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Click here to return to the main site. DVD Review
Veteran CIA agent Evan Lake is a haunted man, unable to move on from a time when an operation went wrong and he was captured and tortured by the terrorist Banir. When he simultaneously discovers that he is dying from a degeneration of his brain, caused by his torture and that his torturer did not die in the raid, he and his protégé, Milton Schultz,chase across continents to eliminate Banir... Dying of the Light (2014. 1 hr, 30 min) was written and directed by Paul Schrader, writer of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, well it was sort of. What actually happened was that the film was taken away from him and reedited, rescored, the cinematography was changed and generally the film was messed around with by the studio. As there is a portion of all contracts which states that the stars and director cannot defame the film Nic Cage and Schrader displayed their disagreement by being photographed with said portion of the contract printed on tee-shirts. Would the film have been any better in its original form, we may never know, what we end up with was is a film which has a lot of good ideas, but ends up bland enough to have been the product of a committee. The central idea of the film is that both Banir (Alexander Karim) and Lake (Nicolas Cage) are both dying and yet neither man can let go of the hatred they have for each other. For Lake, especially, that hatred runs deep. He is able to track Banir because he requires a particular medication to keep him alive. It would have been enough to cut off his supply, but Lake wants to kill him with his bare hands. There is some sparkling moments from Cage but overall the experience is flat and dull. The finished product starts, chugs along and ends. Had I not had to review it I would probably have given up half way through. Of course, given the film's production problems there are no extras apart from the option for either a 5.1 or 2.0 soundtrack. 4 Charles Packer Buy this item online
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