Dying of the Light

2014

Action / Drama / Thriller

27
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 15% · 38 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 15% · 1K ratings
IMDb Rating 4.5/10 10 12094 12.1K

cia central intelligence agency (cia) espionage retirement terrorism

Plot summary

Evan Lake, a veteran CIA agent, has been ordered to retire. But when his protégé uncovers evidence that Lake's nemesis, the terrorist Banir, has resurfaced, Lake goes rogue, embarking on a perilous, intercontinental mission to eliminate his sworn enemy.

Director

Paul Schrader Photo
Paul Schrader

Top cast

Nicolas Cage Photo
Nicolas Cage as Evan Lake
Ovidiu Niculescu Photo
Ovidiu Niculescu as Policeman 2
Elias Ferkin Photo
Elias Ferkin as Kazbeck
Tomiwa Edun Photo
Tomiwa Edun as Mbui
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
750.53 MB
1280*720
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 34 min
Seeds 2
1.43 GB
1920*1080
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 34 min
Seeds 7

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by brchthethird 5 / 10

Mostly just underwhelming

The big story associated with this film is that its director, Paul Schrader, was locked out of the editing room and denied final cut. Subsequently, Schrader and the stars have disowned this version. However, despite their reaction out of principle, DYING OF THE LIGHT isn't that terrible. It's merely underwhelming. Nicolas Cage gives a decent performance as Evan Lake, a veteran CIA agent with recently diagnosed dementia. Upon receiving some intelligence which indicates that a former target may still be alive, he decides to go after them before his disease puts him out of commission permanently. At its core, this film has an interesting concept that is never fully realized to its full thematic potential: two nemeses have one final reckoning while each are battling a debilitating disease. From what I saw, Nicolas Cage put in some good character work, and even gets to "rage" a little bit, but he was still hampered by an editing job that seemed to be going for a more streamlined thriller. Due to this, it felt like there was a fair amount of character development missing, mostly from supporting players but also from Cage himself. His disease doesn't take as big of a role as you might think, given its severity. As far as the rest of the cast is concerned, everyone did a good job but they really weren't given a whole lot to work with. Anton Yelchin was the only other name actor I recognized, and his presence seemed rather perfunctory. Perhaps he would have had a larger role in Paul Schrader's cut, but we'll probably never know unless it gets released on Blu-ray/DVD. All of the technical aspects of the film were good, although it did have the rather depressing color palette associated with low-budget Eastern European thrillers. The editing in the fight scenes was a bit choppy, but the camera-work was OK for the most part otherwise. The score also wasn't too memorable, but it still fit the material to a degree. The only part of it I genuinely liked was the track that played over the closing credits. Overall, I wasn't expecting a masterpiece and of course I didn't get one. However, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be either, somewhat to its detriment. Scenes began and then ended without much incident and didn't contribute much to the overall story. A part of me wished that it was worse because at least then it would be memorable. What I got was purely middle-of-the-road and, dare I say it, a little dull. Those looking for a fired-up Nicolas Cage performance should look elsewhere. You'd be perfectly justified in skipping this.
Reviewed by adamcarter-63372 6 / 10

There Is A Great Movie Here

This film is written and directed by one of my favorite filmmakers working today, Paul Schrader. He's most famous for writing Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. However, he also wrote Bringing Out the Dead and directed Dog Eat Dog which I both love and both star Nicolas Cage. The weird thing is that neither Paul Schrader or Nic Cage wants you to see this movie. This is because the Dying of the LIght was taken away from the filmmakers and re-edited by the producers without Paul Scharders approval. He claims that he was literally locked out of the editing room while producers edited the film to their liking. There are points in this film where it truly shows. The version we got is so on and off. There were scenes where I was completely invested in what was unfolding in front of me and other scenes where it was so dull that I just wanted to pass out. The film has great ideas, but it just doesn't do enough with them and when it does something good, the next scene undoes it. At the end of the film, something happens which I found exceptionally impactful and powerful and could have been a great ending, but the next scene completely stabs us in the back and reverses that decision.The editing is unpleasantly sloppy in places which is most apparent during a brief action sequence halfway through the movie. The main character is also fascinating and while Nicolas Cage does a great job, he just isn't explored enough.There is a great film here but it just doesn't make it's way to the surface. What is at the surface is a strange mixture of great and bad. Some scenes in this film or fantastic and some are trash. I hope Paul Schrader's version of the film gets released because I'm positive it is much better than what we got here.
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