Spouses Rey (Nicholas Cage) and Maggie (Robin Tunney) with the proceeds from the sale of the house acquire a backwater motel located in the American outback. Since the holiday season comes to an end, there are very few visitors left - which means that the couple will have enough time to understand the intricacies of a new business and at least recover a little after the tragic death of their little daughter Becky, whose death forced them to buy a motel, trying to start life from scratch. The former owner of the hotel, Ben, without giving any instructions, left for an unknown destination, refusing to contact the new owners. But even without his participation, the spouses easily cope with minor formalities, and soon begin to receive a few visitors. Soon after settling in, Ray finds a secret passage in the garage near the hotel, to one of the rooms, through which you can watch the guests. Naturally, this room has an interesting feature – its guests, whoever they are, are constantly having sex in this room, otherwise it would be boring. A few days later, it turns out that this hotel is not all right, and its former owner did not just sell it to the first people who came across, and he left unknown where. A local police officer informs the new owners that a couple of months ago a murder occurred in the ill-fated room, and the perpetrator was never found. Spouses naturally become uncomfortable, and then also begin to strain the local guests, one stranger than the other – here and obsessed with sex trucker and fatal beauty loving as Ray finds out lesbian sex with submission. And then the local cop constantly visits the new owners, constantly hinting that this motel is hidden more than one dark secret.
It is hard to believe, but to describe the plot for the film here is much more interesting than actually watching it. “Mirror” turned out to be a very boring and uninteresting under-thriller and under-detective with cardboard characters, a serial axe production and just a monstrously delusional denouement. In fact, the film has only 2 strengths: the participation of Cage and the first 40 minutes of the film with a downright nostalgic atmosphere of dusty steppes and cheap motels. But the second half of the film is unbearable for me: the plot does not develop, the characters just go around in circles, and the mysteries that arose at the very beginning remain without any explanation. The potential of the film is not disclosed and half – with such a scenario, it would be possible to make a great thriller, building it on the distrust of spouses and duplicity of the characters. And if the plot corresponded to the annotation and the new owners were really under suspicion of murder, it would be possible to build a good detective, the main characters of which, being the most ordinary people, would be forced to unravel a tangle of mysteries to save their own lives. And had a certain Tim Hunter experience in theatrical productions, it would be possible to play in these two sets a great tense performance, as it was, for example, in “Trust”. So many fantasies about this film are mentioned because there is nothing to tell about the movie itself - it is very boring and far-fetched, you can recommend it for viewing except for very desperate Cage fans. He kills me God is good even here. Known for his expressive and hyperemotional roles in this film, Nicholas played perhaps the most apathetic character in his entire career. In funny glasses, with a beard, dressed the whole film in the clothes of a laborer, his Ray gives the impression of a pinched person on his mind - it is thanks to his character that this film can be watched to the end, constantly wondering what is going on in his head. Alas, there is nothing more to say about this film - it is frankly weak and boring, often causes frank bewilderment because of the "emptiness of the frame" - there are very rarely more than three characters on the screen, and secondary characters here do not develop the plot, but simply appear out of nowhere and immediately disappear without any logic. It is impossible to remember what kind of nonsense it is from Cage in recent years, which now with all confidence can be recorded as former Hollywood stars.
The last films with Nicholas, to put it mildly, failed. The Bureau of Humanity is boring and uninteresting, Mom and Dad are unfunny and stupid, I will not say anything about the Wolf Man. Maybe revenge. A love story is less than good. However, I still try not to miss the novelties with Cage, hoping to scratch something smart, or maybe just in the past years Cage continues to watch his films. And so, after learning about the release of the film Mirror, I began to watch.
A married couple who recently buried their child, not without skeletons in the closet, buy a roadside motel from a suspicious uncle. Having mastered it, Cage's hero finds a hidden passage in which you can peek through the double mirror for the guests of the 10th room. . .
I liked the film in general, except for a weak ending. And so the film kept in suspense, the unhurried development of the plot that only benefits the film. However, I believe that this role is not for Cage, although I understand that Nick is no longer in the top and therefore takes on such roles as in the film Man to Man Wolf.
