★★★ out of ★★★★★
Intensity: 🩸🩸🩸1/2 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Yuval Adler
Official synopsis: After being forced to drive a mysterious passenger (Nicolas Cage) at gunpoint, a man (Joel Kinnaman) finds himself in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse where it becomes clear that not everything is as it seems.
Please allow me to introduce myself/I’m a reviewer of debatable wealth and taste/I’ve watched movies for long, long years/Kept up the cinematic faith
I was ’round when Nicolas Cage/Debuted in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, great!/He made damn sure that Vampire’s Kiss/And The Wicker Man sealed his fate
Pleased to meet you/Hope you guess Cage’s name/But it shouldn’t be puzzling you/About the quality of his game
Cage’s Passenger sticks around Las Vegas/And lets The Driver (Joel Kinnaman) know it’s time for a change/He threatens to kill The Driver and some innocents/While The Driver pleads in vain
They stop to fill the tank/And the suspense gets cranked/While The Driver’s pregnant wife rages/And his understanding of the situation seems to be a blank
He’s displeased to meet The Passenger/Played with verve by Cage, oh yeah/And what’s puzzling viewers/Is the nature of his game, oh yeah
I watched with glee/For scene after scene/As the two men fought for miles and miles/About the tragedies they made/I shouted out/Who killed who?/But after all/That would be a spoiler if I told thee
Let me please introduce this film/It’s a work of high production values with tension well braced/And it lays traps for viewers/Who get swerved before the end of the chase
Pleased to tell you/The screenwriter’s name, oh yeah/For Luke Paradise/Has crafted a thrilling game, oh yeah
Pleased to tell you that Adler also receives acclaim, oh yeah/But what’s confusing viewers/Is who to side with in this game
Because The Passenger seems to be a criminal/And The Driver ain’t no saint/With his dyed-red hair, The Passenger looks like Lucifer/And happily Cage shows no restraint
So if you watch this/You might not have empathy/For either character nor their fate/But the suspense is undeniable/And the action is violence laced, mmm yeah
Pleased to tell you/That if you like Nic Cage, mmm yeah/Sympathy for the Devil/Shouldn’t leave you in a rage
Review by Joseph Perry
Sympathy for the Devil, from RLJE Films, debuted in theaters on July 28th, 2023.
