Mom & Dad - movie review

Mom & Dad

Plot: A teenage girl and her little brother must survive a wild 24 hours during which a mass hysteria of unknown origins causes parents to turn violently on their own kids.
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Selma Blair, Anne Winters
Director: Brian Taylor
Certificate: 15 (strong violence, threat, language, nudity, sex references)
Runtime: 1hr 26 mins
Release Date: Friday 9th March 2018

There are hundreds and thousands of genres out there (be them main or sub-genres) so I think, as of now, we can add one more to that selection; Crazy Nicolas Cage movies. Mom & Dad is the newest partnership between Cage and director Brian Taylor having previously collaborated on the critically appraised Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance. Truthfully, I've never been a big fan of Taylor's work, but the chance to see another unleashed Nicolas Cage run amuck onscreen was too good to pass up. Now, having seen the carnage unfold with my very eyes, Mom & Dad does result in being one of Taylor's better features and delivers on the crazy Cage.

I'm not sure if the insurance will cover that.

No one should go into Mom & Dad blind thinking it will be a tense horror about parents who suddenly feel the urge to brutally murder their children. In actuality, this is much more of a dark comedy that doesn't take itself too seriously and just allows the violent Home Alone traps to explode in all of its schlocky ferocity. Trying to explain the film to a general audience is pretty much impossible because this is one bloody weird movie and one that I'm unsure when the director was going for laughs and when he was going for a darker angle. A brutal massacre takes place on a school football court and it felt wrong for me to laugh. To sharpen up the movie, tone needed to be improved as well as a general sense of what this movie wanted to be. As I said in my introduction, Taylor ditches his ADHD style and calms the movie down when necessary. Out of his entire filmography, this is arguably his most grounded and that's quite a statement. However, he still couldn't resist throwing his trademark frantic stamp in a couple of scenes. With editing that can never allow a shot to stay still for a single second and cinematography that looks as if it was shot on a bus driving down a road with potholes, it did seem like Taylor was reverting back to his amateur and unprofessional filmmaking behaviour. The premise of the film is kept ludicrously simple. In a suburban town, somewhere in America, a pandemic sweeps across all parents causing them to irrationally feel the need to kill their children. Imagine Homer Simpson throttling Bart but in this film, he goes through with the crime. Yes, the story is complete bollocks and, after events are triggered, throws narrative and character development to the wind to focus on the ridiculously violent game of cat and mouse in a cocaine fuelled adaptation of Home Alone, but it does actually pose an interesting suggestion. In times of crisis, a parent will always prioritise the protection of their child but Mom & Dad asks, albeit extremely, what if the crisis is the parent themselves?

Tickling. A child's worst nightmare.

FACT: Nicolas Cage said this is his favorite movie in ten years that he's filmed.

And now for the main event; Nicolas Cage. If you're a fan of seeing Cage go nuts for the runtime of a movie, then Mom & Dad can be added to your watchlist. He begins the movie already at an eleven on the crazy scale as he destroys a pool table with a sledgehammer whilst singing the Hokey Cokey and that's even before the urge to kill strikes. Is he preposterously overacting at times? Of course, but I'd expect nothing else from Cage in this film. He giggles like a schoolgirl as he gases his own flesh and blood and has a strange connection to a motorized saw known as the Sawzall because, as Cage so eloquently puts it, "it saws all". Surprisingly, Cage is matched in terms of crazy by Selma Blair who fully commits to her role and taps into areas we haven't seen from her. If the film had taken itself slightly more seriously, she could have been a truly terrifying presence but alas, she's often tasked to hurdle staircase banisters like an Olympian and have the stabbing skills of an East London chav. As for the kids in the centre of this chaos, the film pulled out an unexpected breath of fresh air by making them far smarter than their generic stereotypes usually allow them to be. Their methods and plans of escaping and harming Blair and Cage were inventive and devilishly violent. Unfortunately, the actors in these roles can't muster up the charisma to lead the film and are stuck as faceless, nameless children that would be more suited if this were a YouTube short or a sketch you'd find on late night TV. Mom & Dad also includes a character-type that I detest. Other films usually feature this as well but the inclusion of a teenage girl who happens to be best friends with the daughter of Cage and Blair and also suffers from being a colossal bitch, is a character archetype that had been done to death to the point where it just pisses me off now.

Dinner's ready.

Am I going to remember Mom & Dad for years to come? Hardly, because it was a struggle to remember just to write this review but for the hour and a half as you watch it, there is a sense of entertainment to be had. Cage has gone to another planet in his performance and Blair does her best to catch up to him. The chaos of the film is why you keep watching and when you're not laughing at how ridiculous the circumstances get, you'll be wincing at the brutality of it all.

My Verdict: 6/10

What did you think of Mom & Dad? What is the craziest Nicolas Cage film? Sound off in the comments below.

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