What the film reminded the Vacancy for the victim, and the second part, the so-called prequel to the Vacancies.
If you walk through the actors, then with Cage everything is clear: over 50, the best years came in the late 90s - early zero, when such hits as Gone in 60 seconds, The Rock, Faceless, Air Prison, National Treasures, etc. were released. There's been a lot of slag lately.
Robin Tunney, whom I met after her role as Veronica’s lawyer from the first season of Escape, played great, but almost all of her films were successful, and she did not spoil the picture anywhere. You can think of End of the World, Witchcraft, and my favorite movie, Vertical Limit, but again, these are all films from 15 to 20 years ago, and she's not really smart in the last 10 years.
I don’t know the other actors, they played so well. The actor, playing the role of sheriff, infuriated with terrible force.
Director Tim Hunter shoots mainly series, his last feature film dated as early as 2007. But he had a hand in the filming of such series as Breaking Bad, Wayward Pines, Gotham, Sons of Anarchy, Creek, Riverdale and other quite good series. This movie did well, but I repeat the ending could have been more powerful to create.
In summary, I liked it. I did not expect anything from the film, but received a decent film.
6 out of 10
It's not even funny anymore. A once-beloved actor with powerful charisma has become a mockery, starring in films that would be better not shot. Is Nicolas Cage’s financial situation so dire that he takes on anything to make ends meet?
Director Tim Hunter, who specializes mainly in TV series (and it would be better if he continued to remain in the television field), can now be proud, because in his nondescript thriller starred Oscar-winning actor from the cool action movies of the past (unfortunately, now it remains to remember only the former work of Cage).
The Mirror is a film with no beginning and no end. The creator decided to catch up with mystery, offering the viewer two main characters - a married couple Ray (Cage) and Maggie (Robin Tunney), who are trying to escape from a past life, buy a motel in a small town and try to establish a simple business away from multi-million cities. What they are running from will be further shown through flashbacks (thus Tim Hunter decided not to indulge in a detailed story about the fate of the characters, deciding that a brief explanation would be enough).
Soon Ray discovers one interesting detail: through a mirror in one of the rooms you can peek at the guests. God! After all, it is the dream of every other crazy person – to watch someone fuck, walk naked, engage in self-gratification or something! Ray, being at first glance a completely normal person, suddenly becomes so abnormal and experiences irresistible excitement from peeping rather than having sex with his wife. It is possible that Tim Hunter was trying to show that in the family life of the couple is not so smooth and Ray tries to find satisfaction on the side, nevertheless remaining loyal to his wife. One way or another, first of all, the thought comes to mind that the hero Cage simply has an unhealthy attraction to peeking.
When one of the guests of the motel disappears, and her body is found in the desert, suspicion falls on the main characters, and Ray attempts to get to the truth, trying to shine his erudition. Thus, the director offers the viewer a mixture of detective and thriller. As for the first genre, Hunter had a clear blunder, because the detective line in the Mirror is weak and indistinct. A small number of secondary characters who could approach the role of the killer does their job and it is not possible to identify the murderer. From the first appearance of one of the minor characters, it becomes clear who is behind the murder. And here are his motives... The motive remains unclear until the very end, as it turns out later, this is not his first murder. What is it? A craving for violence intertwined with an abnormal craving for murder? “It’s up to you,” says Tim Hunter, also leaving behind the double-mirror fact that the former owner had to spy on people. Why was there only one mirror in the room? Why did he run away long after the first murder and decide to run away now, because the killer did not know that there was a witness to his outrage? Of course, as in the case of the couple Ray and Maggie, the director tries to briefly tell about all this, but it turns out to be so bad that he better not try.
The thriller genre in The Mirror also does not stand up to criticism. Trying to catch up with intriguing moments through dead pigs, bar fights and suspicious gas station owners does not lead to anything good. The problem of a newcomer to the city with local luminaries looks inappropriate (it was supposed to be the second storyline leading the viewer on a false trail) and leads to a dead end. Causing a fog around Ray’s relationship with the locals, the director does not develop this direction, limiting himself to a couple of scenes in the middle and at the end. Elements of intimidation and intimidation undertaken by the “rural man” are presented as if they were snatched from some other film and inserted into the “Mirror”, deciding that this would be better.
