World Premiere
Selection 2023

Sympathy for the Devil

Directed by Yuval Adler

Hosted by Director Yuval Adler, Producer Allan Ungar.

Credits  

Director

Yuval Adler

Writer

Luke Paradise

Cast

Nicolas Cage, Joel Kinnaman, Kaiwi Lyman

contact

RLJE

USA 2023 90 mins OV English
Genre Thriller

Fans of Academy Award-winner Nicolas Cage know he has a healthy history at Fantasia in recent years, with films MANDY, PRISONERS OF GHOSTLAND and the special event screening of FACE/OFF in 2022 to honour the incredible career of director John Woo. Now, Cage returns to the Fantasia screen for its 27th edition with the gripping crime thriller SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL, and it’s a wild ride!

Yuval Adler, the acclaimed director of BETHLEHEM, gives new meaning to “cruise control” as we follow two men one fateful night in Sin City, aka Las Vegas. On the shadowy, neon-lit streets where anything goes, we find a driver (Joel Kinnaman, THE SUICIDE SQUAD) at the end of his day, and he’s got a lot on his mind. His wife is in labour, and as he makes his way to the hospital, a passenger (Nicholas Cage) gets into his car with a gun. Dressed in a red satin jacket with matching fiery hair, this man has a serious agenda, and as the tension builds between passenger and driver, so does the danger.

Cage does his magic and transforms into a wildly sinister force, holding Kinnanman’s soft-spoken everyman character hostage for what seems like an eternity as the action unfolds. Both leads work brilliantly off each other to give nuanced performances of “good guy/bad guy” archetypes that will keep audiences riveted as they look for the next move in this cat-and-mouse game. Kinnaman returns to work with Adler for the second time after THE SECRETS WE KEEP as the straight man to Cage’s over-the-top performance that you won’t want to miss, and this suspenseful neo-noir comes from the mind of writer Luke Paradise. As a modern-day morality tale, SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL cleverly unravels a meticulous plot to reveal an unbelievable diabolical truth! – Carolyn Mauricette