Mandy (2018)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Red Miller	Nicolas Cage
Mandy Bloom	Andreas Riseborough	½
Jeremiah Sand	Linus Roache	½
Caruther	Bill Duke	-
The Chemist	Richard Brake	-
Brother Swan	Ned Dennedy	-
Mother Marlene	Olwen Fouéré	-

Review

Fusing aesthetics inspired by George Miller, Dario Argento, and Sam Raimi (to name a few) with a storyline that explores what would happen if the Manson Family had encountered a 1980s B-movie action hero, this arthouse horror flick seems to want to define machismo for the millennial emos. When Nicolas Cage exacts his revenge accompanied by evocative music and soaked in director Panos Cosmatos' constantly looming red colour palette, he does it in a teary-eyed frenzy, far from Charlie Bronson's stoisism. The problem is just that the film's broad array of ostensible emotions, allusions and references are so obviously gimmicky – concocted and put together for the sake of attention. You feel nothing, because Cosmatos doesn't root his story, his characters and his images in anything but legends and hyperbole. And the visuals, though impressive and ominous at times, cannot carry the film in and of themselves. Mandy works best when at its most overtly self-referencing and comedic, such as in that final scene in the car. British actor Linus Roache seems to be enjoying himself in his role as Jeremiah Sand, an obvious nod to Charles Manson.