25 Years Of 8MM: Tom Welles’ Quest For Redemption
On February 26th,1999, Columbia Pictures released 8MM, a perverse thriller directed by Joel Schumacher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. It was a marked departure from Schumacher’s previous effort, the critically and commercially maligned BATMAN & ROBIN. Like its predecessor, reviews for his first filmmaking effort of that year were not kind. Despite the film’s critical drubbing, 8MM went on to be a surprise box office success. Nicolas Cage and Joaquin Phoenix headline the motion picture, with stellar supporting work from James Gandolfini, Peter Stormare, Anthony Heald, Chris Bauer, and with (a sadly wasted) Catherine Keener as Cage’s wife.
The Tom Welles (Cage) that opens the picture is something of an upstanding husband and father, who loves his wife, but is nonetheless ruled by ambition. He is a private investigator who tries his best to keep his vices from overwhelming him, save for a frowned upon cigarette habit. The people he works for are all what could best be described as well-heeled elites, with more money than sense, and his ceaseless ambition is his fatal flaw. Welles is a man who wants to believe he is doing the right thing, but the audience sees what drives him—which at least in the early going isn’t as much a desire to do right as it is a desire for advancement. Crossing through the doors, which open on the recommendations of the people he serves, is his true goal...at least in the beginning.
8MM concerns the investigation of the existence of a snuff film. Welles is called by the lawyer of a very influential family, The Christians, who made an obscene fortune in the steel industry. They are a family that can do many good things for the career of Tom Welles. You don’t see his eyes exactly light up with dollar signs at the prospect of working for Missus Christian, but you can feel with each step of the investigation that he wants to impress the matriarch of a grand old money family. Welles is so willing to overlook that the people he is working for could be anything less than upstanding individuals that he agrees to protect them further by starting the investigation as a straightforward missing person's case.
The change in Welles begins almost immediately. His priorities seem to shift, thanks in no small part to his brief encounter with the mother of Mary Matthews (the “missing” woman in question in the alleged snuff film). He sees the hurt and wear on Janet Matthews’ face, played gamely by Amy Morton, that it seems to get under Welles’ skin. She shows him a window into the soul of her daughter. After spending time with Janet Matthews, the reality of young Mary as a human being and not just a paycheck for him becomes apparent to Welles. A sense of some semblance of humanity begins to emerge and it becomes about so much more than just the money, just the opportunity to protect the reputation of a wealthy family, and the advancement of his career. A stepping stone, “as an invitation to their dinner parties,” as Heald’s character, the lawyer Longdale, informs him. The Christians’ trusted attorney recognized the craven ambition in Welles from the beginning. He hired him with the approval of Mrs. Christian, certain he would never succeed in his mission.
After leaving Cleveland, Tom arrives in Los Angeles, and the horror of exactly what he is involved in begins to coalesce for him. We see the seediest underbelly of the City of Angels. A place filled with monsters who prey on the weak. He is guided on his journey into the most depraved aspects of the pornography business by Phoenix’s Max California. Welles meets Max working under the table for cash at the first porno shop he visits. The pair meet all sorts of low-level players in the industry, all of them promising the sickest, most twisted things you could ever watch. The descent into depravity starts to chip away at the humanity that Janet Matthews instilled in Welles. As Max alluded to upon their initial meeting, “Dance with the devil, the devil don’t change; the devil changes you.” Those changes are subtle, but they do not escape the viewer’s notice. The scene Welles is descending into excites and repulses him with equal measure, but he cannot simply give up. He owes answers to a wealthy widow, as well as to the mother of a missing daughter.
The investigation reaches its conclusion in a deserted warehouse in the seedy underbelly of New York. This is where we find the film’s evil behind the curtain. After finding a low-rent talent scout, played with equal parts menace and glee by Gandolfini, who leads Tom and Max to the real villains of the piece. Dino Velvet, played with scenery chewing brilliance by Peter Stormare, and a vicious and cruel Chris Bauer under his mask as “Machine.” It is only through Welles’ determination to see justice brought to light for Mary Matthews that he can escape the standoff with the film’s villains. After Longdale’s role in the machinations of an outwardly normal, yet morally bankrupt, Mr. Christian are revealed, and after no better explanation as to the why of it than “because he could,” Welles sets out on a quest for vengeance. Long gone are the thoughts of career advancement, and even a life in the aftermath. Tom Welles is no longer simply driven to succeed by a quest for future gains, but his humanity has been restored.
While it did not receive the critical acclaim that its creators were hoping for, the film is not without merit. It does succeed as a character study of a man who tries to buy back his humanity, if not his soul. The cast, especially Nicolas Cage, manage to channel a sense of everyman appeal, coupled with a virulent sickness in the character’s core. It is not something that can be seen with the naked eye, but, by the movie’s end, Cage does a thorough job of making you feel that some things matter more than climbing an imaginary ladder of success.
