Looking Glass (2018)

After wasting 5 minutes to decide which movie to watch, my choice fell on one of the several movies Nicolas Cage has done this year so far, Looking Glass, because it was listed as a thriller and it has Robin Tunney as I was interested in seeing her other than playing Theresa Lisbon in CBS's The Mentalist. 

After losing their child, a couple, Ray (Nicolas Cage) and Maggie (Robin Tunney), buys an old motel in the desert looking for a new beginning. While exploring the motel, Ray discovers a two-way mirror that allows him to see what is happening in one of the rooms --things such as prostitute sex and lesbian encounters-- and he starts spying the occupants. Until he witnesses a murder and finds himself in a cat-and-mouse game.

While the plot isn't nearly as terrible as it is in 211, another of Nicolas Cage's movies released this year, and it is quite imaginative, the final result is just as disappointing. There's a lot going on in the film and yet, at the same thing, absolutely nothing happens. Also, it never becomes compelling, not even for a second, as it lacks any sort of tension and suspense. 

The characters are just as uncompelling. Every single character is thin and unlikeable, especially Nicolas Cage's peeping Tom Ray and his wife Maggie. We are supposed to feel sympathy towards them because they lost their child but it's impossible given the poor writing and the fact that the daughter basically died because of them. As for the murderer, it's not that hard to guess who he/she is. 

The acting, however, is probably the aspect of Looking Glass that shocked me the most. Nicolas Cage is in some sort of passive mode from start to finish and delivers yet another flat performance. He does try to do something though, and so does Robin Tunney, but they were just meant to fail given the poor material. The rest of the cast gives amateurish performances, to say the least. 

Momentum Pictures

At last, there's the tone of the film. Other than the fact that the pacing is all wrong, so slow that challenges you to keep your eyes open even if watched in the morning after a good night sleep (which was my case), it looks like the filmmakers didn't know what kind of film they wanted to make. For this reason, for about two-thirds of its running time Looking Glass is a tedious drama, for the remaining one-third, it tries to be a thriller. It fails as both. 

Damn, I almost forgot to mention the utterly cringy opening titles. They are edited so poorly that I almost stopped watching the film because of them. I should have done that, now that I think about it.