Nicolas Cage is always good for a surprise when it comes to choosing roles. For example, the Hollywood star, which was longed for by chronic tax debts, has been on the go as a crazy serial killer (“Longlegs”) as a pork-like ex-professional chef (“PIG”) in recent years as an established university professor (“Longlegs”) and well-known businessman, who is increasingly looking to the bum in a sunny parking space (“The” The ” Surfer “). Although the Oscar winner (for “Leaving Las Vegas”) also has a safe fan base in this country because of its versatile slope to madness, it still took a year and a half before “The Retirement Plan“The way from the US screens to the German home cinemas.
The long waiting time is also due to the fact that the film already attaches the flaw of a real mega flop. Because of the strike of the actor union, leading actor Nicolas Cage was not allowed to go on a promo tour for the Gangster comedy in September 2023-in the end we came out of a maues pick-up result of only $ 745,000 on the first weekend, although “The Retirement Plan” ran into more than 1,000 cinemas. For Cage, this meant no less than the worst start of his career. Of course, that says little about the quality of the film. But in fact, in the script of director Tim Brown (“Buckley's Chance”), the many half -cooked gags are particularly noticeable, while the well -prominent ensemble – including Ron Perlman and Jackie Earle Haley – is largely underwhelmed.
Where Nicolas Cage is on it, there is amazing!
Although Jimmy (Jordan Johnson-Hinds) only works as a driver for a criminal syndicate, he plans the theft of a USB stick with a piquant content in order to be able to finance his exit. But the coup fails thoroughly: Gangster boss Donnie (Jackie Earle Haley) snaps Jimmy and his girlfriend Ashley (Ashley Greene), only difficult to hide the database in the backpack of her eleven -year -old daughter Sarah (Thalia Campbell), who puts her in the next plane towards Cayman Islands.
Here Sarah's estranged father Matt (Nicolas Cage) set out in a house on the beach years ago. Matt takes care of his previously unknown granddaughter and, when Donnie's first gangsters arrives around the good -natured Bobo (Ron Perlman) of his fatal talents. Because Matt was traveling as a killer on behalf of the CIA during their professional hours …
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As a choleric roaring gangster boss, Ralph Fiennes is in “Bruges … and die?” with its pithy and funny curses and insults to this day. Jackie Earle Haley (“A Nightmare on Elm Street”) succeeds as an overwhelming crook nerve bundle despite the exalted outfit with bald heads, sunglasses and crocodilla leather jacket, even when a cell phone ruffled, not to laugh at the audience. If he flies with a petrified expression in a plane crowded with disguised pirates, a bearded-brachial hand langer constantly confuses the USB stick and CD together or the evil henchmen are asked for the reason of their stay when entering the Cayman Islands, these are further humorist pipe crepe in the overall extensive script.
The same applies to Ron Perlman, who philosophized as a coarse but warm gangster with Sarah without real punch line via Shakespeare's “Othello” or emphasizes supposed parallels of his biography to that of “Oliver Twist”. In any case, the “Hellboy” star, which is somewhat phlegmatic and stiffly-looking here, is never challenged.
Matt (Nicolas Cage) and his daughter Ashley (Ashley Green) had actually lived apart for years …
Since the rush hunt plot has been quite simple, the director and author Tim Brown, who has appeared as a producer in recent years, is based, at least on a snappy staging element: all reasonably important characters are introduced with Freeze Frame, Name Beautiful and an Acoustic White. This looks pretty, but gauges a complexity due to the unnecessary variety of new figures from the middle section of the film, which is just as silly as the more meaningful puzzle about the content of the USB stick, which only acts as a acting MacGuffin.
After all, as a retired killer, Nicolas Cage is quite fun when he already simulates the old and senile cracker with back problems with an unknown long -hair mane and in the airy flower shirt, so that he can handle back problems with a short dumbbell the next moment. The overall manageable action scenes, in which he diligently and sometimes inventive (such as rope and light gun), are pretty much the only highlight of this overall razor gun.
Conclusion: Nicolas Cage as a tapped ex-killer has his moments. But the simple knitted and almost tension -free plot disappointed as well as the many non -sparkling gags without a sense of situation comedy. Too bad about the prominent (old) star cast!