Synopsis
Evan Lake, a veteran CIA agent, has been ordered to retire. But when his protégé uncovers evidence that Lake's nemesis, the terrorist Banir, has resurfaced, Lake goes rogue, embarking on a perilous, intercontinental mission to eliminate his sworn enemy.
Your Movie Library
Cast
- Nicolas CageEvan Lake
- Anton YelchinMilton Schultz
- Alexander KarimMuhammad Banir
- Irène JacobMichelle Zuberain
- Aymen HamdouchiAasim
- Tomiwa EdunMbui
- Claudius PetersGhedi
- Robert G. SladeJames Clifton
- Derek EzenaguDr. Wangari
- Geff FrancisDr. Clayborne
Recommendations
- 60
The New York Times
The notion of an undercover agent with an untrustworthy mind is a great gimmick — and on a commercial level, Dying of the Light sometimes plays as just another high-concept vehicle for a comically overacting Mr. Cage. But Mr. Schrader’s vision is strong enough to rage against the hackier calculations. - 58
IndieWire
While its bleak assessment of American intelligence operatives imbues the story with some modicum of topicality, the specifics never keep pace. The movie becomes a bland action-drama lacking the sophistication to deal with its weightier themes. As a promising endeavor hacked to pieces, the movie's fate mirrors its anti-hero's own failed ambition. - 50
The A.V. Club
Not to say that the movie is a mess. Instead, it plays out as a more or less conventional direct-to-video-style thriller, distinguished by a handful of subtexts and images that might have been developed in a different version, but here register as mere quirks. - 40
Village Voice
It's sort of a fascinating mess, a jagged, dark jumble of a thing anchored by Cage's anguished, moony-eyed obsessiveness. It's not bad enough to be fun, but maybe just bad enough to be intriguing. - 40
New York Daily News
The irony is that in the low-key but mildly absorbing “Light,” Cage comes close to making it work. - 40
The Dissolve
A legendary director’s unsullied cut of Dying Of The Light would almost certainly be more interesting than the version the studio is dumping into theaters, but it might have been a lot sadder, too. - 40
Los Angeles Times
Cage's loop-di-loop performance, the movie's surviving asset, at least hints at the themes of institutional illness and mortal decline that must have fascinated Schrader. - 12
Slant Magazine
Paul Schrader's personality reveals itself in the film's joylessness, which is meaningless without the director's accompanying and occasionally poignant existentialism.