Started without the beginning of the movie, ends as if in the United States and it is customary: to go where far away, leaving everything (God with them, with things, but at least the documents could be seized). Everything would be fine, but the ending is presented so that you can kill someone and just go on. It doesn't matter what the investigation finds, everything can be pushed to self-defense. What difference does it make that it will take a long time to explain why in one of the rooms there is a double mirror, and in the room the corpse of a representative of one of the law enforcement agencies? What difference does it make that there have been dark episodes in your past that can be presented as stories that put a bad imprint on your personality, and therefore can call into question self-defense? Why? You're a maniac watching the guests. You see a beautiful girl, you kill her, you hide a corpse in the desert, and then it turns out that there is a witness. You kill him, too, making it look like self-defense and so on. But it seems that the director and the authors of the script simply did not want to hammer their heads with such moments, so it turned out a movie that does not represent absolutely any value in artistic terms and turns out to be a non-thriller and underdetective with a subdramatic history of the complex family life of the main characters.
But look at you. I do not impose my opinion on anyone.
Nicolas Cage continues to replenish his resume with films of category B. The Mirror, the project of 2018, is remarkable mainly because the often manic Nicolas Cage keeps himself in his hands and is marked by quite decent behavior. Throughout this slow thriller about a strange desert motel, the actor destroys his image of a mad freak, which, however, does not help the case. “Mirror” is a mixture of a voyeuristic thriller, a detective about a mysterious murder, romance and marital drama, reflection on middle age and, finally, everything is seasoned with notes of Hitchcock classics. Unfortunately, none of the elements are neatly combined with the entire mosaic, and the finely written characters let the side storylines derail, which in total looks somewhat exhausting.
Unlike most such thrillers, the creators implemented their project in a somewhat unusual way. Instead of escalating tension from the first minutes show quite ordinary actions of a couple who bought a motel for nothing because of the marital crisis after the death of a child. Ray and Maggie work on the hostess, clean the pool, drag furniture, and then Ray finds a special room to watch the guests on the other side of the mirror of one of the rooms. And this number was loved by a mysterious blonde and a local trucker.
Small secrets must eventually congregate into a big mystery in order to form a complex atmosphere of uncertainty. And then the Mirror has a huge problem. In fact, Ray is obsessed with his “mirror” activity, but this topic is one way or another poorly developed. After interesting observation sessions, Ray experiences a rise in libido and even resolves some of his family issues, but the script quickly moves away from psychology and focuses on mystery. And with the detective component of the “Mirror” again nothing comes out. The central mystery in the plot seems to have borrowed all the worst from the “Place Body”, because there are so few characters in the film that when the moment comes to enter the antagonist’s stage, it is only perplexing to shrug – everything here is so obvious.
To some extent, the film can be seen as an attempt to play on the stylization. It uses traditional camera angles that are not so typical today, which makes you remember the creations of an earlier era of filmmaking. The musical accompaniment sounds like a theme from the series of the 90s. What are the credits? All this blows ostentatious cheapness, which, one way or another, works for the atmosphere. But the Mirror itself is far from something ironic or parody. So the question remains whether this is appropriate in the context of such a dark history. Or is he not used to doing things differently? The action in the Mirror takes place mainly at night, but neither neon signs nor the general backwater of the roadside motel contribute to immersion in the deserted American wasteland. Of course, there are interesting finds in the film, such as the focus on the soles of the victim during the murder. However, these uncomfortable moments do not save the general tone from anguish.
Robin Tunney, the female lead in The Mirror, handles the material, but not so inspiring. Cage, on the other hand, got used to the image of a family man, even if he distracted with his apparently false beard.
“Mirror” offers the viewer rather a strange and somnabulic narrative, rather than a constant generation of tension and anxiety. The film features locals who know about the motel’s dark history, and the horrific finds in the hotel itself, but the nightmare of the notorious American middle class never expands. The last act came out sluggish and without significant upheaval or even comprehension of personal grief, which at the root kills several curious ideas and guesses that can be born while watching. As a result, “Mirror” finds inspiration only in the dark and quiet moments of “stalking” and lust, which include elements of a sexualized thriller multiplied by an unattractive artistic vision.
