It took 38 tries, but I have finally discovered Nicolas Cage’s kryptonite. I didn’t think it was possible that anything could bring down the man of steel, but he has a weakness after all, and it’s directing. 

He has only one directing film to his credit, and there is a good reason for that; and that reason is that he directed this 2002 train wreck of film that is Sonny, starring James Franco as Sonny, Mena Suvari as Carol, and Harry Dean Stanton as Henry. Nicolas Cage also plays a small part in the film, as Acid Yellow which is really the only redeeming thing about this 1 hour and 50 minutes of wasted time.

I am not sure who should shoulder most of the blame for this epic miss, but my hunch is that most of the fault lies with the screenplay itself. The story is about Sonny, a young man who was raised in New Orleans by his brothel-running mother, Jewel (played by Brenda Blethyn), to be a highly sensitive male prostitute / gigolo. Trying to find another life for himself, he joins the military for a tour, but then returns home hoping to “go straight” and find another way of life. 

Jewel has no desire to allow her son, Sonny, to leave his former life behind since he is such a prodigy in the sex biz (and doing so might lead him or her to question her life choices and trade). Sonny, who is not the sharpest tool in the shed, wants to try to find a job out in the world of “the squares” and is hopeful that he will be able to land something. 

Jewel continues to manipulate Sonny using one of her new prostitutes, Carol, as bait (and in the hopes that the two can turn tricks as some kind of power duo) and by keeping Sonny in the dark about the identity of his real father, Henry, whom Sonny knows only from the many years the man has been a patron of (and in relationship with) Sonny’s mother.  

Sonny tries his best to leave the “whoring” life behind him, but eventually returns to the one (and I guess only?) thing he knows how to do.

Henry, who was always sympathetic to Sonny, dies tragically by getting hit by a semi truck, and the secret of his paternity comes out. Sonny, upset by the loss of Henry as his newly revealed father, goes out on a bender and after getting drunk shows up at Acid Yellow’s establishment asking to be hired for some “rough trade” i.e. a homosexual trick (which evidently breaks a rule he had). At first suspicious, Acid Yellow questions Sonny but then agrees to hire him to do a trick with one of his special clients, an insurance executive.

When the client arrives, Sonny questions the man about whether or not the man knows his father, and then violently starts beating him before Acid Yellow comes to the man’s rescue. Brandishing a sword pulled from his cane, Acid Yellow and his bouncer chase Sonny out into the French Quarter. . 

Carol, who had wanted Sonny to run away with her to get married, grows impatient with Sonny and leaves town with another man. She tells Sonny he needs to get out before it’s too late. It seems unlikely that he will. The End.   

Who’s to Blame

I don’t want to spend MUCH time analyzing this Cage movie which featured very little Cage, but I do have to place some of the blame right at his feet. Regardless of whether the script was a pile of hot garbage or not (it was), he was the one directing it from behind the camera and he was the one who chose to do it in the first place. That’s OK, Nic, we all make mistakes.

The acting wasn’t terrible–even if the lines were implausible at times. 

Young Franco had some Cage-like berserker moments (like when he was freaking out on a country girl who was drinking cough syrup because he mistook her for some kind of drug addict?) and Harry Dean Stanton played his typical lovable misfit with an edge with some understated panache. But I found myself wondering many times, “how much longer?” and “where is this going?” And that’s never a good sign. I didn’t know who I was rooting for, what the point of the story was, or why I should even care. The movie had no heart and nothing much to say.

So yeah, big disappointment. Of all the Cage movies so far, this was the absolute worst of the lot. 

Acid Yellow 

Having said all that about how bad the movie was and how it was a total waste of my time, seeing Cage play a coked up Acid Yellow, a gay pimp that looked like a cross between Sonny Bono and Willy Wonka in full yellow disco suit, well, that was somewhat entertaining, for about 3 minutes. Could have just Youtubed it and been fine.

The whole scene was shot in a kind of blurry filter to capture Sonny’s drunken state (I assume) which gave it an even trippier vibe, but even the dramatic beating Sonny gives the insurance salesmen felt absurd and unwarranted (anticlimactic even) especially after sloggin through 90+ minutes of his almost effeminate, kinda dense, supposedly-uber-masculinity (he’s really popular among the Golden Girls set). 

I didn’t get it at all, but neither did the broader viewing audience since Rotten Tomato gives it a 21% rating. Nobody liked it. I didn’t like it.

Enough said.

First for Nicolas Cage as Acid Yellow

• Snorting coke while listening to A Fifth of Beethoven (disco music from Saturday Night Fever)
• Pulling a hidden blade out a cane
• First time working as a pimp
• Presumed owner of hot pink poodle
• First (and last) time appearing in a Nicolas Cage directed film (thank god)

Recurrence

• Wearing a fake prosthetic nose (Never on Tuesday)
• Appearing in a movie with Seymour Cassel (Honeymoon in Vegas, It Could Happen to You)
• Appearing in a movie with a Harry Dean Stanton character who also dies (Wild at Heart)

Quotes from Acid Yellow

“Sonny, my God sweetheart. What are you doing here knocking on my door?

“I haven’t been feeling well lately. I think I got that new bug. Boy you certainly are delicious.”

“Cut him. Cut his face. You fucking cunt!”