RUNNING WITH THE DEVIL
US, 2019, 90 minutes, Colour.
Nicolas Cage, Laurence Fishburne, Barry Pepper, Adam Goldberg, Leslie Bibb, Cole Hauser, Natalia Reyes Gaitan, Clifton Collins Jr, Peter Facinelli.
Directed by Jason.Cabell.
Yet another of the many Nicolas Cage films during the 2010s, sometimes six year, most of them action shows – and most of them having a rather manic performance from Cage himself. As here.
However, there is some intrinsic interest in the plot. It goes back into the 1980s and the movement of drugs between Latin America and the United States. It employs maps throughout the film indicating the various steps in the transportation of the drugs, by planes, by vehicles, by boats… The route leads from Bolivia up into Mexico and, with some deviations, to various locations in the United States.
There are some drug investigators, played by Leslie Bibb and Peter Faccinelli. However, the main attention is given to those involved in the transportation, the big players and dealers, the small players, the drivers, pilots, local farmers who execute workers.
Nicolas Cage portrays, along with Cole Hauser, one of the main supervisors of the traffic, involving his going to the various destinations, testing the product, confronting difficulties.
Laurence Fishburne, on the other hand, is involved both with the authorities and with the dealers, spending a lot of the time drug-fuelled along with his friend, played by Adam Goldberg, and some prostitutes, a number of whom finish up dead.
For some the interest in the film will be the participators at each stage, the covers that are used, the vehicles, those involved, the dangers, deaths.
Barry Pepper plays the overall control.
There are complications at the end with confrontations between Cage and Fishburne, once friends, finally confronting each other with some of the drugs that are demanded by the boss. Cage goes over a cliff with Fishburne refusing to help him. While it does seem a surprise for Nicolas Cage to go out of the film substantially before the end, we have been deceived, of course, and he doesn’t die from his fall but returns for a final violent confrontation with Fishburne.
Some different material but, generally, the expected violent style.
