Private detective Tom Wells (Nicolas Cage) was waiting for a big case for a long time. Finally it came. Tom was contacted by a widow after a millionaire. When she went through her husband´s safe, she found a mysterious film. It was 8 mm wide and it ran at fifteen frames a second. What was on it, was shocking and horrible. Snuff films were supposed to be just a myth, but that film looked very real. Tom´s assignment was to find out the origin of the film and prove whether what´s on it is real or just a very realistic fake. Tom´s case begins as a very standard assignment but soon changes into descend into his personal hell. After the investigation is over, he will never be the same again.

8mm is only second script written by Andrew Kevin Walker. His debut was dark, depressing thriller Se7en (directed by David Fincher). In my opinion Se7en is one of the best movies ever made, therefore I was looking forward to 8mm very much (and even more, when I found out NICOLAS CAGE should be in it). Walker´s script was picked up by director Joel Schumacher, who made some very good (like Falling down or Time to kill), but also few awful ones (like both Batman Forever and Batman & Robin). 8mm definitely has to be his best movie (even better than Falling down). His directing is almost as superb as Fincher´s. Both films are very dark and depressing. While Se7en was depressing because of the places that the story took place in and the physical suffering beyond anything previously shown in any other movie, 8mm is depressing because of the psychical terror Tom has to go through and the fact, that those disgusting things (all the kinds of hardcore pornography) might be real, which makes you feel rather uncomfortable. And finally...both films have a really "awesome" ending. Something like that is extremely rare to see in Hollywood. I´m kinda sick of all those predictable happy ends, that most of the movies have. But 8mm and Se7en are far from having a happy end.

As I said before, Tom Wells is played by Nicolas Cage. I must confess..I still haven´t seen his Oscar role in Leaving Las Vegas (what a shame), so I can´t compare his Tom Wells with LLV´s Ben. Nonetheless, his role in 8mm HAS to be the next best to the one in LLV, at least. His performance is flawless. First he starts off as a really tough PI, who thinks he´s seen everything and nothing can hurt him, but soon he has to fight for his life and his sanity. In short, this movie shows how talented actor Nicolas Cage is and that is a BIG talent I´m talking about. In my opinion, Nicolas Cage should NOT be forgotten at the next academy awards, he deserves at least a nomination (and don´t forget he is going to be in the newest Scorcese´s movie Bringing out the dead !). Other actors did a great job as well. Joaquin Phoenix as Max California and Peter Stormare as the extreme porn director Dino Velvet portrayed a very interesting characters.

I also found the music to be very good. Damma chose to make the musical score as exotic as the whole movie, so he decided to use Arabian folk rhythms. Believe it or not, but it works. It gives the right feeling to the movie. I must say, that I´m buying the soundtrack, as soon as I see it somewhere.

After I have seen 8mm, I couldn´t stop thinking about it for some time(that´s rather disturbing, when you see things like Beverly Hills 90210 and you think about Dino Velvet.. :-) ). Like Max said : "There are things you're going to see, that you can´t unsee. They get in your head and they stay there !". I cant remember any other movie doing this to me, so I must say this ---------------------------- 8MM IS better than Se7en.

Ps : Hey..maybe I seem like a real pervert to say such nice thing about such a "disgusting" and "horrible" movie, but ......who cares ?!