The Weather Man

This is a curious thing. Nicolas Cage plays a TV weather man who seems to be heading for a breakdown after hearing his that his dad (Michael Caine) is dying.

Really, that's about it. The movie goes nowhere and does absolutely nothing. It's beautifully photographed, full of bleak, washed-out colour, but the photography is capturing nothing. Reasonable performances performing fuck-all.

A couple of moments made me chuckle, I must admit. But two in a 97-minute movie which purports to be some kind of black-ish comedy? Pffffft.

I would imagine this was a low-key movie when it started out; that works in my head, anyway. A decent script, a low-budget movie, possibly with a lot more bite to it than it ended up with. But then you get stars involved, and the budget spirals upward… And a big-name director gets attached, and the next thing you know a movie which does nothing but make you wonder how you can get those 97 minutes back is expected to have decent box office.

Hmmmmm. Maybe I should be running a studio, because if Gore Verbinski had come to me with this and said 'it'll cost $35million', I would have told him to fuck off, given him $6m and told him to get on with it. Where the hell did they spend $35m? I can only assume it went on salaries, because nothing happens in this movie to justify that budget. Okay, I know that's not especially high for Hollywood, but even so...

Shite. Avoid, then come back and thank us because you haven't seen this.