Film / The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

"A grounded, adult drama about two tough, sensitive men and their unlikely friendship."

Javi Gutierrez: Our movie would start out as a beautiful character piece and then, slowly change into a more thrilling...
Nicolas Cage: Hollywood blockbuster. Then there's something for everyone.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is an action-packed 2022 Bromantic Comedy starring Nicolas Cage as a fictionalized version of himself. The film is directed by Tom Gormican, co-written by Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten, and produced by Nicolas Cage, Mike Nilon, Kristin Burr, and Kevin Turen.

Creatively unfulfilled, a cash-strapped Nick Cage must accept a $1 million offer to attend the birthday of wealthy cinephile Javier Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal). The gig takes an unexpected turn when Nick is recruited by CIA operative Vivian (Tiffany Haddish), who has been investigating Javi's connections to the international drug trade. Caught between two huge fans of his movies, Nick finds himself balancing his efforts to entertain Javi with his attempts to uncover evidence of Javi's alleged crimes. Matters are further complicated when a genuine friendship develops between Nick and Javi, the latter of whom has an idea for a future Nicolas Cage vehicle. Even Nick's loved ones get involved in the self-referential action.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent also features Sharon Horgan, Ike Barinholtz, Alessandra Mastronardi, Jacob Scipio, Lily Sheen, and Neil Patrick Harris. The picture premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival on March 12, 2022, before receiving a wide theatrical release on April 22, 2022. The main trailers can be found here and here. The red band trailers can be found here and here.

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This film provides examples of:

• Actor Allusion:
  • Inevitably, the movie delivers an onslaught of references to Nicolas Cage's career highlights.
  • Nick slips a nod to one of Pedro Pascal's best-known TV roles, The Mandalorian, when he quips that the only surefire bets at the box office include Marvel Comics adaptations^note Nicolas Cage had three under his belt, the Ghost Rider Duology and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, when this movie premiered. and Star Wars.
• Adam Westing: Nicolas Cage as portrayed in the movie, according to the actor himself, is much more neurotic and anxiety-ridden than the real Cage was during that period of time.
• Amicable Exes: Nick and his ex-wife Olivia seem to be this from their first scene, at least as amicable as they can be when Nick is... Nick. She mostly just understandably wants him to get his shit together. Whether or not they are actually together again at the end of the movie, she comes to the premiere of his movie he made with Javi and then they go home for family time together with Addy.
• Animation Age Ghetto: Discussed in-universe: When Vivian first meets Nick, she praises his performance in Croods 2, claiming to have recently seen it with her nephew. Martin later admits that he hasn't seen Croods 2, since he feels too old for it at 44.
• As Himself: Played with. Nicholas Cage portrays the character of Nick Cage (duh), while the credits list his younger imaginary version - Nicky - under his real name, Nicholas Kim Coppola.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: Javi has a statue of Castor Troy, Nick finds it "grotesque" wants to know how much it cost. And then offers to pay more to buy it.
• Battle Couple: Javi's assistant/ex-fiancé, Gabriela, helps him hold off Lucas and his goons.
• Becoming the Mask: Nick must go from fighting evil in movies, to fighting evil for real. Additionally, when he appoints Javi as co-writer of his next movie, he only does so as an excuse to continue searching Javi's estate for Maria. However, Nick ends up genuinely enjoying the process of writing with him.
• Bookends: When Nick introduces himself to Javi, they exchange palm-hold-fist salutes. They do this again before Javi goes to hold back Lucas; the last time Nick and Javi appear together until their movie premieres.
• Brick Joke: When Nick is asking Javi what his top 3 favorite movies are, Javi very uncomfortably names Paddington 2 as number 3 to the initial derision of Nick (though Nick is reduced to tears by the end of it when he watches it with Javi). At the end of the movie, Nick asks his daughter Addy what movie she wants to watch for once (instead of choosing for her), and she very uncomfortably mentions Paddington 2 as well.
• Broken Heel: When a pack of enemies chases Nick and Javi through a forest, Nick starts complaining that the loafers Javi gave him lack proper ankle support for running. The duo ends up needing to take a short break, but they ultimately make it back to Javi's truck.
• But Not Too Gay: During the third act, Javi passionately kisses Gabriela on the lips, but only hugs Nick.
• Call-Back: When the Big Bad asks if Nick has any last words, Nick proudly quotes a movie role he lost before accepting Javi's invitation.
• The Cameo: Demi Moore plays the wife in the movie Nick and Javi write.
