8MM

Released 1999
Stars Nicolas Cage, Joaquin Phoenix, James Gandolfini, Peter Stormare, Christopher Bauer, Anthony Heald, Catherine Keener
Directed by Joel Schumacher

The film starts out in a promising fashion, with Nicolas Cage playing private investigator Tom Welles, who is hired by a rich old lady to determine whether an 8 mm film found in her late husband's safe is a "snuff film" or a good fake. Watching the film, Welles is unsettled by what he sees: a young, frightened girl brutally murdered by a burly man wearing a leather mask. He thinks it's real, and sets out to find the victim's identity. His search takes him away from his home and wife and to a Missing Persons Bureau in Cleveland. There, he discovers that the girl's name is Mary Anne Matthews. A visit to her mother nets additional information, and soon Welles is in Los Angeles, trying to penetrate the illegal porn market. With the help of an adult store clerk named Max, Welles uncovers a link between Mary Anne, a sleazy porn producer named Eddie Poole, and the mysterious Dino Velvet ), the "Jim Jarmusch of S&M."

Summary by James Berardinelli