Moonstruck

It’s time for someone to stage an intervention with Nicolas Cage. There’s got to be a friend or an agent — hell, it could even be the guy who polishes his priceless dinosaur-skull paperweights — who can sit the actor down and tell him the cold hard truth: He’s become a punchline. Deep down, I suspect Cage already knows this. There are only so many times you can play the same hambone hunting for the Declaration of Independence without wondering where it all went wrong. And it’s got to burn his cheese to see old pals like Johnny Depp and Sean Penn getting showered with kudos while he’s cashing his Ghost Rider royalty checks. Still, it’s not too late to turn things around. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that he was one of the most hypnotic and unpredictable leading men in Hollywood. He could break your heart in Leaving Las Vegas one minute and bust out his crazy-eyed psycho routine in Face/Off the next. Cage’s current rut is especially frustrating when you watch a movie like Moonstruck. Newly out on Blu-ray, Norman Jewison’s tiramisu-sweet romantic comedy is passionate and profound. It’s also the perfect showcase for Cage’s range before he started coasting in big-budget junk. As Ronny Cammareri, the lonelyheart Brooklyn baker who battles his boob of a brother (Danny Aiello, fantastic) for the heart of a world-weary widow (Cher, ditto), Cage not only gets the chance to play the knight, the brute, and the fool in the same film, but each role fits him like the glove on his character’s prosthetic hand. He’s an actor who still held the promise of being one of the greats. Where did that guy go? A?

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