5 out of 10
In the career of many once popular and infallible actors from the Dream Factory comes a period when they have nothing more to offer influential producers, after which begins a completely different period of career, marked by endless, protracting stagnation. Not being able to put consistently high fees on the bank account in the future, celebrities gradually appearing in circulation begin to increasingly agree to cooperate with completely unverified directors, recklessly experiment with genres, and then banally clutch at any role they find in the hope of at least partially recapturing lost positions. Often there are such creative throwing away from the glittering Hollywood hills, namely in harsh, but friendly Canada, where film production is also flourishing, albeit not so influential. Suffering one artistic collapse after another, he partially shifted to geographical neighbors and Nicholas Cage, who for many years and even decades managed to keep the bar high of the Coppola family, acting exclusively in remarkable projects that develop his skill and maintain the importance of his name in high studio circles. A series of annoying, and sometimes downright stupid mistakes, led to the fact that Cage had to say goodbye to most of his multimillion-dollar fortune, and in order to somehow improve things, he began to agree to almost every offer released by far from the most reliable producers. Moving from one set to another, Cage was not really interested in what he was asked to play. The main thing in this situation has already become earnings, while the reputation and status faded for the actor in the background. Was not an exception to the annoying rules and completely ruined thriller “Mirror”, promising a serious intrigue, and in fact continued the progression of the fall of Nicolas Cage from the very top of the Dream Factory in second-rate Canadian cinema, which continues to attract yesterday’s spoilers of fate and, if possible, endows them with work that sometimes want not to remember. And even though the “Mirror” is not as terrible as some other paintings with Cage, which came out after “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, but this does not add joy.
So, the plot of the film introduces us to Ray (Cage) and Maggie (Robin Tunney), loving spouses in whose life there was a tragic incident. Having lost their beloved daughter, with whom they associated the most joyful experiences and built plans for the future, the heroes gradually move away from each other, but their feelings have not yet cooled down, and therefore they decide to start life from scratch. But since Ray and Maggie are no longer able to live in their old environment, they have to leave the house that constantly reminds them of endless heartache and finally realize a long-held dream. Having bought a small hotel, abandoned in a remote provincial area, the couple decide to put their business in order and, if possible, distract themselves from sad thoughts about the past, endless quarrels and quarrels that exhausted them. Nevertheless, the hotel does not become for Ray and Maggie the rescue shuttle that was supposed to take them away from the annoying reality. Everything happens with accuracy, and vice versa. Dissatisfaction with life continues to strike the key, differing views on a particular situation only worsen, and on top of everything in the hotel there is a very disturbing event with one of the guests who became a victim of violence. For natural reasons, the owners of the institution become one of the suspects, but Ray is not going to expect mercy from the investigation and is going to find the truth on his own. Partly linking the incident with the discovered double mirror, thanks to which you can watch what the guests of the hotel do in one of the rooms, Ray moves in his search much further than expected and came close to the solution, which seriously spoiled his nerves and seriously scared him.
Trying to flirt with such famous films as Psycho and Vacancy for the Victim, director Tim Hunter completely lost the self-sufficiency of his own film, reducing it to a faceless and unacceptably slow action, viewing which can be compared with some sophisticated torture. The very idea of putting the story in the framework of a time-tattered hotel, hiding its numerous skeletons in the closets of waiting for unsuspecting visitors rooms, sounds quite profitable, but the creators could not go beyond the tempting plot backbone. Having no influence on the script work of Matthew Wilder, whose most famous film is the ambiguous “Man to Wolf” with the participation of the same Nicholas Cage, Hunter with absolutely detached attention led the narratives to the final point, almost without thinking about what comes out of his hands. To some extent, this attitude to the “Mirror” on the part of the director is explained by the fact that previously he shot exclusively television series, in which the episodes followed one after another as if on a conveyor belt, and in order not to disrupt the timing it was necessary to urgently bring the work to the end despite all the artistic turmoil. The Mirror thus became Hunter’s long-awaited full-meter debut, which he had long wanted to stage, and yet failed to cope with an empty script offering nothing truly fascinating.
