Guarding Tess: I’d Choose Mr. Ed
This movie is called a comedy. It is not. This movie is a goddamn mind-fuck.
Okay, before I go into plot details, I just want to show you the DVD case.
On the front, we have our leading lady pointing sarcastically with her thumb at a handsome young Cageman. On the back, Nicolas Cage is looking stoic and serious while MacLaine laughs. She’s probably laughing at what a stuck-up fuddy-duddy he is, right? Hahaha, I wonder what hi-jinks these two are going to get into!
Well let me tell you. Nicolas Cage is going to shoot off a man’s toe during an interrogation and Shirley MacLaine is going to get fucking buried alive.
Written and directed by Hugh Wilson (Police Academy, Down Periscope, Dudley Do-Right), the movie begins with Doug Chesnic (Cage) finishing a three-year assignment guarding former First Lady Tess Carlisle (MacLaine). Upon return to Washington, D.C., he is frustrated to learn that Carlisle has requested that he renew his position as her bodyguard.
He returns to her house and throws a small tantrum, snapping a rose in half and throwing some magazines on the floor. She calls the president and complains, the president threatens to fire Nicolas Cage.
They go to an opera for some reason, and then she falls asleep, and… okay, you know what, listen. The first three quarters of this movie are so fucking boring and unimportant. It’s just a terrible comedy montage where an old lady acts spunky and it frustrates Cage. I don’t want to describe it, and frankly, you don’t want to hear about it. You just need to know that she’s acting out because her husband is dead and she’s sad about it. So just imagine I described some unpleasant early 90s comedy tropes.
Alright, so Nicolas Cage and her become friends by the end of the montage, and then she gets kidnapped. The movie takes a fucking bizarre twist. Cage’s character becomes soft-spoken and depressed, the jokes just completely disappear, and even the music (scored by Michael Convertino of ‘The Santa Clause’ fame) slows down into a deep, grim dirge. The movie just grinds to a complete stop, and all of the characters who were laughing and goofing and exasperatedly grimacing before are worried about finding this old lady who they suggest multiple times may have been murdered.
Nicolas Cage goes to the hospital where the driver is, somehow figures out that the driver is involved (he has burns on his neck? Or something?), and then threatens to shoot the man in the face. Nicolas Cage is crying, screaming, swearing, he’s in a full-blown Cage Rage, and then he shoots this guy’s toe off. There is another secret agent standing RIGHT NEXT to Cage who does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to prevent this clearly unstable and upset man from blowing a man’s toe off in a hospital.
The driver, having had his FUCKING TOE SHOT OFF, immediately gives up as Cage threatens to shoot off another toe. He tells Cage that his sister and her husband have kidnapped the First Lady, and divulges their location.
SWAT swarms a small shack before throwing in smoke grenades and aggressively tackling the impoverished couple with shotguns in their faces. The man reveals that they fucking BURIED THIS OLD WOMAN ALIVE. WHY. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT. THAT DOESN’T MAKE ANY FUCKING SENSE, KIDNAPPER. Cage freaks the FUCK out and digs this woman up. Thought covered in dirt and coughing a little, she immediately starts cracking wise with Nic Cage in a heart-warming manner.
Hey, Hugh Wilson. What the fuck!? WHAT. THE FUCK!? This is supposed to be a fucking light-hearted COMEDY ROMP. How are you gonna sit down in the writer’s room and say “Hey, why don’t we bury an old woman alive and have Nicolas Cage mutilate a man to find her?” WHAT THE FUCK HUGH WILSON.
Jesus Christ. Cagemarks. We got a decent six in here!
Shirtlessness: Fully clothed throughout, sorry folks.
Shaving: Nah.
Cage Scream: We get some pretty solid shouts, and while none of them are really noteworthy, I’d still give the Cage Scream a check.
Over-acting: At one point, MacLaine asks Cage, “Between the opera and Mr. Ed, what would you choose?” To which Cage whispers dramatically, “I’d choose Mr. Ed.” For my younger readers (who aren’t obsessed with pop culture in an unhealthy manner like I am), Mr. Ed was a show about a horse who sometimes wore glasses. Nicolas Cage delivers this line with Oscar-worthy gravitas.
Under-acting: After we find out that the First Lady has been kidnapped, Cage’s intensity drops (briefly) down to an absolute zero. Even though it’s incredibly well-acted, it’s so weirdly out of place in this movie. Like he walks into a room and every agent is running around on the phone and shit, and he’s like “Could you put something under that so it doesn’t scratch the table?” It’s a disaffected attitude that actually works within the scene, but it’s bizarrely out of place in what is supposed to be a “comedy.”
Describing Violence: Oh yeah, Cage tells the driver that he’s going to shoot him. And then he shoots him. Goddammit Cage.
Running: Shit yeah you know he runs in this, he’s a secret agent.
Kissing: Cage doesn’t kiss anybody in this film. Did I mention that he shoots a guy in the fucking toe, though?
This movie was not good. It had all the unpleasant staples of a hastily put-together early 90s comedy, but none of the light-hearted charm of something like Wilson’s Police Academy or The Santa Clause. The sudden and drastic shift of the tone in the third act is jarring to say the least, and the closure provided to the audience is forced and ham-fisted. MacLaine was buried alive for almost 24 hours, Cage shot a man’s toe off (did I already say that or no?), and then she’s cracking jokes with him? It’s supposed to represent her indomitable spirit, but it just comes off as callous and unrealistic.
May the President always call you while you’re on the toilet,
Nat
P.S. Hey, it’s uncle Dursley and the bodyguard from Dollhouse! Neat.
