Dim ‘8MM’ begs for light and focus Victor Allen Staff Reporter Director Joel Schumacher misses his target in “8MM” as Nicholas Cage turns in a below caliber performance. The majority of all scenes in this movie have been cast in dark light, creating an atmosphere of evil and depression. Careful attention has been given to nude scenes, choreographed in such a way as to reduce, if not eliminate, eroticism. Schumacher wants you to concentrate on the plot and Cage. The strains of middle eastern music have been dubbed onto the sound track with oddly shot camera angles to enhance the idea in the mind of the viewer that this is a world far removed from ordinary life. He uses Hitchcock scare tactics, showing the viewer fragments of the alleged film, the flash of a raised knife, and blurred scenes with spatters of blood. The ferocity of the murder and it’s grizzly details are then conveyed through the eyes of Cage, wincing and contorting his face as he twists in his chair watching. Cage delivers a surprisingly poor character portrayal as a private detective hired by the rich and powerful. His character (Tom Welles) is given the task of authenticating a snuff film, (hard core psuedo- machoistic pornography). The recently widowed Mrs. Christian (Myra Carter) is left with her husband’s fortune and a safe containing the film. Her wish is to prove the film is a contrivance, simply a seedy porn film with fake blood and special effects. She is a powerful woman, not at all rprised by her husband’s involvement with illicit sex, and desperate to prove he is not the perpetrator of a murder. The audience is then led on a dark odyssey into the bowels of the pornographic film and magazine industry. Detective Welles systematically tracks down the film’s alleged victim (a young woman), producer, and participants beginning in Miami; jumping over to Harrisburg, Pa.; to New York City and Hollywood. Our imagination is tested to the limits as Welles, enlisting the help of Max California (Joaquin Phoenix), a part-time musician and porn store clerk, negotiate the back alleys of illegal pornography. Welles later poses as an FBI agent and searches the young woman’s bedroom for clues to her disappearance six years earlier. His search leads to the discovery of the young womean’s diary. Thanks to information found in the diary, he traces the young woman to a street mission in Hollywood. As Cage pursues the victim and filmmakers, his character begins to show signs of mental fatigue. He repeatedly watches the film to gather obscure details. The sound of the film passing through the projector ticks away in the background like an insect scratching inside his brain. Damage to his moral fiber is so complete that in an act of rage and violence he ties a man to a wooden stud with electrical wire and bludgeons him to death with a pistol. Serious fractures in the plot structure develop when Cage, driven to the edge of psychotic violence, halts torturing his victim to call the missing girl’s mother on his cell phone. Additional deficiencies in “8 MM” include the lack of character development. Cage’s wife (Catherine Keener) never gets a chance to express herself beyond the occasional, “We can’t go on like this,” threat. Instead, she spends her time with a baby in scenes so dimly lit you want to go to the corner convenience store and buy her a flashlight. Cage himself fails to convey a genuine relationship with his wife. His voice is flat and lacks emotion in conversation. There doesn’t seem to be any chemistry between the two characters until the end of the film when he falls, sobbing, into her lap crying, “Save me, please, save me.” Sadly, a golden opportunity for both Cage and Schumacher has slipped by. The subject of pornography, especially child pornography, is rarely “if ever” analyzed by the film industry. However, the problem is too complex to be condensed into a “Kill em all, let God sort em out,” mentality. Unfortunately, this is what Schumacher has done. If seriously exploring the evils of the pornographic culture is the target aimed for, it was missed by a long shot!