Courtesy of TIFF
Nicolas Cage has made a living in the film industry within the past couple of decades as a “do anything” type of guy.
A cosmic sci-fi horror about an indescribable color? He’ll do that. A twisted comedy about parents who desperately want to kill their kids? He’ll do that. A psychedelic fantasy action thriller about a guy avenging his murdered girlfriend? He’ll do that. Various indie crime movies, or even a movie where he gets to play multiple versions of himself? He’ll do it all!
In the past few years, Cage has been engineering something of a comeback, attempting to win back some of the awards-y prestige he had in the ’90s and early 2000s and pretty steadily succeeding at it. His turn as a former celebrated chef-turned-woodland-misanthrope, who goes on a doomed journey to find his stolen truffle pig in Pig, is solid evidence for the Cage comeback. He’s the type of guy who is great even in movies that are bland-to-bad otherwise—as is the case in Gabe Polsky’s understated western Butcher’s Crossing, premiering at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.