If you can book a movie star as a private clown for his birthday party for a measly million, then there's probably something wrong with his career.

And that's exactly the case with Nick Cage, a slightly deranged idol with obvious parallels to real-life star Nicolas Cage.

Nick (strictly speaking: the fictional role that Nicolas Cage plays here) has good reasons not to turn down the million.

Peter Korte

Editor in the feuilleton of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper in Berlin.

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He has huge debts and a broken family.

He sees himself on the verge of the "role of his life" from time to time, but then something always gets in the way, primarily himself, because Nick is a difficult star.

So he makes his way to Mallorca, where an olive oil magnate named Javi wants to fulfill a dream.

Because he has more plans than just throwing a party with an extravagant guest.

He wants to make a movie with Nick Cage.

And he is inspired by all the films that Nicolas Cage has already made.

If you were to ask a complete stranger on the street if they knew a Nicolas Cage film, the chances of getting a positive answer wouldn't be that bad.

"Wild at Heart" for example or "Leaving Las Vegas", or "ConAir" or "Moonstruck" or "The Legacy of the Knights Templar".

You could say: Nicolas Cage is omnipresent, he is unmistakable, but he has done so much that one no longer really knows who he actually is.

Tom Gormican bases his film "Massive Talent" on this observation.

He really teases Nicolas/Nick.

Even the title is more than sarcastic: At least as an actor, he wasn't considered to be "massively talented" until now, rather someone who held out his characteristic visage, sprinted through hail of bullets on command and romantically languished from time to time.

He makes cinema about the cinema

The mere fact that someone could come up with the idea of ​​making a film like "Massive Talent" about him of all people seems bizarre at first, but soon becomes compelling.

Gormican shows Cage from many perspectives.

It's delicious, for example, how Javi reveals the original scene of his enthusiasm: The trigger for him was "Tess and her Bodyguard", a comedy with Shirley MacLaine.

Now that's really light and a bit sentimental fare, nothing a man would normally brag about.

But Gormican shows in between that Cage is not only an idol of masculinity, but also someone for the emotional balance.

However, "Massive Talent" strictly adheres to the rules.

On a first level, of course, a film starring Nicolas Cage has to offer action.

And so Tom Gormican (who co-wrote the screenplay with Kevin Etten) mixes realities like a master: a secret service thriller alongside a romantic comedy and a bromance.

He makes cinema after cinema, but never leaves the stale aftertaste of postmodern arbitrariness, but surprises with ever new facets of Nicolas Cage's star mythology.

To make things even more insane, Nick is also plagued by a double named Nicky (played by a certain Nicolas Kim Coppola, the real name of the real-life star).