For several years now, 'terrible' has been the baseline for Nicolas Cage films, so it's fairest to evaluate a new one by a) how cheerfully aware it is of this fact, and b) how alarming his increasingly waxen hair appears in it. This daft, dated but dimly amiable thriller from Cage's 'Con Air' director Simon West scores highly on both fronts.
The latest in a long run of B movies to crib extensively from the already derivative 'Taken' – here, right down to the title – this less violent, New Orleans-set retread stars Cage as a master thief. After serving eight years for a botched heist, he finds himself 'going back to wrong' when his teenage daughter is kidnapped by Josh Lucas's vengeful former associate. With long, distressed surfer locks, one leg missing and his face locked in a kerr-azy grimace, Lucas is effectively out-Caging Cage here, which is a disconcerting turn of events. Still, the ensuing hijinks – set to a tremendous retro-cheese score by Mark Isham – are sufficiently ludicrous to distract you from this changing of the guard.