Summer of Nicolas Cage Movie #4: Amos and Andrew

1993 semi-satirical comedy

Rating: 13/20 (Jen: 14/20)

Plot: Successful playwright Andrew Sterling moves into his new vacation home on a ritzy New England island. His neighbors spot him trying to hook up his television and, since he's a black man, assume he's robbing the place. They call the police who show up and, since he's a black man, start shooting at him. It's an election year, so when the police chief realizes his mistake, he convinces a drifter/petty thief named Amos to pretend to be a kidnapper. The plan doesn't work as well as you'd think.

First off, is it just me or is Bobby Darin's "Beyond the Sea" used in too many movies?

This isn't a bad little movie. The comedy works even if the satire is too sloppy to make any coherent points. Brad Dourif plays a ridiculous character, Dabney Coleman is really good as the police chief, and our stars do an adequate job. It's not Samuel L.'s typical role. He gets to hit one guy in the head and wrestles around in the grass with Nicolas Cage a little, but he spends most of the movie passively waiting for things to develop. Nicolas Cage is pretty subdued here. He's got a great monologue about sea monkeys ("I wanted my family to be more like a sea monkey family.") and demonstrates his acting prowess in a scene where he chugs a beer and does this weird exaggerated head circle thing. And I'm only four movies in with the Summer of Nicolas Cage, but I've already seen him doing hand-stand push-ups in a prison cell in two of them. I think I may have even seen him doing hand-stand push-ups in a prison cell while "Beyond the Sea" plays in the background in two movies. I'm having trouble deciding whether or not this movie should have had more of a satirical edge. On the one hand, it would have given the movie more substance, but it also could have made the movie preachy. As a comedy of errors, it was fun enough. I don't know if I'd call it "hysteriskt roligt" though. The above poster, by the way, is misleading. Some of you might check this movie out because you like the way Nicolas Cage's hair looks there, but that is not how he really looks in this thing. He's a lot scruffier.

Shane-movies trivia: I hurt myself a little trying to do a hand-stand push-up. I also broke a porcelain figurine. It was all very un-Cage.