Day 55 -- The Weather Man

Released: October 28th, 2005

Starring: Nicholas Cage, Michael Caine, Hope Davis

Writer/Director: Steve Conrad/Gore Verbinski

Description: A Chicago weather man, separated from his wife and children, debates whether professional and personal success are mutually exclusive.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

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When an actor fits a character, it is a beautiful thing to watch. Now that does not always equal a good movie, or even a mediocre movie. There are still two components to a film, writing and directing, that determine its quality. Actors are sometimes panned for bad acting when the either the writing was bad, or the director was terrible. Of course the same could be said that a bad actor sours a great script and beautiful direction.

"The Weather Man" achieved the old, 'Two out of three ain't bad'. While not his best performance, Cage did a wonderful job showing the degradation of a man. This is the one case where his overacting tendency helped rather than hurt his performance. His reaction to the apple pie being thrown at him was the perfect blend of ridiculousness and genius; it was the best way to show that he'd finally had enough.

Cage played Chicago weather man Dave Spitz, who is on the verge of reaching the top level of his profession by become the weather anchor for a Good Morning America clone. During what should be the happiest time of his life, he's on the complete opposite end of the scale in his personal life. He has separated from his wife, his daughter's being teased, and his song is about to be molested, and he is becoming more estranged the harder he tries to reconcile.

What this film shows you is that Cage is at his best in a dark comedy. "Raising Arizona" is probably the best example of this because no one could have played that role as well as he did. Cage gets in trouble when he tries too much drama and action without much comedy. Mediocre performances, such as those in the "National Treasure" movies, occur when he tries to be too careful in script choices. Being aggressive with choice can also back fire, which explains "Knowing". Even at age 48, he still appears to be trying to show that he has range as an actor, which is a foolish choice to make because he could make a nice living in dark comedy or Cohen brothers movies.

Despite Cage's performance, the only other actor who was any good was Michael Caine, and he was barely above average for him. Caine played Spritz's dying father, who is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist in the 70s, was the perfect yang to Cage's yin. Every scene in which Dave's frustration reached a crescendo, Robert would be there to bring his son back to reality. It was a very understated performance, and I wished that he was in it more.

Spritzer kids were pretty terrible even for kid actors, which disappointed me because I enjoyed Nicholas Hoult in both "About a Boy" and the British TV show, "Skins". I wished that anyone, but Hope Davis played Spritz's wife. She not offensively bad at acting, but I've never really liked her in anything. Maybe it goes back to her role on the short lived show "Six Degrees", but I don't know, maybe its one of those things.

"The Weather Man" is a well-made movie. Cage is perfect in the role of a spiraling out of, man, and the writing is solid. But the direction was lacking, and I wish I could pinpoint why. Maybe it was because he didn't get any of the actors outside of Cage and Caine to be mediocre. Or maybe because nothing really stood out in terms of a particular shot. Or I didn't get it. Either way, it was a good direction job away from being a good movie.

Rating: 6/10 -- One of the better Cage performance, but the movie itself doesn't separate it self as either good or so bad it's good. Caine was underutilized and Davis was over used, which is to say she was hired. Induced some chuckles out of me, but most were because of Cage and not the writing.