The Actor's Jesus-Themed Thriller Film Isn't as Wild as It Sounds

Nicolas Cage may be the ideal choice for a audacious scary movie about Jesus Christ, however not for the causes many viewers could guess. Truthfully, Cage does not actually act as the central religious figure in The Carpenter’s Son: his character is referred to merely as The Carpenter. He is framed as the Joseph of this story, striving to uphold his religious convictions as his son (played by the young actor), their now-teenage foster child, begins to show supernatural abilities. The explanation it's hard to picture another major actor in this role is that while the role is stricken with multiple challenges, the actor looks practically moving confident that the dark, grim little movie is worth his time.

The Actor's Latest Career Choices

Cage has allocating those years more carefully lately. He yet stars in more films than the majority of regular audiences could possibly view — for example, did you know that the man has completed a trio of separate frontier films in the past three years? — yet he also includes esteemed critically acclaimed roles such as one recent hit, another notable movie, and a further title. This new film seems like a similar project, in that it’s borderline horror, potentially provocative, and takes a exaggerated concept with gravity.

The Film's Plot and Direction

Sadly, filmmaker Lotfy Nathan does not reward viewer engagement. The film opens in a engagingly rootless context, presented as drawing from an apocryphal lost gospel concerning the early years of Jesus. The Carpenter, The Mother, and their son relocate constantly, afraid of doctrinal intolerance or distrust regarding The Boy’s unusual abilities. “Calamity follows us,” The Carpenter gloomily remarks. That continues when dark forces target them where they currently live, initiating on the well-known scriptural test for The Boy.

At times, the movie mirrors an Exorcist-style horror film, but none of the main figures are clearly inhabited. Rather, they grow progressively isolated mutually, when these forces affect a nearby girl (the actress, listed as an outsider) that the son forms a relationship with, and provides each character troubling visions of a dark tomorrow. Cage's role in particular struggles with his position in the narrative, sometimes berating his child he can’t fully understand.

Debate and Sensitivity

The subject matter is prone to court controversy, and Nathan handles it with much sensitivity — excessive, possibly. The concept of a teenage boy facing his future martyrdom and seduced by mysterious forces is truly frightening, but the filmmaker may be cautious about seeming gratuitous and anxious to telegraph his goals, therefore he regularly withdraws to gloomily threatening cinematography. Characters continually reflect — FKA Twigs, who demonstrated notable talent in the 2024 Crow remake, interestingly — cedes her performance to her religious attire, at times punctuated by a few gruesome scary visuals.

The Star's Portrayal and Film's Flaws

Meanwhile, the actor dabbles in precisely the type of exaggerated performance that his ironic fans could be expecting. There is a moment (featured) in previews in which Cage loses control and yells “I’ve lost my faith!” If that kind of florid outburst is a component of a religious scary film, perhaps a more brazenly silly style would be more effective of his eagerness to go over the top as required. Rather, the film more closely resembles the poorer direct-to-video movies the actor filmed during the 2010s — apart from the B-movies instead the dramas and supernatural thrillers that typically appear interesting, and often contain several notable memorable scenes, but in the end seem like, frankly, low-budget DTV material.

Frankly, a number of those, though not as grand, were more watchable overall. Here is where I have to violate my own dogma, not spiritual but professional: Previously, a beloved editor urged me to remove descriptive terms like “boring” or “dull” from my film-criticism vocabulary. These phrases communicate minimal except a subjective and vaguely expressed lack of patience, avoiding the duty of clearly expressing the intellectual and sensation of seeing an individual production. It’s difficult to communicate tedium without seeming uninteresting yourself. It's equally vague as calling a movie “engaging.” “Say more,” in other words.

However, I admit, I felt uninterested for a large part of The Carpenter’s Son. On the positive side, it is a devotional type of dullness, not because The Carpenter’s Son is moralizing, but as it requires a kind of dutiful submission to view it. At some point in the beginning, this feature settles into a repetitive rhythm of simmering distress, and does not