Army of One

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🎙️ EPISODE 334: 03.16.2021 Starting in 2020, I decided to watch & review the entire Nicolas Cage filmography in alphabetical order. This is 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔜𝔢𝔞𝔯 𝔬𝔣 ℭ𝔞𝔤𝔢 – Chapter 6. I am still at the very beginning of this journey (film #7 out of 100+) but I can say that this one, a very bad 2016 movie directed by the normally reliable Larry Charles, is by far one of the more inscrutable of the bunch: a biopic based on a story that seems remarkable on the surface but is so insignificant in reality that the "true story" aspect feels like an afterthought, featuring Nicolas Cage doing one of the wildest voices he's ever attempted and a mostly bored-looking Russell Brand as "God." This film is not old but I can honestly say that I had zero idea of its existence before breaking down Cage's filmography in alphabetical order when I started this project. It is, by any decent set of metrics, a very, very bad movie. Essentially it's a comedy without a single laugh or any speck of detectable humor whatsoever outside of Cage's sheer aura and his WTF voice work. And on that latter point, does this even sound like the guy he's portraying?

(The archival footage is from the credits of the movie, BTW/FYI)

I'm going to get into the whole plot recap thing now, though I don't want to. At all. I can't completely pan this even if it is begging for me to do so. Cage's performance is just too out there and... Cageian. I've already seen him phone it in (211) and/or mostly half-ass it (A Score to Settle) to widely varying results. But this is something else. This is Nicolas Cage referring to Osama bin Laden as "Binny Boy" over and over again.

Army of One follows Gary Faulkner, an ex-construction contractor and unemployed handy man who believes that God has sent him to capture Osama bin Laden "for justice and stuff." The story is based on the real-life Faulkner, who traveled to Pakistan looking for bin Laden.

The film starts off with Cage doing The Voice™ while getting dialysis...


Now, let's compare that to a clip towards the end of the film to see if the voice sounds the same...


That's fine. Everything's fine.

Later on, while he's getting dialysis again, he meets Russell Brand ("God") in a scene with, umm, some editing choices...

Listen. This movie sucks, that much we know. But to explain why it sucks isn't necessarily that easy because Cage is really going for it. Russell Brand is doing the opposite of that. He could not seem more bored and embarrassed to be there. It sucks. I'm fairly indifferent towards him as an actor and as a comic, but this was hard to watch.

Anyway, "God" sets in motion the "plot" of this film, which is that this bumbling idiot is going to try and fail to catch Osama bin Laden and bring him back to the U.S. "for justice and stuff..."


Then Matthew Modine shows up...



To think of a dumber movie for these two to have their first and only onscreen reunion in 32 years. As a sidebar, Birdy might be the one film of the 100+ in this project I'm most excited to rewatch. I have no idea if it'll hold up or even if people love that movie generally, but it was one of the first experiences that struck a nerve with me and cemented my love of cinema at an early age. For now, I got to watch Cage con him out of money to buy a boat to sail to Pakistan to capture "Binny Boy" Osama bin Laden.

The sailing to Pakistan thing doesn't work out because he has no idea how to sail or, generally speaking, a clue about how to anything aside from building wheelchair ramps. He departs San Diego and crashes the boat in Mexico, the first of several failed attempts to get to Pakistan where he almost kills himself.

The next attempt involves him buying a hang glider and going to Israel and attempting to hang glide from Israel to Pakistan, which he does not succeed in doing. However, that whole bit was fuel for an incredible failed setup. He randomly asks the guy selling him the hang glider what the best song to hang glide to is and the guy says Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'" and then when he literally falls out of the sky in Israel they play the saddest music I've ever heard: a soundalike instrumental version of that song because they obviously couldn't get the rights to the real thing...


Why even leave that in there if you can't get the real song??? That is maddening, and kinda hilarious? According to the internet, in a 2020 interview, Cage revealed that the released version of the film was recut by Bob Weinstein without Larry Charles's permission and Charles's original version remains unreleased. I'm not saying there's any chance that a good movie exists somewhere in here, but that's worth considering on some level, I suppose. Decisions in the edit are at the forefront of this movie's problems and that's never more clear than in the hang glider sequence.

One quick shoutout to Wendi McLendon-Covey, who's been in so much stuff over the years, most notably Reno: 911 and a small but memorable role in the recent Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar (excellent movie–read the review!). She plays Cage's love interest for some reason in this, and she's also trying her damndest in spite of the colossal pile of crap she was handed...


Eventually, he gets a visa to go to Pakistan because... I forget why–it doesn't matter–and he hops on a plane...


The shit in Pakistan is truly awful and the worst stuff in the movie. Cage is unhinged and it's just an endless parade of unfunny, xenophobic goofs...


It does, however, offer an interesting precursor to the character he would hone in Mandy: total psychopath in tighty-whities...

Dwight from The Office and this guy from [insert the thing you know] show up as C.I.A. agents stationed in the region and their thing is, you guessed, one big failed comedy routine. (Paul Sheer and Will Sasso also feature in small roles, just so you know a couple more names forever tainted by a connection to this.) Oh, and I forgot to mention that their is a narrator popping in and out who is doing one of the worst Ron Howard in Arrested Development voices you'll ever hear. Truly atrocious crap which added nothing to the movie. You'll hear him in a few of the clips I've posted here.

Cage as Gary Faulkner continues to go further and further off the rails at this point as his uncontrolled diabetes go haywire and he has a dream about a hip-hop commercial bin Laden and then a fever dream wherein he and "Binny Boy" do dialysis together before they have a samurai sword fight...


It's all so incredibly stupid. The C.I.A. agents find him unconscious, and bring him to a hospital before shipping him back to America. He kinda sorta settles down with Wendi McLendon-Covey but goes apeshit when Obama announces that WE GOT HIM, totally convinced that it's a lie and bin Laden is still at large. But then he settles back down again. Credits roll and we get to see clips of the real dude on talkshows and shit. I don't remember this story at all but then again I wasn't obsessed with the post-9/11 fallout or news in general in 2010.

This thing feels almost impossible to score. On the one hand, it delivered on affirming the thesis of this project. Nicolas Cage is captivating here. Working with an abysmal screenplay and, all apologies to Larry Charles, an equally bad production on the whole, he never waivers. He's TRYING. With his truly insane late 2010s output, averaging about two films a year where he was almost always the standalone lead, I wanted to see what he was bringing to the table as a 50-year-old. And in the case of Army of One, he is all in, 100%. Whatever that's worth.
THE VERDICT: 4 CAGES OUT OF 10 • CLICK HERE for all 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔜𝔢𝔞𝔯 𝔬𝔣 ℭ𝔞𝔤𝔢 Chapters + Ongoing Rankings.

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 333B - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 335 ⫸

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