Directed by:
Joel SchumacherScreenplay:
Andrew Kevin WalkerCinematography:
Robert ElswitComposer:
Mychael DannaCast:
Nicolas Cage, Joaquin Phoenix, James Gandolfini, Peter Stormare, Anthony Heald, Chris Bauer, Catherine Keener, Jack Betts, Amy Morton, Norman Reedus (more)VOD (1)
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Tom Welles (Nicolas Cage) is a surveillance expert on the rise. 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 Wells to find the identity of the woman and determine if she is still alive. Welles finds the girl's identity, follows her trail and meets an adult bookstore clerk Max California (Joaquin Phoenix). 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. (Shock Entertainment)
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Reviews (12)
8MM offers a truly raw and visceral excursion into the world of the most brutal porn industry, where the line between perverse pleasure and cold-blooded murder is completely blurred. I was intrigued by the portrayal of the main character Tom Welles, who gradually becomes more and more embroiled in the case as the investigation progresses, and once it is solved, he is not (and could not be) the same as before. Joaquin Phoenix's supporting role added some humour to the plot, otherwise it was a completely depressing story about twisted people and their twisted appetites, which was "dominated" by the character of The Machine. The last third of the film caught my attention the most, and was not lacking in suspense and action.
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The attribute 8 MM deserves above all is EFFECTIVE. The story from the porn industry is appropriately brutal and repulsive in its subject matter, with a range of twisted characters from the gallery and the decadent environment of high society. The film is energetic and attractive due to the positive hero played decently by Nicolas Cage, complemented by a diligent improved sidekick, and several very skillfully crafted scenes. Overall, it has a depressing tone, which led to exceptionally great commercial success and acclaim from movie fans. It's not Joel Schumacher's best film, but it ranks among the better ones in its genre. Overall impression: 70%.
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A gloomy and relatively rough (within Hollywood standards) film showing the dark alleys of the metropolis, mentally disturbed perverts, murderers, deviants, and a traditionally clumsy Nicolas Cage. It's not inherently bad, but his acting simply doesn't dazzle and it even the Breitlings he wears most of the time can’t help. There were several scenes pleasantly twisted my nerves and digestive system (the final scene with the music is brilliantly tense) and the decently atmospheric depiction of that underworld with all its filth and tragedy is good. It's not groundbreaking, but on the other hand, Joel Schumacher has already directed several first-class crap, so let's be glad this film turned out like this.
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Joel Schumacher psychologically brutalizes us and the resulting effect is excellent. However, it would have been even better with a more elaborate screenplay with more questions and unexpected twists. Even so, this is a formalistically excellent inducement to depression with brilliant performances by everyone involved. Mentally unstable viewers should avoid 8 MM!
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Watching the film, one finds it incredible, but it is the realization of a reworked script that its author Walker distanced himself from because he felt it was fundamentally watered down, something he had experienced since the production of Se7en, where Fincher had nonetheless stood up for him so his vision could remain intact. Here, Walker didn't accept the Dick Tracy-style notion of the private eye, who in his script is supposed to be more of a small-town bumpkin who spends his weekends bowling, and he didn't like the use of the voice over of the murdered woman, the unmasking of the main villain, or the deliverance letter at the end. All of these rewrites were the work of Schumacher, returning from his Mexican sabbatical where he had retreated out of exhaustion from the production of the last Batman. He was given the script to edit out of trust that he would give it a softer tone. Except that Schumacher returned from Mexico not only refreshed but also with a certain bitterness, so while he destroyed Walker's vision of the average suburban yuppie's inability to look into the abyss without being destroyed for life, he rebuilt it into a thesis about the elusiveness, irrationality, and ubiquity of sheer evil. With most of the film being spent searching and delving deeper and deeper into the sewer of illegal pornography, the structure of that evil is also created, with it being represented in its pure form by the Machine, who is used by director Dino Velvet to further his artistic ambitions, and exploited in terms of sheer mammon by Eddie Poole, who is followed by a host of other fish with the same motives. The awesome Elswit-esque grimness and faded shots of this autumnal tale, combined with a look at the declining pornographic landscape due to the advent of the internet, the constant presence of the ending (the empty giant house of a dead tycoon, the leaf-strewn grey home of the protagonist at the end of the street, as well as the main villain's home, which is even adjacent to a cemetery), and the setting of most of the film in the depopulated areas of New York or Los Angeles, closes the 1990s in a way. Everything is slowly shifting to computers, streets are being depopulated, meeting places are becoming desolate, old structures are breaking down, and everyone carries some scars from these wild years that they hope never to be reminded of. PS: 8mm was my childhood VHS classic that I used to watch about twice a week back in the day, and with the BluRay edition, some details I didn't understand at the time were finally explained, the most significant of which was that because of the cropping, it was impossible to see how The Machine actually kills Max. The shot itself was cut off for the sake of the rating and couldn't be seen on the video at all. Another mystery I can check off
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