When he’s not busy posing for potentially unpleasant selfies with random fans, Nic Cage is taking on film job after film job. For every one that wins him praise, though, such as Joe, there’s a** Left Behind** lurking around the corner to detonate his time in the kudos spotlight. Now he’s taking aim at something that should at least be funny on purpose, signing on for **Army Of One.
Borat director Larry Charles will forge the based-on-truth film about one Gary Faulkner, a flamboyant Colorado resident who in 2010 decided he was going to be the man to take down Osama Bin Laden, Rambo-style. Armed with a sword he bought from a home shopping network, a pair of night-vision goggles and his fervent belief that he was doing God’s work in tracking down and wiping out one of the most dangerous men on the planet.
Obviously, we know he didn’t succeed, but his mission made him a minor celebrity across the pond, scoring him late night show appearances and no little notoriety. A year or so later, he brought out a gun in a disagreement with one of the tenants in the apartment complex, fired a warning shot and was packed off to jail, his actions compounded by the fact he was an ex-con.
Charles is adapting a 2010 GQ article about the man by Chris Heath (which you can read here) and Bob and Harvey Weinstein have picked up distribution rights via their Dimension label. The cameras should be rolling later this year. So: ideal Nic Cage role, or most perfect Nic Cage role in the history of cinema?