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Nicolas Cage could be the perfect choice for a daring scary movie about the biblical figure, however not for the motivations many fans might assume. Actually, the star does not actually act as the central religious figure in The Carpenter’s Son: his character is listed only as a craftsman. He is framed as the Joseph of this story, striving to uphold his religious convictions while the teenage character (played by Noah Jupe), their now-teenage adopted son, begins to show divine powers. The reason it's challenging to envision a different leading star taking this character is that while the role is stricken with multiple trials, Nicolas Cage looks nearly touchingly convinced that this gloomy, bleak little movie is deserving of his effort.

The Actor's Current Projects

Cage has been spending his time more carefully in recent years. He continues to stars in more movies than the majority of average viewers may ever watch — for instance, did you know that the actor has filmed several distinct Westerns over the last few years? — but he also includes esteemed critically acclaimed roles such as one recent hit, Pig, and a further title. The Carpenter’s Son appears to be a similar project, because it’s borderline horror, potentially provocative, and approaches a exaggerated description quite seriously.

Movie's Storyline and Execution

Sadly, filmmaker Lotfy Nathan does not reward the audience's focus. The Carpenter’s Son starts from a engagingly rootless setting, positioned as drawing from an apocryphal lost gospel concerning the early years of Jesus. Cage's character, The Mother, and their child move constantly, anxious of doctrinal intolerance or suspicion over The Boy’s strange powers. “Disaster trails us,” Cage sadly observes. That continues when dark forces focus on them at their new home, beginning on the traditional religious challenge for The Boy.

Sometimes, this production resembles an demonic possession-type possession movie, but no one of the lead characters are explicitly taken over. On the contrary, they become more and more distant from each other, as these forces influence a resident female (the actress, credited as “The Stranger”) who The Boy bonds with, and provides everyone disturbing images of a bleak destiny. Cage's role especially grapples with his place in the narrative, at times berating his child who mystifies him.

Debate and Sensitivity

This material is apt to court controversy, and Nathan approaches it with plenty of sensitivity — excessive, perhaps. The notion of a adolescent facing his future martyrdom and lured by dark influences is certainly scary, but the filmmaker could be hesitant regarding seeming gratuitous and eager to indicate his intentions, thus he frequently retreats into darkly ominous filming. Characters brood incessantly — the singer-actress, who showed real promise in a recent film update, interestingly — cedes her role to her character's costume, occasionally interrupted by some disturbing frightening scenes.

The Star's Acting and Film's Shortcomings

Meanwhile, the actor flirts with just the sort of exaggerated performance that his more snickering appreciators could be expecting. One scene (shown) in promotional material in which Cage loses control and shouts “My faith has been shattered!” Should such of theatrical release is included in a Jesus-themed horror movie, maybe a more boldly ridiculous style would take better advantage of the actor's readiness to be extreme when necessary. Instead, The Carpenter’s Son is closer to the poorer straight-to-DVD productions the actor filmed over the last decade — not the cheesy thrillers but rather the serious stories and paranormal movies that typically appear interesting, and often contain some select actor's highlights, but ultimately feel like, frankly, cheap home video fare.

Truthfully, a number of those, although simpler, were more watchable as a whole. Here is where I must disregard my own dogma, not religious but work-oriented: Previously, a respected mentor persuaded me to eliminate descriptive terms like “tedious” or “uninteresting” from my film-criticism vocabulary. These words convey little except a individual and vaguely expressed lack of patience, disengaging from the job of vividly conveying the mental and feeling of watching a specific film. It’s difficult to express tedium without seeming uninteresting personally. It's just as unclear as labeling a movie “interesting.” “Elaborate,” that is.

Yet, I acknowledge, I was bored during much of The Carpenter’s Son. In its defense, it’s a religious style of boredom, not because The Carpenter’s Son is moralizing, but since it demands a kind of obedient endurance to view it. At some point early on, the film settles into a monotonous pattern of ongoing suffering, and fails to