Made by Nicolas Cage superfans about Nicolas Cage superfans for Nicolas Cage superfans, The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent features Cage not just giving boilerplate action movie tropes a good workout, but also enduring many references, deliberate and opaque, to his body of work. Other movies that are relevant to the Cage filmography also come into play in the film, either obliquely or directly. Some may even be accidental, but to fully embrace the “nouveau-shamanic” sensibility of the actor himself, as described by his fictional counterpart in the film, we must surely understand there are no accidents.
Direct name-drops and/or actual footage from Nicolas Cage movies
Con Air
The movie opens with the climactic family reunion scene from Con Air, with Cage’s long-haired Cameron Poe finally bringing the stuffed bunny to his daughter. The movie is being viewed by Maria (Katrin Vankova), a teenage girl enthralled with the performance. When she’s suddenly kidnapped by masked men, Unbearable Weight’s B-plot kicks in. It turns out she’s the daughter of the Catalonian president, and she’s being used to leverage him into dropping out of the coming election. The CIA are not happy with this state of affairs.
Wild At Heart
As Cage worries about the possibility that his star is fading in Hollywood and his money is running out, he hallucinates “Nicky,” a younger version of himself from the days when he was an indisputable A-lister. Nicky wears a T-shirt that name-checks David Lynch’s Bizarro World take on The Wizard Of Oz, in which Cage memorably channeled Elvis in his role as Sailor Ripley.
As Cage is flown out to Mallorca on a private plane to meet wealthy superfan Javi (Pedro Pascal), who’s paying him $1 million dollars for a personal appearance, Cage’s Michael Bay-directed action opus plays as the in-flight movie, showing the scene in which Cage instructs Sean Connery to “Cut the chit-chat, A-HOLE!”
Moonstruck
Cage’s presence interrupts a CIA stakeout of Javi’s compound by two CIA agents, Vivian (Tiffany Haddish) and Martin (Ike Barinholtz). While Martin recognizes Cage first, Vivian mentions Moonstruck as the movie of his she likes.
Face/Off
Martin prefers Face/Off, which will come up again… and again. Likely because it is generally Film Twitter’s favorite big-studio Cage action movie.
The Croods 2
In order to plant a tracer, Vivian greets Cage at the airport under the pretense of being a huge fan of this animated caveman sequel. Deadpan and unenthused, Cage mutters, “I like that movie, too. I made that movie with Emma Stone.” It’s exactly the sort of noncommittal comment a celebrity would make in hopes of placating an annoying fan.
Face/Off, again
When Cage meets Javi, they discuss favorite movies, and Javi’s No. 1 is Face/Off. We will later discover that a life-size waxwork of Cage in Face/Off, complete with two working golden guns, is the centerpiece of Javi’s Nicolas Cage collection.
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
A serious Oscar-bait literary adaptation in which audiences didn’t take Cage’s Italian accent very seriously, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, in The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent, is the “underrated” movie where Cage met his latest [in-story, fictional] ex-wife Olivia, a makeup artist.
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