![]() Starring Kenneth Branagh, Michell Pfeiffer, Johnny Depp, Daisy Ridley, Leslie Odom Jr., Josh Gadd, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Olivia Colman, Derek Jacobi, Sergei Polunin, Lucy Boynton, Penélope Cruz, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Marwan Kenzari, and Tom Bateman. ![]() In the words of YouTuber Nerdwriter1 Mandy is an excuse "to have some f***kin fun.#409 - This week we talk about the Kenneth Branagh adaptation of the Agatha Christie murder-mystery, Murder on the Orient Express. I'd recommend friends, intoxicants, and an open mind. It should be out on home video and streaming services. If you couldn't figure it out, Mandy is worth a screening. If Cage is an authentic victim unwittingly working for the forces of evil, Roache is an inauthentic villain unwittingly working for the forces of light. And that as a total fraud, he neither knows who is f**cking with, what forces he is unleashing, or the very real magical and spiritual words that come out of his mouth as part of his ill-performed sermons and ceremonies. I absolutely love the angle that he is an aging, failed folk singer who didn't quite make it out of the 60's. And then there is Linus Roache who absolutely kills it as a would-be Charles Manson. This could have easily been another throw away female character and somehow she is the most memorable as the titular Mandy. Andrea Riseborough is an ethereal and wounded heroine and her chemistry with Cage was considerable. It's easily his best role in more than a decade. Cage is on FIRE on this film, as not every actor can scream in his underwear, on a toilet, guzzling vodka and make it compelling. It's a different way of presenting ambiguous morality. And sure enough, with every soul taken, the sky above fills with cosmic terror. But the protagonist is warned that his actions are irreversible his revenge will bring forth an apocalypse. The easy answer would be that Cosmatos is taking aim at the hypocrisy of Christianity. The group that Cage hunts are strongly implied to be a hippie version of a Christian gnostic mystery cult. ![]() The bikers are possessed by evil forces themselves, but belong to a DIFFERENT entity. However, this film explicitly states that he is an emissary of either Satan or a cruel, dark god. The protagonist forges a battle axe and swears vengeance in a way that would be portrayed as morally justified in lesser movies. Thematically, Mandy proves even more interesting. Deep reds and blues highlight the dreamlike mood and fantasy elements, while the scratchy grains on the film itself and other analog imperfections evoke the VHS carnage of yore. Kubrick and Lynch are easy to identify as inspiration, but one can't help but think of Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive and The Neon Demon, especially in terms of color palette. He successfully places Mandy in that all too difficult genre to pin down – arthouse exploitation. But Panos Cosmatos is aiming a bit higher, as he did with his previous work Beyond the Black Rainbow, albeit in a more conventional and approachable manner here. ![]() Yes, there are plenty of grindhouse elements of the era on display with evil motorcyclists, chainsaw duels, cruel axes, gore, and paperback fantasy novel imagery filling out the background. Most readily apparent are the references to 80's action cinema, the glacial pacing, and the deep color saturation. But this description of the plot tells you nothing about how experimental and artistically striking Mandy is. Trouble comes in the form of a Charles Manson style hippie death cult and a crew of demonic bikers. Set in 1983, in what is presumably rural California, a lumberjack and his free spirit girlfriend live an idyllic life in a secluded cabin. It may seem odd to review an independent arthouse horror/action film from 2018 starring Nicolas Cage, but Mandy proved to be such a beautiful and bizarre experience that I have to share.
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