Cage Match: Arsenal (2017)

In the sleepy sequel “Arsenal”, Nicolas Cage’s “Deadfall” character is back from the dead… and somehow less alive than ever.

TL;DR: Nicolas Cage returns from the dead with none of the fire, chaos, or face-melting weirdness that made Deadfall infamous. Instead, Arsenal is a slow, self-serious slog that feels like watching a fan film made by someone who liked Deadfall but hated fun. Avoid unless you’re completing your Cage Bingo card—or need something to knock you out before bed.

IN THIS CORNER: KELLY MINTZER

The Lowdown 

Ahem, and “me-me-me-me-me”, before I lose my well-earned head of steam: (To roughly the tune of “Alexander Hamilton” from Hamilton, with the caveat that I’m not counting syllables or attempting rhymes, so just be cool… I’m trying to do something here, but I’m not prepared to try very hard.

♪How does a bonkers, nonsense nepotism noir without any logic go on to spur an unearned sequel/prequel?♫

Okay, I can’t even pretend to maintain the rhythm, so let’s keep that energy but lose the beat. Though if you want to read all of this in the soothing tones of Leslie Odom Jr, it might make the absolutely baffling waste of time that is Arsenal go down a little easier. Because wow, y’all. This one is ROUGH.

To return to our general question format, I would genuinely like to know what cuckoo in the coconut saw that in 1993, Deadfall made a whopping 18 thousand dollars back from a 3.4 million dollar budget and decided in 2017 that, “Yeah, we better greenlight a prequel/sequel to THAT movie about a character who very clearly died at the end of it.” 

While this is an absolutely incomprehensible idea, I’d be willing to go along for the ride if Arsenal had pretty much anything to offer. Unfortunately, we of the Cage Match are so rarely that lucky.

There is no real character to root for in this movie; it’s not the fault of the actors.

While I acknowledged that Michael Biehn was something of a baked potato in Deadfall, none of the actors in Arsenal fall into the same trap (though there’s a conversation to be had about how incredibly awkward every aspect of John Cusack is). They’re trying and they’re doing fine, but the characters are all fucking nothing. They are given sloppy pieces of exposition that fall way too late in the narrative… well after they would have any actual impact on the viewing experience.

They are given no real development, and to their credit, they do the best they can with what they’re given. It’s just that they’re given basically nothing.

I’m going to try to wrap everything else up relatively rapid fire here, because unfortunately, despite what a massive turd this movie is, I could probably write a fucking novella about it, so strap in.

The pacing is absolutely abysmal. I said that everything in Deadfall happens needlessly in real time, but this? Jesus Christ. It’s glacial. There is SO MUCH slo-mo. I guess you could argue it’s stylistic, but it seems more likely a cheat to reach the 90-minute mark, because woof, does this movie NOT need to be 90 minutes?

It is way too self-serious. I ended up thinking Deadfall was pretty fun, in the same way The Room is pretty fun. I can’t understand, for the life of me, why you would want to make a movie within the universe of Deadfall but strip away the pulpy fun of that film. Arsenal is joyless.

Additionally, it takes place in New Orleans for no reason at all. Frankly, the whole thing feels a bit more Gone Baby Gone New England (without any of the superior writing employed by that movie). There’s a moment where J.P. says, “We survived Katrina, we’ll survive this” (or something like that), which feels pretty disrespectful to Katrina survivors, frankly, and serves only one purpose that HURTS the movie: it makes it possible for us to place this movie in time.

Deadfall takes place in the 80s, and Eddie DIES AT THE END. For Eddie to be alive, this film needs to be a prequel. But it can’t be a prequel if the characters use cell phones and have LIVED THROUGH KATRINA!

The Cage Factor:

You may have noticed I’ve barely mentioned our man to this point; that’s because, despite turning in a rather sleepy performance and being seemingly the impetus for the whole movie, there’s not nearly enough of him in it. I was vaguely hopeful when he showed up still wearing a truly terrible wig and an inexplicable putty nose, but this is just not a great use of him. He seems checked out for much of it, hardly bothering to enunciate lines that make virtually no sense.

I still have no idea why his character is alive, but it feels like a wasted opportunity to get really silly with the whole thing; ok, you’ve resurrected the BIGGEST character from Deadfall—why not have some actual fun instead of attempting a drama that is 90 minutes that somehow feel like 4 hours?

I have no idea exactly where the line falls between good-bad and bad-bad, but like pornography, while I may not be able to define it, I know it when I see it. This is shit. This is a rat in a cage, no matter how you slice it.

AND IN THIS CORNER: STEPHANIE MALONE

The Lowdown 

Let’s get this straight up front: Arsenal (also titled Southern Fury, presumably because Tedious Fury didn’t test well) is technically (?) a sequel to 1993’s gloriously unhinged Deadfall, at least according to director Steven C. Miller (Silent Night, 2012). And by “technically,” we mean that Nicolas Cage returns to play Eddie King, the same character who famously died in Deadfall, in what remains one of the most unforgettably bonkers, face-melting death scenes in B-movie history.

So, how is he back? Your guess is as good as the screenwriter’s (Jason Mosberg). No explanation is offered. No resurrection spell, no twin brother twist, not even a wink to the camera. He’s just there—still alive, still wearing the greasy wig and prosthetic nose, but now acting like he’s sedated and trapped in a film that refuses to let him Cage properly.

The actual story follows two brothers (Adrian Grenier and Johnathon Schaech, both doing their best impressions of someone who regrets signing the contract) as they get tangled up in a boring crime plot involving kidnappings, crooked cops, and… honestly, I can’t even finish that sentence because I stopped caring halfway through the movie.

The pacing is glacial, the dialogue is leaden, and the characters are cardboard. It all feels like forced melodrama with a few moments of brief visual flair. To be fair, some scenes do work well enough, but they are too few and far between.

What makes Arsenal truly bizarre is how it tries to draw a line from the bonkers energy of Deadfall to this slick, joyless crime slog. It’s like watching someone remake The Room as a dour drama and then wonder why no one’s having fun.  It lacks the personality, the camp, the passion, even the ambition to be a proper trainwreck.

This isn’t a film you’ll want to riff with friends. It’s not worth a bad movie night; it’s barely worth a hate-watch unless you’re an extremely committed Cage completist.

Best I can offer? Do what I did and watch it before bed if you need a solid sedative. For that, it’s just what the doctor ordered. 

The Cage Factor

Cage is barely in this movie, and when he does show up, he’s been so heavily tranquilized—figuratively, if not literally—that it’s almost unrecognizable as the same man who delivered peak Cage chaos in Deadfall. His performance here is subdued to the point of being mournful, as though he knows what’s happening around him is garbage, but he’s too tired to fight it.

His presence feels like a marketing gimmick: “Hey guys, look! It’s that guy from the cult movie you kinda liked, but now he’s not fun anymore, and we buried him under 80 minutes of slow-motion suffering!”

Not essential… not even interesting.

My best advice is to avoid this film, and instead watch (and rewatch 100 times) this Nic Cage Supercut from Deadfall. Thank me later.