Having managed to agree with Nicolas Cage on cooperation, Hunter hoped that such a famous and continuing to experience a creative thirst for the actor will be able to bring diversity to the Mirror and revive the plot, refusing to move from a dead point, but the director did not take into account the fact that his picture simply has nothing to play. Cage, famous for his emotional outbursts, which made him a truly legendary person even despite all the turmoil in his career, could not find anything significant for himself here that could make him shake up and remember past achievements. The depressingly apathetic hero frankly misses the camera lens and sometimes it seems that he forgets in which tape he is filmed. Nothing can bring Cage out of a dramatic stupor, including risky and piquant scenes designed to bring a spark to the plot. Watching from the sidelines for expressionless neighbors, noisy guests, fatal beauties and an upset wife, the main character seems to hover in the clouds and he does not care at all about the deceased daughter, murders and everything else that occurs in his way. Of course, periodically Cage has to cheer up to bring the culmination of this endless torment, but all his attempts look as strained and implausible as possible. It even reaches the point that far from outstanding actress Robin Tunney, who is also in far from the best conditions of her career, looks much more interesting than Cage and is able to play much more emotions than the discouraging despondency of her on-screen husband.
In the end, I want to say that the “Mirror” leaves almost no impressions. As a tense thriller, Hunter's film is utterly lost as a detective, it is rather weak, and the drama is cut to the root by Nicholas Cage. Do not expect a frank artistic nightmare from him, but nothing worthy of finding here will also not work.
As I watched this movie, that definition was always on my mind. Someone depends on sex, someone – on the constant contemplation of someone else’s intimate life. But everyone around us continues to pretend that absolutely nothing is happening. In general, the inhabitants of the town are quite strange people. They do not ask unnecessary questions, are not sociable, although outwardly quite friendly and friendly. However, for some reason, the feeling of a certain “pre-thunderstorm silence” never left. There was always a sense of anxiety in the air that was about to produce the effect of a bomb exploding. Tim Hunter may well have exploited this hype atmosphere, but the fact is that the plot of the film is almost completely absent as such.
Only from the 50s the plot of the film somehow begins to gain momentum when the line of investigation is tied. However, it is quite difficult to call it an investigation in the full sense of the word: hints between words, symbolic “gifts”, and strange coincidences. It seems that most of the characters are passable and completely random people, because do not expect at least some clear line, as well as an explanation of the complete absurdity that happens in the finale. The audience is simply deceived, not even trying to connect the knots of one rope, but simply leave in English, like the heroes of this film. In the end, he was very disappointed.
The hero of Nicholas Cage with a faceless face all the time wanders around the properties of the hotel, cleans the pool, repairs shelves and outweighs the paintings. He spills only a couple of words with a well-fed cleaner that comes to him in the most erotic dreams, a mysterious seductive blonde, which our hero now and then throws oblique glances because of his stand, and a sexually dependent truck driver Tommy. The latter appears with enviable regularity, constantly demanding the same number 10, and clearly hiding something. There's also an equally odd neighborhood store owner and his three sons with rough looks.
Ray and Maggie recently lost their young daughter, whose death still keeps them awake. Their marriage broke down, so Ray decided to buy a quiet hotel away from civilization so he could start all over again. What's not a dramatic story? However, Nicolas Cage shows almost no emotions in the film. His behavior I would call constantly depressed, so the frequent scandals or attempts to care for his wife looked equally smooth in emotional terms. Robin Tunney's game was also not very diverse.
Interestingly, the director himself specializes exclusively in serial production, and The Mirror is in fact Tim Hunter’s first feature-length project in fifteen years. Without a doubt, it could not but leave its mark. In the script plan, the Mirror is also not without shortcomings and sometimes frankly caused bewilderment. A couple violently argues about the early deceased daughter, Ray is killed because he can not survive her death, but after ten minutes, both happily burn in the casino and have fun to the fullest.
“Mirror” creates the impression of a low-grade passing thriller, a one-view film, which attracts only eminent actors who have long lost their former glory, but still retained their loyal fans. Well, pleasant viewing, lovers of the work of Nicholas Cage, for everyone else, this clearly passing film is not recommended.
5 out of 10