• Car Fu: Gabriela hits Lucas' right-hand man Carlos by backing up the Land Rover to knock him unconscious.
• The Cartel: Javi is believed to be running a powerful drug cartel. Except the true mastermind behind the cartel is actually Lucas.
• Cassandra Truth: Nick argues that Javi can't be the leader of a powerful drug cartel, as Nick's thespian instincts tell him Javi is innocent, while Vivian and Martin insist that their intel identifying Javi as the mastermind is correct. It turns out Nick is correct and Javi is innocent.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Taken literally with the golden pistols Javi keeps among his Face/Off memorabilia. When Vivian orders Nick to kill Javi, Nick takes the pistols for the task, but ends up firing them at some of Lucas' goons instead. After Javi recovers them, he later uses them to hold back Lucas and his gang.
  • The knife that one of the goons drops in the back of Javi's jeep is used by Nick during the climax to kill Lucas.
• Chekhov's Skill:
  • Nick's wife Olivia is a makeup artist who uses her skills in the final confrontation to create a disguise for Nick to sneak into the Big Bad's compound.
  • Javi often reminds Nick that he did many of his own stunts (citing the running in National Treasure and the driving in Gone in 60 Seconds (2000) as particular examples) to point out that Nick does have the skills to survive their current situations.
• Clothing Switch: Nick and Javi switch shoes while stalling orders to kill each other. When Nick compliments Javi's suede Gucci loafers, Javi suggests that they would look nicer on Nick, then swaps his right loafer with Nick's right taos taupe checkerboard Vans slip-on. After each guy admires how stylish his shoe looks on his friend, Nick asks if Javi wants to trade away his loafers for the complete pair of slip-ons, which Javi delightedly agrees suits himself.
• Conspicuous Consumption: The conversation Nick has with his agent early on in the movie reveals that Nick has been living at the Sunset Tower — a high-class hotel in West Hollywood — for over a year, and has racked up a $600,000 bill just from there.
• Covers Always Lie: The first officially-released still picture of Javi came from a scene in which he wears a Speedo by the pool, but photoshopped some trunks onto him, to make it safer for work. (Some viewers have noticed that Javi's reflection, and advertisements put out after the premiere, still show him wearing a Speedo.)
• Decoy Leader: Javi is ultimately revealed to be this; his father's criminal organization was taken over by his cousin after his father's death and Javi just acts as the public face of the group.
• Disney Death: During the final chase sequence, Javi chooses to stay behind to hold off Lucas and his men, resulting in him getting shot. He later makes a recovered reappearance on the night his movie premieres.
• Drama Panes: When Vivian asks if Nick can find any firearms to kill Javi with, Nick goes to swipe some from the Castor Troy statue. As he silently turmoils over the task, his reflection in the display case overlaps the statue's visage, illustrating his imminent opportunity to live out an action movie.
• Driving a Desk: Some of the driving scenes actually consist of the actors sitting in front of LED screens.
• Famed In-Story: As expected of a world-famous movie star. The plot is kicked off when one of Nicolas Cage's wealthy superfans offers him a million dollars to attend his birthday party. Nick's best-known movies are either name-dropped or excerpted throughout the film, and Vivian stops him for a selfie while planting a tracker on him.
• Fictional Fan, Real Celebrity: Almost every named character loves Nicolas Cage.
• Foreshadowing: At Javi's birthday party, he describes learning to reconnect with his estranged and dying father by watching Cage's film Guarding Tess and how he compared himself to protagonist Doug Chesnic, feeling a duty to safeguard his father, whom he saw as Tess. Nick describes Doug as "a complicated guy" who "had competing allegiances." Nick is feeling personal conflict between helping the CIA and remaining a good friend to Javi. Javi later develops "competing allegiances" between Nick and Lucas.
• Genre Shift: Played with in a meta way. Nick and Javi are workshopping a concept for a movie about the friendship between two men that is a smart and lowkey story, no big explosions or chase scenes, which represents the movie up to that point. Then Nick, at Vivian's insistence, recommends possibly adding a kidnapping subplot to "hook in casual viewers" which frustrates Javi, as he believes this is both a bad idea and coming from Nick's unresolved issues with his daughter. He then proceeds to bring Nick's daughter and ex-wife all the way to Spain to resolve said issues... which indirectly leads to her being kidnapped, leading to a genre shift to a more action-y thriller.
