Email: neill@outloudculture.com
It seems Nicolas Cage has found his calling in the genre of comedy, his last movie ‘The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent’ was an absolute riot of comedy, and in ‘Renfield’, Cage shines once again. The film cleverly takes a minor character from Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, the count’s assistant R. M. Renfield, and casts him as the hero of this story.
We are introduced to R. M. Renfield (played by Nicholas Hoult) sitting in on a dependents anonymous meeting, hoping to cut ties from his working relationship with Dracula. He is simply sick of having to tend to all of Dracula’s needs, by finding suitable humans for him to feast upon and move them around when their activities start causing suspicion. Some how along his journey though, Renfield accidentally gets entangled with the New Orleans crime cartel and its matriarch and her moronic son Teddy (played by Ben Schwartz). Renfield pairs up with the one honest cop on the police force, Rebecca Quincy (played Awkwafina) to try and take them down.
The screenplay by Ryan Ridley, Robert Kirkman and Ava Tramer, finds it’s strength by examining the toxic relationship between Renfield and Dracula, with the depiction of a bullying narcissist boss, which I’m sure many of us have had to deal with. Probably the weakest part of the story is in the friendship or relationship between Renfield and Quincy, while they do have a small amount of chemistry it isn’t enough to make their bond believable unfortunately.
But as always when it comes to these comedy roles, Cage’s performance as Dracula is literally scene stealing. During the entire film you could see how enjoyable it was for Cage to play this classic character of Dracula, and he brought a heap of maniac moments.
There’s a lot of fun to be had here with ‘Renfield’, and I’m sure through all the humor and lunacy, like myself you’ll find it highly enjoyable.
‘Renfield’ Is In Cinemas Now.