENAL worth checking out, with him having a blast throughout. He doesn't phone it in at all, and Cage is always fun to watch when he's in gonzo mode.

The Trust

Thriller

Available on VOD: 16 mei 2016

Director: Alex Brewer, Ben Brewer

Cast: Nicolas Cage (The Bad Lieutenant, Drive Angry, Leaving Las Vegas, Kick-Ass), Elijah Wood (The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Sin City), Sky Ferreira (Larry Crown, Vampire Academy, The Green Inferno), Jerry Lewis (The King of Comedy)

Waters and Stone are two nobody police officers working dull administrative jobs and making extra money selling stolen Civil Service Exams to other officers. When Stone hears a story about a heroin dealer quickly beating his extremely high bail, the two friends set into motion a plan to find the origin of such a large amount of cash.

Through diligent police work they follow a trail that leads directly to a custom bank-style vault built into the back room freezer of a small grocery store. They put a plan into motion to rob the vault and split whatever they find inside. But by the time they figure out what the vault contains, it's already too late to turn back.

The Trust is a film about the philosophy behind a crime. It's a taxonomic approach to the heist movie that gives the audience a chance to examine closely each dark development, as the two cops slip quietly into a rabbit hole from which they cannot return.

Reviews

• Cinemagazine.nl: The Trust is een Nicolas Cage-comeback op meerdere fronten. Niet alleen keert hij voor deze zwartkomische politiethriller terug naar de locatie waar hij eerder successen boekte als Wild at Heart, Con Air en natuurlijk Leaving Las Vegas, ook is hij qua acteerwerk weer bijna ouderwets op het niveau waarom we zo van hem houden. Er zit redelijk wat humor in dit speelfilmdebuut van de gebroeders Brewer, die vooral op het conto geschreven mag worden van Nicolas Cage. Zijn personage is onvoorspelbaar en daardoor altijd interessant. Maar ook Elijah Wood laat zien wat hij in huis heeft, hij deelt een prettige chemie met Cage en maakt zijn karakterontwikkeling geloofwaardig.
• Empireonline.com: Academy Award winner turned direct-to-video staple Nicolas Cage gives one of his loosest, goofiest and most enjoyable performances in years as Stone, a modestly corrupt Las Vegas cop stuck in a crappy administrative job, living with his doddering dad (Jerry Lewis) and lumbered with a partner (Elijah Wood) who'd rather be smoking dope than logging evidence. Cage and Wood make a hugely enjoyable double act (has True Detective season three been cast yet?) in this deceptively dark thriller with comic undertones.
• Variety.com: Cage supplies a stream of tension-defusing laughs while the script steadily applies the screws .. in The Trust, a juicily played heist thriller. Of course, even the most carefully calculated scheme can be counted on to go haywire, and so it does here, with unexpectedly human consequences, in a heist sequence that, while not exactly "Rififi," becomes steadily absorbing as it consumes much of the film's second half.
• TheGuardian.com: Nicolas Cage could very well become the next celebrity target of US police unions for his involvement in The Trust, a slickly executed dark comedy that sees the Oscar-winner play one of the most corrupt cops to grace the screen in recent memory. As the film grows increasingly dark following violent hiccups in their attempted robbery, so does Cage: Stone's odd tics suddenly turn sinister. Simply put, he's a blast to watch. Cage is the rare actor who has the ability to make you laugh one moment, and recoil the next. Not to be outdone, Wood holds his own opposite Cage, grounding the proceedings as an increasingly embittered everyman way in over his head.
• Collider.com: It's engaging from start to finish, Nicolas Cage is a blast to watch, The Trust has strong performances, Jim is as quirky as they come and David doesn't take his job as seriously as he should, but it's clear that they're both smart guys so even though their scheme is incredibly risky, there is a sense that they could pull it off, which keeps the film engaging all the way through. If you take the sit back and relax approach to The Trust, there's a good deal of fun to be had with Cage's wacky performance and it's also easy to get swept up in the heist itself thanks to the need to know whether they pull it off.
• Blogcritics.org: a crime drama which combines the world of CSI: Las Vegas with the violence and dark humor of a Quentin Tarantino film. 4 out of 5 stars.
• Idigitaltimes.com: The Trust takes a bit to rev into gear, but once the heist begins, it's non-stop drama. Cage's Jekyll and Hyde performance is definitely worth watching. It's a solid debut from Alex and Ben Brewer, and I'm excited to see what they come up with next.
• Little White Lies (lwlies.com): Elijah Wood and Nicolas Cage play a pair of crooked Las Vegas cops in this breezy heist caper. For most of the first act, it feels Cage-lite, but the Brewers slacken his leash just enough to drive up the tension as the heist proper begins. The Trust may not break new ground in the genre, but it's a handsomely made example of a tried and tested formula. Cinematographer Sean Porter eschews the garish neon hues of the Vegas Strip for a cooler colour palate, and Reza Safinia's up-tempo score helps to keep up the pace. Cage is on fine form in this slick little thriller.