• Gilligan Cut: Nick can't believe Javi's confession that Paddington 2 is his third favorite film of all time, because it made him cry throughout the whole thing, but when Nick agrees to watch it himself, the scene cuts to the movie making him cry as well.
  Nick: Paddington 2 is incredible.
  Javi: I fucking told you.
• Ham-to-Ham Combat: Nicolas Cage and Pedro Pascal both have a history of Chewing the Scenery, which the movie demonstrates through their yelling and facial contortions.
• Heroic BSoD: After Lucas and Javi learn about Nick spying for the CIA, Lucas assigns Javi with killing Nick, threatening to kill Javi for harboring a traitor otherwise. Between Javi's unwillingness to eliminate his friend and idol, Lucas' loss of trust in his cousin, and Nick's family's frustration with Javi's tricks, Javi collapses and cries before attempting the task.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Vivian, and later Javi. The latter turns out to be a Disney Death, however.
• High-Dive Hijinks: invoked During a surprise exercise in improv and Method Acting, Javi tells Nick that they must escape his enemy by diving into the sea. When they resurface, Nick admits that he didn't expect the cliff to be so tall.
• Higher Understanding Through Drugs: Javi shares some with Nick to help begin brainstorming the new script.
  Javi: Nick. I realized that if we are going to create a work of art, we can't just sit and stare at a screen. We have to open our minds to the infinite possibilities of what the cosmos has to offer.
  (Javi pulls out a small brown bottle)
  Nick: What have you got there?
  Javi: Divine inspiration. LSD.
• Homoerotic Subtext: Nick and Javi's bromance is almost painted in a romantic light. They engage in several intimate conversations, share personal items, and eventually admit that they love each other while holding each other at gunpoint. Efforts that the advertisers made to exacerbate the homoeroticism include playing The Turtles' "Happy Together" over a montage of the men emotionally bonding, posting their confessions of love on Instagram on Valentine's Day 2022, and referring to them as "soulmates" in a trailer for the Digital HD release.
• I Should Write a Book About This: Nick agrees to help Javi write a screenplay about their friendship. It gets made into a real crowd-pleaser.
• Imaginary Friend: On a few occasions in the film, Nick receives advice from Nicky, an imaginary personification of his younger, more successful self.
• Killed Off for Real: By the end of the movie, Vivian and Martin are both killed by Lucas's men.
• Killed Offscreen: Martin, Vivian's partner, is shown already dead when Lucas kidnaps Addy and uses Vivian to lure Cage and Javi into a trap.
• Kitsch Collection: Javi has enough Nicolas Cage merchandise and props to neatly fill a shed.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: There are multiple times in the movie where Nicolas Cage will have a conversation with someone about what the movie he and Javi are planning on making should be about. Most of these ideas are direct references to either plot points in the movie that have already happened or are about to happen; things like a scene for the trailer, a kidnapping plot line, and a big Blockbuster finish for the third act.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Lucas ordered Maria's kidnapping without telling Javi, making it impossible for the CIA to learn from him where she went.
• Loony Fan: Javi is a huge Nicolas Cage fan, to the point of having several pieces of memorabilia with Nick's likeness. He also takes movies too seriously for someone who doesn't professionally make any, as shown in this scene of him trying to convince Nick not to quit acting.
  Javi: Whether you like it or not, you have a gift! And that gift brings light! And joy to an increasingly... dark and broken world! And to turn your back on that gift... is to turn your back on the en — entire human race!
  Nick: The human race?
  Javi: I'm afraid so.
• Meta Casting: Nicolas Cage fanboy Pedro Pascal as Nicolas Cage fanboy Javi.
• Mexican Standoff: Nick and Javi end up in one after Vivian and Lucas respectively order them to shoot each other. Neither friend can stand to pull the trigger. Ultimately, vengeful Lucas' gunners chase both men off of the dueling grounds.
• Missing Child: The movie begins with the kidnapping of Maria Delgado, the Catalonian president's daughter, whom the CIA suspects Javi's gang of abducting.
• Mushroom Samba: Downplayed. At one point, Javi convinces Nick to take some acid with him for the sake of inspiration for their screenplay. There's nothing trippy, the two are just incredibly laid back for a while, until they suddenly become very paranoid that people are following them, and they end up panicking and driving like crazy to get away.
• Never Trust a Trailer:
  • The second trailer makes it seem like after Javi learns about Nick working with the CIA, he chases Nick with a shotgun, angrily scolding him for lying. In the actual movie, that confrontation takes place before Javi knows about the CIA recruiting Nick, when he takes a break from shotgun practice to incorrectly guess Nick's reason for adding a kidnapped girl into the script. Lampshaded shortly earlier, when the film cuts from Vivian reminding Nick that his next movie needs "a trailer moment," to Nick firing the shotgun at a clay pigeon.
