Nicolas Cage has chosen his two most underrated movies in a new interview.
Speaking to Den of Geek, Cage said that the film Joe, which is directed by David Gordon Green and Bangkok Dangerous, directed by the Pang Brothers, were his two most underrated movies.
Opening up about Joe, Cage said: “I thought [that] was a good example of that kind of 1970s performance style that we all got obsessed with back when we were watching pictures like Midnight Cowboy or Taxi Driver.”
In the film, Cage plays the titular character. “[Those movies] became the arbiter for that which is considered to be good,” Cage continued. “I think, frankly, too many people have gotten obsessed with that 1970s naturalism style, but nonetheless I think that was it in full form in the movie Joe.”
In the 2008 film Bangkok Dangerous, Cage played a freelance contract killer who finds himself embroiled in a political conspiracy.
“I recently saw The Killer, which I thought was very well crafted,” Cage said of the recent film starring Michael Fassbender, “but it was very nihilistic. It also made me think about a movie that I had made that was largely beaten up critically and didn’t really have any voice at all, and that was Bangkok Dangerous.
“And what I would say about Bangkok Dangerous is I’m playing a similar character [to the lead in The Killer], but what I liked… is that there’s a lot of heart there within this nihilistic world of being an assassin. He falls in love and I liked these emotions that start to grow. ”
In other Cage news, the actor recently opened up about the possibility of retirement from acting, sharing that his time on the big screen may be coming to an end in a new interview with Vanity Fair.
“I may have three or four more movies left in me,” he told the publication. “I do feel I’ve said what I’ve had to say with cinema. I think I took film performance as far as I could … I do want to get much more severe and stringent in my selection process … I want to say bye on a high note.”
Cage – who is turning 60 in January – went on to share that his father died at the age of 75 which led him to set a rough timeline of sorts for what he plans to do with his life.
“If I’m lucky, I have maybe a good 15 years and hopefully more,” he said. “What do I want to do with those 15 years, using my father as the model? It occurred very clearly to me that I want to spend time with my family.”
Speaking about his acting career to the publication, Cage added: “I think I took film performance as far as I could,” and added that he wants to “say bye on a high note.”
One of his more recent films was 2023’s Renfield. In a four-star review of the film, NME shared: “What really makes this film pop are the game performances – Hoult’s wry self-awareness nicely compliments Cage’s literal vamping – and flashy action sequences.
It continued: “…Renfield isn’t for the faint of heart, but if you’ve got a reasonably strong stomach and an appreciation for the tongue-in-cheek, it really is bloody good fun.”
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