Oh God. Oh my God.
Nick, I think you have the better face for Ron Perlman.
Yeah, I do have a large head.
Well, also, you can do better faces than me.
I figured I could just do cage.
That's not a hard face.
Yeah, exactly.
Welcome to a special episode of Cage Match,
Colin Aron, about way of meeting Nicholas Cage,
Aron de Bout.
Way of meeting Nicholas Cage.
I am Sean here with Nick.
I'm Nick and Peter, producer Peter.
Hi.
And we are doing a quick little episode
about Nicholas Cage's new movie, The Retirement Plan,
which did come out a couple of weeks ago.
But I was in Portland.
Yeah. And you were in Florida.
It had a really weird release situation
where it was supposed to come out like a month earlier
and then didn't. Yeah, I got punted out
for the next month. Confusing reasons.
I who knows what happened.
I'll never understand what happened
with the release of that movie.
Yeah. And then it came out.
And did you see it opening night or opening day?
Yeah, I caught a matinee of it on opening day.
Croud of theater packed.
All by myself, which was great for taking notes and laughing.
But not great for box office numbers.
Yeah. And I saw it with one person.
So, yeah, I saw it with two people there.
But that was Nick and Josie. Yeah.
It's it's kind of a shame, I feel like.
I don't know if it was just a lack of marketing or something, but.
I mean, it's got no marketing,
but it got a theatrical release.
Like they put some clout behind it.
I mean, we have no this movie was coming out
if we didn't do this podcast.
No. All right, then.
Which is too bad, because honestly,
the premise of it is pretty funny.
Yeah, there's this couple who are trying to get out of like shitty gang life.
Like the husband's a driver for a mobster.
So he steals a thing and the hard drive.
Yeah, hard drive. It's a flash drive.
And or a desk.
So he steals a thing, a hard drive.
And in the process gets caught.
The wife ends up getting the hard drive
and their daughter out to her father's house,
which happens to be Nicholas Cage, villains pursue Nicholas Cage rebuffs.
And it becomes like this big action comedy.
Lots of just like humorous encounters with bad guys
such as Jackie Earl Haley and Ron Perlman.
Jackie Earl Haley in his most mumbly role since Rorschach.
Yeah, I enjoyed his just like very hot temper in this movie.
He was on edge the whole time, but also just like the shaved head
and the goatee with his sweet like crime jacket and club shirt.
Oh, my God.
Can we put this in the upper echelons of crime jackets like this?
This is one of the best crime jackets I've ever seen.
Like the alligator like jacket.
Yeah, it was resplendent.
Great performance by Jackie Earl Haley.
Ron Perlman, just the dopey.
That's Bobo.
Yeah.
Terrific.
I enjoyed him a lot.
His posture in this movie just made me feel like it was some kind of cartoon
the whole time. How big is Ron Perlman?
I don't know.
How boy-sized.
Oh, OK.
That's a measurement I know.
I did say this when you were watching it last night, though.
Ron Perlman looks so much weirder when he's not covered in prosthetic makeup.
He looks more like more of a muppet.
Yeah, he's an odd shape of person.
He's an odd cut of man.
Yeah.
So I've just found three different heights and weights for him, and I don't
think that any of them can possibly be accurate.
Oh, he's on the Donald Trump scale.
Yeah, he's anywhere from 511 to 611 and anywhere from, I don't know,
183 pounds to question mark.
183 seems light.
It seems light.
That's my weight.
My weight.
Yeah.
So like Debbie putting on the short side, 30 pounds on me and I'm not Ron Perlman-esque.
So wait, I mean, that's mostly head though.
You got a maximum.
That's my height and your weight.
That's not right.
No, that chance.
No.
Who else was in the cast?
Oh, Ernie Hudson, Ashley, something, something.
Ashley Green from like the Twilight series plays Ashley.
Yeah, Ashley Ashley.
She was the weakest performance.
Do you think they just gave her character the same name as her because she kept
getting confused?
Who am I?
Her character also had the least like meaningful screen time.
Even Hector had better screen time moments or Christopher.
Which one was Christopher?
Christopher was the like final top tier backstabbing dude.
OK, the dude that comes in at the end and like they give him the thing.
Oh, sure.
This movie has about too, too many put betrayals in it.
Yeah, the chain of betrayal.
Yeah.
Everybody's like hooked on to somebody else.
But not in a compelling way, like Burn after reading her clue, where like the
absurdity of how many people are stabbing each other in the back is interesting.
No, this is just like presented very business as normal.
Yeah, it's a CIA thing.
Yeah, I really did like the and organized crime.
