The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent - Nicolas Cage stars as himself, or rather a hyper-realised version of himself. He's in debt and finds himself out of the running for film roles he once had no trouble attracting. His agent Richard Fink (Neil Patrick Harris) comes to him with a one million dollar offer from an affluent fan to appear at his birthday party. He dismisses it out of hand but, after being passed over for a role he was desperately counting on, decides to take the payday.
It turns out to be an eccentric billionaire in Majorca, Spain named Javi Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal). He's a rabid fan of the star and Cage finds himself falling in like with the amiable Javi. But when he's unexpectedly abducted by people who turn out to be CIA agents Cage must make a hard choice. Whether or not to spy on someone he already considers a friend. The agents reveal that Javi is the ruthless head of international gunrunning cartel. He has also had the daughter of a Presidential candidate kidnapped in order to force him to drop out of the race. Cage's own troubled relationship with his (fictional) daughter ultimately convinces him to work for the agents.
I suppose this counts as meta, but since it's a buzzword I've studiously avoided using I'm not 100% sure how it's applied. Let's just go with self-referential. So while the screenplay unfolds in a prescribed manner it's also made reference to it unfolding in just such a manner. So should people be disappointed that it turns into the exact type of shoot-em-up actioner that was alluded to earlier in the film? Or just shut up and appreciate the irony? I can honestly see both sides. But what I did have a genuine problem with was a twist that they worked in that came off as a bit of copout to me. Which was
WARNING: spoilers below
Javi being the harmless front for the cartel with his smarmy cousin Lucas (Paco León) being the actual leader. I think they maybe took the easy way out instead of Cage having to find a way to reconcile his friendship with Javi. There's been several movies where this plot device was used (Point Break and Donnie Brasco right off the top of my head). Maybe that, in and of itself, has been overused. I don't know.
85/100