Product Description

Academy Award® winner Nicolas Cage stars with Joaquin Phoenix and Catherine Keener in an electrifying thriller from the writer of Seven. Directed by Joel Schumacher (The Client, Batman Forever, A Time to Kill), this dramatic story follows one man's obsessive search for the truth about a six-year-old crime and his ultimate discovery of the truth about himself.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18145 in DVD
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 2005-11-22
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 123 minutes

Amazon.com
This thoroughly unpleasant thriller from the hands of Joel Schumacher (Batman and Robin) offers very little in its lurid tour of snuff films and the seedy pornographic underworld. A wooden Nicolas Cage stars as a private detective hired by a tycoon's widow, who discovers in her dead husband's safe some 8mm footage of a young girl being sexually abused and slaughtered. Cage's job is to determine the veracity of the film and to find out the girl's identity, whether she be alive or dead. What could have been a taut, nerve-jangling thriller is instead a lumbering, overwrought but underwritten tale of vigilante justice. Screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker also penned the imaginative and compelling Seven, but you wouldn't know it from this tired and monotonous script. Schumacher tries for echoes of both The Silence of the Lambs and Paul Schrader's Hardcore (which stars George C. Scott as a father trying to find his daughter in the seedy porn industry), but despite some slick camerawork, the film fails to draw the audience into either the mystery of the missing girl or Cage's supposed internal conflicts. It's not so much the unsavory subject matter as it is the sloppy and unimaginative filmmaking that makes the movie unbearable. Of the entire cast only Joaquin Phoenix, as a charismatic goth boy who works at an adult book store, comes away with a memorable performance. --Mark Englehart

From The New Yorker
When a big Hollywood picture starts courting the movie buffs in the audience, it must be in trouble; when it starts with a shot of a movie projector and boasts a hero called Welles, hold your nose. This grim new work from Joel Schumacher takes itself so seriously that there were reports of frivolous laughter in the theatres. The Welles in question, played by Nicolas Cage, is a private detective who is asked to watch a snuff movie and to find out just how snuffy it is-whether a young woman was actually killed onscreen. His quest leads him to Los Angeles and New York, and to a slow crawl through the belly of the porno industry. The problem here is not that Schumacher's approach is exploitative but that it's boring; poor Catherine Keener, playing Welles's wife, has the thankless task of sitting at home waiting for her man to call with yet more recitations of gloom. The usually sprightly Cage seems locked and barred; the only fun comes when he teams up with Joaquin Phoenix, a bemused observer of the hard-core scene. But not even Phoenix can save a film that solemnly fulfills everything you guessed in the first ten minutes. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Not as bad as critics say it is.
I decided to watch 8MM on HBO late one night with an open mind. I actually glad that I did. It does have its faults. Nicholas Cage's performance as Tom Welles goes from one extreme to the other: he is both over-emotive at times and wooden at others. The pace is a little slow at times. And without knocking the actual quality of the film, it is not always easy to watch. Well neither is A Clockwork Orange, and that movie is a complete masterpiece. Then again, how can you make a film using the underworld snuff film trade as a backdrop easy to watch?

For those of you that want to write 8MM off as another Death Wish/Dirty Harry vigilante action romp, you're missing the point. If anything, 8MM is the antithesis to what those films are about. You see the possibly irreparable moral and psychological damage that Welles undergoes when he takes the life of homicidal underworld figure who has no qualms with doing away with Welles. Do you ever see a Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson character racked with regret - even when you take into consideration the death of a truly despicable and worthless person? True enough, Welles never stoops so low as to murder an innocent law-abiding citizen, yet you see a dramatic change in his character as the film progresses - and not for the better.

Another thing that I liked about 8MM was Joaquin Phoenix's portrayal of Max California. On the surface, he is a tattooed punk rocker who works in an adult book store. But underneath, he is the moral compass of the film. You'll learn to like Max much in the same way that Welles learns to. While Max lives as a single man without much responsiblity, he respects Welles for his dedication to family life. I especially liked the scene in which Max and Welles meet for the first time - I shouldn't have to tell anyone what kind of magazine Max was hiding his Truman Capote paperback under. And let's not forget the memorable line about trying to "change the devil".

Before I sign off, I must caution you not to expect an easy lighthearted movie. Don't even expect an action flick. But if you want to check out something dark that will make you think and challenge you, you may want to check out 8MM.

Overall rating: 4.25 stars.

Geniunely Disturbing
8mm is a breakthrough move in many aspects. The cinematography is excellent, and the tone of the entire movie remains dark and grim. The plot is very original, and although it won't appeal to many people, it must be respected that filmmakers would actually venture out this far and make a movie which aims to disturb everyone.

I am a fan of Nicolas Cage, but I was rather dissapointed with his performance. He had some good one liners and displayed his anger well, but overall he came out more like a 2 dimensional character. The real star of the film was Joaqiun Phoenix, the porn shop owner hired by Cage, who delivered a realistic and exceptional performance.

I do reccoment watching the film. It's something that needs to be experienced by everyone. Some people won't be able to sleep at night, other's will watch it without any problems, and some might even be fascinated by the idea of watching someone's death on film. All in all, this is a movie that made a huge impact on the way I define the word "disturbing", and it will too for everyone else that chooses to watch it. Reccomended.

Honest view of society
Okay, hold on to your hats, this is a wild one. Nicholas Cage plays as a private detective, Tom Welles. Welles is hired by an elderly woman of wealth, to determine the validity of a reel of film she has found in her late husbands safe. Welles, travels from coast to coast to find the subjects on the film.

This is a disturbing film, and delves into the sleazier side of film making. There is scenes of nudity, sado/masochism, and other sick stuff. The critics didn't like this and many other movie reviewers also tore it up. It is a sick work, but a well done one.

If you want to see a happy film buy "You've Got Mail", or some other all the world is good and kind film. Sadly, this film touches close to the mores of our society, and nobody wants to deal with that. Thousands of Children and young adults, are abducted, or run away from home, and end up on the street and into the society shown by this film. This is a brutal honest look, at something we would rather not admit to. REVIEWED 9/5/99 BY JOHN