Like kid performances are usually pretty fucking mid overall.
But Talia Campbell as Sarah, I thought did a really good job.
Yeah, I liked her football shirt.
Just football.
Do you like football?
I like football.
I want to be a quarterback.
I wanted her to say I want to be a football.
I love some of those lines.
I love football.
I want to be football.
Her interactions with Ron Perlman are fucking great.
You've got to admit that they are.
Ron Perlman is a gem in this movie.
Watching Nick Cage get to just full on tackle like body.
Ron Perlman was a lot of fun to watch.
Like, oh, one of you probably broke a hip there.
Yeah, this is so old.
Still so much better than like an Expendables movie, though.
Yes. Yeah.
I don't think we got to the like actual premise because I kept
interrupting of Nick Cage being a retired assassin.
Right. That's kind of like the key key part of the entire thing.
They said he's able to kill motherfuckers real real well.
As long as the camera is shaking and not focusing on the action.
Don't worry about that.
You know, I've honestly seen worse fight scenes from younger people recently.
No, it's true.
People also die real easy in this movie.
I loved in the boat scene, the boat fight with Ernie Hudson,
just like how many bodies fall in the water.
Oh, yeah, there were 10 bad guys.
Yeah. 10 bad guys go down in that fight.
Oh, what was it in the hallway when they're like trying to get into the room?
You just have the wide range of like varying goons.
My favorite goon is definitely goon who can't put his arms down.
Because he's so so yoked.
Just so fucking beefed out.
He's just standing there like, oh.
He like to turn his head.
He kind of does the Michael Keaton Batman where he just turns his whole body
because his neck is just one big muscle.
Yep. As we all know, a strong boys.
Yeah.
Little buff boys over here.
OK, so what did you think of Cage's performance overall, though?
I thought it was a lot of fun.
I mean, it's goofy.
It's super lighthearted.
I did love when his granddaughter keeps asking him why he has two names.
His response is, I'll tell you over a beer some day.
The charitable way of reading that is when you're older,
but he probably means tomorrow.
Yeah, he was going to give her a beer for sure.
And then in the next scene when they're having breakfast,
she admonishes him for offering a child a beer.
Yeah, he wanted to tell the story.
He's a lot of fun on those.
He's he's wacky.
He's got the Gary look too.
Right. He's got the Gary look.
He's just a Cayman Island beach bum retired from the CIA.
And it the movie doesn't give us a whole lot of like
plot. I mean, the but it's enjoyed granddaughter's kind of the exposition machine.
She keeps it all like moving forward.
Yeah. I mean, I agree with Sean that I think there's a little too many like
Chris Cross, double cross, double, double cross, which is if it's a double,
double cross, it's just not across.
Yeah, two double like two double crosses.
It's an uncross. Yeah.
That's like two negative positive.
And parallel lines.
Which are not crossed at all.
No, not even sort of crossed.
And they never will be.
No, it could have done with just the one double the one mole.
You know, and actually, I think like Hector's character,
there's no real big reason for that other than the set piece,
the big fucking mansion to have a shootout.
Because she's supposed to be Jack Earl Haley's boss, but Jack
kills her. It gets messy at the end.
Jack Earl Haley didn't kill her.
Yeah, he shoots her.
He shoots her in the head.
And then he gets shot by Christopher, right?
Yeah. And then he gets shot.
Yeah. And then he gets shot by that. Like the whole thing was too muddy
at the end, even with two re like two watches.
It's like, oh, also spoilers.
I mean, whatever. Spoiler.
I watch. You know what?
If you wanted to if you wanted to know what the plot of this movie is,
you would have gone and seen it, you fucks.
Yeah, which no one did.
It was a great movie, though.
It was a lot of fun.
I do want to point out, I haven't seen Ernie Hudson in a while.
And him and Nick Cage are supposed to play like old army buddies.
You assume around the same age.
Ernie Hudson's 19 years older than Nicholas Cage.
And looks a lot better than Nicholas Cage.
Ernie Hudson looks good.
Well, they had an age up Nick Cage, and I'm sure they died.
Ernie Hudson's hair a little darker.
But we got to see the band from Nicholas Cage's wig when he's
coming out of the water.
You can see his wig band.
And also, there's a lot of shooting into and out of water in this.
And I've watched enough myth, myth busters now.
That's not how that works.
It's not the best way to have a gunfight.
Yeah. I mean, the whole thing, it's like it's fun.
It's popcorn like you have a good time watching it.
It's explosions, it's gunfights.
Every motherfucker gets killed.
The guy who gets a flare flare gun to the mouth.
