Oscar winner Nicholas Cage flounders in this Paul Schrader (Affliction/Hardcore) vehicle from 2014 which follows the decline of a CIA operative's career (he's starting to show cognitive decline) as he tracks down a terrorist who tortured him years before (we see the session at the start of the film) w/rumors swirling his perp is still alive. Getting the news he's soon to be put out to pasture, Cage commiserates w/a colleague, played by the late, great Anton Yelchin, & they formulate a plan to head to Europe since their target, Alexander Karim, who's also suffering from a degenerate affliction, needs attention from a doctor to administer an experimental drug on him w/Cage taking the place of the doctor which takes up the film's last third. Coming out during (& possibly still in the midst of) Cage's 'make any movie you can to satisfy my tax bills period,' the only reason I tuned in was for the cast (French actress Irene Jacob also shows up as a foreign contact of Cage's) but then when the credits rolled & seeing Schrader's name (which according to its Wiki link the final cut was taken away from him by the producers) my heart sank since the film's story is fairly conventional but usually Schrader can give it his gloss to make the film more palatable but here the low budget sabotages the scope of the story & even Cage's infinitive powers can't save this turkey.
