Sometimes, it wins him an Oscar, other times it just inspires YouTube tributes set to the Benny Hill theme song. We’re talking about Nicolas Cage’s crazy streak, and it’s back on the big screen again this weekend in Drive Angry. Cage plays a guy who breaks out of Hell to stop a cult from murdering his baby granddaughter. And if his performance isn’t more over-the-top than that premise, demand your money back. Or, you could just check him out in these five flicks. Dose.ca‘s Kat Angus and Leah Collins rank them in ascending order from “off his meds” to “Crazy-Town, U.S.A.”
5. Johnny Blaze (Ghost Rider, 2007): When will movie characters learn not to sign contracts with demons? Unfortunately for Johnny, he signs the contract by accident (always read what you’re signing, kids), locking him into a lifetime of indentured servitude as Mephistopheles’ bounty hunter of souls. This means riding a motorcycle and, for some reason, Johnny’s skull is on fire. How this helps him track down souls, we don’t know, but it apparently doesn’t hinder his attempts to win the heart of Eva Mendes. Why do beautiful women have such low standards in Cage movies?
4. Big Daddy (Kick-Ass, 2010): It’s hard to get crazier than a disgraced former cop who dresses up like Batman and trains his nine-year-old daughter to be an unstoppable killing machine. But Big Daddy’s got a dream, and that’s to take down the evil crime boss who left his daughter without a mother. If that means robbing a little girl of a childhood and teaching her to swear (and kill) like a sailor, so be it. Hey, at least she won’t have problems with bullies.
3. Castor Troy (Face/Off, 1997): It doesn’t get crazier than forcing surgeons to give you John Travolta’s face, and yet, Cage goes there … and beyond. As “freelance terrorist” Castor Troy, Cage faces off, so to speak, against his arch-nemesis, FBI agent Sean Archer (Travolta). The twist? They’ve switched faces! When Troy falls into a coma, Archer steals his face so that he can infiltrate Troy’s inner circle (of course). But in ’90s action movies, it’s all about taking an eye for an eye, a face for a face. When Troy wakes up, he takes Archer’s face, and from there, stylized John Woo gun battles and general crazy ensue.
2. Terrence McDonagh (Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, 2009): There are Cage movies where his crazy stands out like a bad wig, and those where it’s nurtured and allowed to roam free, culminating with a scene where he’s high on crack and improvising a manic monologue about Renaldo Hayes sprouting antlers and scoring a touchdown. Bad Lieutenant falls in that latter category. Cage plays a cop addicted to Vicodin (and alcohol, and cocaine, and crack, and heroin) ostensibly investigating the murder of six African immigrants. The plot is secondary, though — as you can probably gather from my mention of that Renaldo Hayes screed.
1. Edward Malus (The Wicker Man, 2006): You’ve seen all 10 kajillion YouTube mash-ups and you giggle every time you hear the phrase “Oh, no. The bees!” Yes, it’s the role so incredibad it became a meme. Ostensibly the plot is about a cop (Cage) who follows the trail of a missing girl to an island village, where he encounters an increasingly sinister society. But really, it’s a flick about Cage running around (usually while screaming or pointing a gun), punching old ladies, punching old ladies while wearing a bear costume, and eventually shrieking to death while CGI bees crawl all over his face. So, basically, it’s awesome.