Oh, yeah. No.
And there's lots of like entertainment.
It's very comical. Yeah.
That's the thing. It's a comedic action movie.
Nick Cage hiding with his daughter and Ron Perlman,
who is kidnapped, the granddaughter being in like the like hotel rooms next to each other.
Yeah, it's classic.
Oh, they're out on the balcony right now and switch.
Yeah. New phone call.
You also notice that no one ever pays the cab drivers in this movie.
They just get out of the cab.
That's how it works in Cayman Islands.
I don't know. It's directly tied to your Cayman Island checking account.
Yeah.
Oh, that actually makes a lot more sense.
I don't think that is.
I was confused because I didn't.
This is on me.
I didn't expect the Cayman Islands to have taxi technology
that included vans with self closing doors.
Because every time somebody got out of a taxi,
the taxi would just start backing away.
And I'd be like, nobody shut that door.
And then at one point I see self shutting door.
And like, many vans have come a long way.
Yeah, it's true.
Even the Cayman Islands have self shutting taxi doors.
Now, see what you have to do is you drive really fast and you slam on the brakes.
Oh, OK. Slides the door shut.
I've never owned a minivan.
So this is I can tell.
Well, OK, so overall, what do you guys think?
Venn diagram.
I think this is good cage, good movie.
I mean, I think it's mid across, but it's a lot of fun.
It's good for what it is.
It's exactly what I was hoping.
It is not my least favorite film of his this year.
It's a late summer fun movie because he needed something to carry us over
from one film to another.
He's only putting out five films this year.
I know, right?
Six films, six films, six films, right?
We've watched four already.
That's right.
Well, I keep forgetting Butcher's Crossing.
Yeah, that is coming out this year, right?
October 24th.
And then dream scenario.
What is that early November?
November, or 10th or something.
So good year for cage.
Well, I mean, not monetarily, but good for putting out.
Good news number. I mean, he got paid.
He got paid for these roles and he had some pretty well budgeted movies
like Renfield. I feel like that got a lot of love.
I still maintain that sympathy for the devil is an excellent film.
It's a really good movie.
I don't think enough people got a chance to see it.
It's a real power year.
And I saw somebody complaining online recently about how they thought
the dark days of Nicholas Cage doing shitty movies was over.
I was real close to just coming back with like, motherfuckers,
putting out six movies this year.
How high are your expectations when somebody puts out six movies in a year?
Literally every other month of the year
could have a Nicholas Cage film release.
Well, and then starring film.
Yeah. And what is the expectation of him?
He's not going to be a romantic comedy lead at this point.
It's like he is of an age that he has to play a different kind of character.
Like he's set into his own new bubble.
Yeah, like from 2024, he's had some really good movies.
A lot of like Art House and like Dark Horse movies.
If you're getting a theatrically released Nicholas Cage movie
expected to be like the studios know Nicholas Cage draws X amount of star appeal.
I look to his independent movies, I think more for his best performances.
Well, he would say the same thing, too.
I mean, he he's going to put something different on those.
And the reason he's doing them for I'm certain less money than he is worth
is because he gives a shit about it.
He thinks the script is good or the character is interesting.
Or, you know, you you're going to get something more out of it
because a person gives a shit more than a paycheck.
Yeah. And I mean, we're looking at he looks drastically different.
All six of these films. Definitely.
There is a transition from like he's not just playing.
He's not just Nick Cage in all these films.
Less thoughts or go watch it. It's fun.
You go watch it. Yeah. If you can.
Retirement plan or watch it when it comes on streaming.
But give it some love. I'm glad it exists. Me too.
Oh, super final spoiler. What happened to the husband?
Nobody knows. They probably killed Jeremy.
Jackie Earl. Haley did it.
All right. Cool. Thanks.
Yeah. Thanks for listening, everybody. Yeah.
You are interested in supporting us.
We are on Patreon at Cage Match.
And thank you to our sparkle buddies, Josh, Sean, Josie, Rico, Matt and Adam
and our cage dancers, Ira, John Freeman and Lance.
If you want to shoot the shit with us, we are on Reddit at Cage Match pod
and Instagram at Cage underscore match underscore pod.
Woohoo. I did it. Bye. Bye.
We'll put it. We'll put a picture of me, Nick and I side by side.
These are beautiful football stats.
You can understand what that means.
Yeah, well, it's going to be the rookie football photo, like shirtless in our drawers.
Or we're supposed to bring drawers today. No.
My first car was a minivan.
Nice. Did you get laid in it? No.
Disappointing. Even I got laid in a minivan.
Was it mine?
Was it mine? Yes.