Tokarev (feat. Nicolas Cage)

This film has a lot in common with Stolen, which came out two years earlier. Cage plays an ex-criminal who goes straight and becomes a successful business man. His boss lets him go clean, because his wife's dying and somebody needs to be around to take care of the daughter. Said daughter becomes a teen and gets kidnapped/murdered.

So Cage and his old buddies go and take out anyone who might have made enemies with them in the past, including every sect of organized crime. And the cops, one played by Danny Glover, want Cage's character to go free. They sympathize, despite all of the recent, extra killing. And there's a lot of violence. While I said I can't sympathize with a protagonist who thinks with his trigger finger, I can buy it with this one. Tokarev is a story of revenge and consequences, and everyone pays.

Despite it's obviously contrived premise, I still think this movie is a cut above Cage's other actiony films of the 2010s. The action is just better. The character arch is effective, and everything is bleak and (fairly) immersive. To top it off, Tokarev gives us a true Nicolas Cage freak-out. I admit some of the acting is weak, and some of the scenes look like they're from a bad tv show, but that's never been enough to ruin the experience.

  1. Raising Arizona
  2. Leaving Las Vegas
  3. Red Rock West
  4. Adaptation
  5. Pig
  6. Birdy
  7. Wild at Heart
  8. Joe
  9. National Treasure
  10. Guarding Tess
  11. Snake Eyes
  12. Dog Eat Dog
  13. Color Out of Space
  14. Mom and Dad
  15. World Trade Center
  16. Peggy Sue Got Married
  17. Zandalee
  18. Prisoners of the Ghostland
  19. City of Angels
  20. Willy's Wonderland
  21. Captain Corelli's Mandolin
  22. Bangkok Dangerous
  23. Drive Angry
  24. Army of One
  25. Lord of War
  26. Gone in 60 Seconds
  27. Matchstick Men
  28. Vampire's Kiss
  29. Con Air
  30. Face/Off
  31. Trapped in Paradise
  32. The Boy in Blue
  33. Honeymoon in Vegas
  34. Deadfall
  35. Amos and Andrew
  36. Moonstruck
  37. Tokarev

  38. The Sorcerer's Apprentice
  39. Knowing
  40. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
  41. Bringing Out the Dead
  42. The Family Man
  43. Stolen
  44. It Could Happen to You
  45. 8mm
  46. The Frozen Ground
  47. Left Behind
  48. Pay the Ghost
  49. Primal
  50. Grand Isle
  51. Looking Glass
  52. Arsenal
  53. Between Worlds
  54. Ghost Rider
  55. Trespass
  56. The Humanity Bureau
  57. Next
  58. The Weather Man
  59. 211
  60. Fire Birds
  61. The Croods

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