  • Played for Laughs in the Digital HD trailer, which makes the story of Nick and Javi seem like a Romantic Comedy.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Vivian tries to indirectly trick Javi into revealing Maria's location, by suggesting that Nick add a kidnapping to the script. When he proposes to Javi that "bad guys" abduct his daughter, Javi begins worrying that Nick's family issues have begun limiting his creativity, so he unexpectedly invites Addy and Olivia to work out their problems with him in Mallorca. This leads to Lucas' goons kidnapping Addy.
• Noodle Incident: Martin vaguely cites an incident in Lisbon as a reason Vivian shouldn't involve such civilians as Nick in her missions.
• No Peripheral Vision: While an acid-tripping Nick and Javi outrun some suspicious onlookers, a car driving in from the left abruptly knocks Javi down, requiring him to complete the run while suffering from pain in his leg.
• Pool Scene:
  • Nick and his agent discuss the former's financial issues while sharing a soak at a spa's pool.
  • A while after introducing himself to Javi, Nick lounges by the latter's swimming pool. Javi, Lucas, and Gabriela ^note dressed more modestly than the guys join him, and learn that he plans to retire from acting. He proceeds to drink some alcohol at the bottom of the pool, until Javi pulls him out.
  • Later, Javi plays Truth or Dare with Nick at the shallow end, and convinces him to read a script he wrote.
• Relationship-Salvaging Disaster: Nick regains Olivia's and Addy's respect when he and Olivia work together to save Addy from Lucas.
• Romance on the Set: In-universe, Nick and Olivia fell in love on the set of Captain Corelli's Mandolin, in which he portrayed Captain Corelli, and she worked in the makeup department.
• Rule of Symbolism: Javi pulling Nick up from the bottom of his pool foreshadows the billionaire helping the actor rise from the lowest point of his career. The movie drives it home by cutting not to Nick and Javi resurfacing at the poolside, but to Javi and Gabriela rekindling Nick's passion for storytelling.
• Screw Yourself: During one of Nicky's pep talks to Nick, he ends up making out with him.
• Seamless Scenery: After Vivian wraps up a private phone call with Nick, the movie transitions to his return to Javi's birthday party, by sliding the bathroom walls to reveal the backyard.
• Self-Deprecation: In one of the funniest moments in the movie, Nick sees a $6,000 wax statue of Castor Troy and is horrified, calling it "grotesque"... but offers Javi $20,000 for it, in reference to Cage's bizarre spending habits.
• Smash Cut: Nick's final battle against Lucas abruptly cuts from Addy tossing a knife to Nick, to the ending of the movie Javi and Nick wrote, in which Nick's character stabs the cartel leader.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The movie opens with Maria, watching the ending of Con Air, getting kidnapped by the cartel members as the song "How Do I Live" plays from the movie.
• Stealth Pun: Javi's largest Nicolas Cage poster promotes National Treasure, the title of which could aptly describe what Javi thinks of Nick.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: Martin is killed offscreen and Vivian bleeds out after shooting the hitman that is preparing to shoot Nick and Javi, but it happens so fast that you may not even realize they are dead until they never appear again.
• Take My Hand!: Parodied. At one point, Nick and Javi have to climb over a wall to escape potential stalkers. Javi props up Nick onto the top, but Nick fails twice to pull up Javi, who laments that he has "a very big head." They have a dramatic goodbye... only for Javi to realize that the wall is short, thin, and the corner is right next to him.
  Javi: It turns out we could have just walked around.
• The Unreveal: Before Nick arrives to Mallorca, Javi sends him a script he wrote himself, only for Nick's agent to throw it away unread. Javi later emails Nick another copy, but the audience never learns what it was like. The last time it comes up, Nick says at Javi's party that it's the greatest thing he's ever seen (though he presumably hadn't actually read it) but he'd rather write a new script with Javi instead.
• Visit by Divorced Dad: Nick attends Addy's birthday party early on, but ends up ruining it with his alcoholic antics.
• Who Writes This Crap?!: When Addy watches Nick's new movie, she scoffs that her counterpart sounds too schmaltzy when reminding Nick's character, "I love you, Daddy!" Nick tells her that Javi wrote the line.

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You're Nick, FUCKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING OW WOW, CAGE!