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MOVIE REVIEW

The Weather Man

MPA Rating: R-Rating (MPA) for strong language and sexual content.

Reviewed by: Todd Patrick
CONTRIBUTOR

Moral Rating: Extremely Offensive
Moviemaking Quality:
Primary Audience: Adults
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Length: 1 hr. 45 min.
Year of Release: 2005
USA Release: October 28, 2005 (wide)
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mid-life crisis

pedophiles

overweight girls

drug rehab treatment

divorce

Featuring Nicolas Cage, Michael Caine, Hope Davis, Gemmenne De la Pena, Nicholas Hoult
Director Gore Verbinski
Producer Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, Steve Tisch
Distributor Distributor: Paramount Pictures Corporation. Trademark logo.Paramount Pictures Corporation, a subsidiary of ViacomCBS

…bring an umbrella

Gore Verbinski’s “The Weatherman” takes a serio-comic look at the life of David Spritz (Nicholas Cage), a weatherman in Chicago who has just been granted an audition with Hello America, a national morning television show. Spritz is struggling to keep his personal life together, as he is hit with one crisis after another: his father (Michael Caine) is terminally ill, his marriage has ended, his daughter struggles with her self-image, his son is in rehab for smoking pot, and to top it all off people throw things at him. Chicken legs, Big Gulps, soft tacos, apple pies, or anything else they might have in their hands when they see him on the street.

The good: Nicholas Cage turns in a fine performance as Spritz, and Michael Caine is excellent as his Pulitzer Prize-winning father. In fact, the whole cast is good, including Spritz’s estranged wife, Noreen (Hope Davis,) and his two children, Mike (Nicholas Hoult) and Shelly (Gemmenne de la Peña). The script, at times, is well-written.

The bad: Unfortunately, this is a rather pointless, vulgar movie. Matt is pursued by one of his rehab counselors, who happens to be a pedophile. He has Matt take his shirt off and strike poses, and then attempts to engage in sodomy with him in his car.

Shelly is overweight and wears tight clothing. This leads to the other kids calling her a name that I can’t print or even explain. All I can say is that it has to do with a woman’s private area and overly tight clothing. I was offended that this word was used and repeated (many times) for shock value only. Spritz uses the “f” word in just about every other sentence.

Oral sex is discussed multiple times. One sex scene is extremely lewd.


CONTRIBUTOR

’s Note (Gabriel Mohler):
There is a crudely clever scene, played for laughs, in which Cage is shown having vigorous sex with a woman; she makes graphic noises while her bare breast flops around.

Conclusion: “The Weatherman” is R-rated trash. It is a depressing look at a dysfunctional man and the completely dysfunctional world around him. It’s not funny. There was only one big laugh in my theater and that was for the word I can’t print. This is Hollywood entertainment at its worst. In my view, there is nothing redeeming about this movie at all. I urge Christians to keep their hearts and minds far from it.

Violence: Moderate / Profanity: Extreme—“G*d d*mn” (2), “Jesus” (1), “God” (1), f-words (over 50), s-words (12), slang words of male and female anatomy, “a**h*le” (7), “cr*p” (2) / Sex/Nudity: Heavy to Extreme

See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers.


Viewer CommentsSend your comments
Negative—We only went to see Nicholas Cage, I wish we would have looked at the reviews before we went to see this one. Almost walked out, the only reason we didn’t is because we had to wait on my son who was (thankfully) watching another movie in the theatre. Wow! what a waste!
My Ratings: Extremely Offensive / 1
Tom, age 47
Negative—I had a chance to see “The Weather Man” at the Chicago Film Festival on Thursday October 20. Nicholas Cage was in attendanc,e and the crowd was huge… Well, I wondered why this seemingly light “dramady” was rated R, and I found out—it was full of the “f” word and countless vulgarities dealing with oral sex, kids spouting profanities, hints of homosexuality, and a sex scene. What started out as a pleasant evening was quickly spoiled for me by the unusual–and unnecessary—coarseness of this film. My teenage daughter was with me and needless to say, it was uncomfortable for the both of us.

This was actually a PG (or PG-13) film that went all out to get an R rating—some of the dialog actually sounded forced. Why? I don’t know. It would have been a very good film otherwise. I was also disappointed to hear Michael Caine use so many expletives. What a waste of great talent—and my time.
My Ratings: Very Offensive / 4
Reba, age 40+
Negative—This movie is indeed a waste of your money, but more importantly a waste of your time – and a renewing of your mind will be required after viewing this movie. This movie is depressing and pointless. …
My Ratings: Extremely Offensive / 3½
Michael O., age 32
Negative—This is one of the few movies we got up and walked out on. And only after 30 minutes or so. The language was horrid, we predicted the pedophile, and there seemed nothing to stay for as it looked like it was going to get worse. …
My Ratings: Extremely Offensive / 1
Tim Emmerich, age 38
Comments from young people
Neutral—…it was pretty good. …the acting was good; the plot was good, and there were some really funny moments. But, there was A LOT of unnecessary language, and I was very offended. I didn’t think that they would put that much language in it. And it was a film that very easily could have been a PG-13 film. But Hollywood just had to add the language. So I think if you get offended by bad lanuage easily you should avoid this film!
My Ratings: Extremely Offensive / 4
Beth, age 16
Negative—I walked out of this movie and was surprised everyone else didn’t follow. It was depressing, and extremely vulgar. The foul language did not fit the script or the characters. What a waste of talent, film, and money. Michael Caine’s acting was very stilted and unrealistic. I was sorry my eyes saw what they saw and my ears heard what they heard in the first 20 minutes of this film. Lord, forgive me!
My Ratings: Extremely Offensive / 3½
Richard G, age 50
Negative—We were very dissappointed in this film. Didn’t stay. Way to much swearing and inappropriate content. Our friends and us left. It was a waste of money.
My Ratings: Extremely Offensive / 3
Albert, age 46
Neutral—Although this film is very offensive and dark in content I am glad my husband and I went to see this rather than “Derailed”. After reading the reviews on “Derailed” I’ll be sure to avoid it. I chose “The Weatherman” because the trailers led me to believe it was a comedy, and I also like Nicholas Cage as an actor. Well, it is a comedy, a dark-comedy that is, and a very offensive one at that.

However, we did come away with two positives. The first is that this movie depicted exactly how NOT to live your life, and it showed how empty and meaningless life is without God involved. God was never even mentioned once in this film, which wasn’t surprising, and it just made it so clear that life has no hope when we choose not to include God in our lives. The life of the character Cage portrayed was literally falling apart, but he really had no hope. Not even his dying father could offer him any encouraging words or advice. Every single character in this film was literally hopeless. And even at the end when Cage’s character gets the million dollar a year job you can see that there is still no hope. His life is still a mess, and he will contiue to fumble through it, as will the rest of his family.

I should have prayed and asked God what movie to choose (Dreamer was an option), but this movie was a great reminder that I should seek His guidance when I can’t check online and that life has purpose when we choose Him. Would I recommend this movie? No. It just has too many offensive scenes and language that God would rather we not expose ourselves to.
My Ratings: Extremely Offensive / 4
Maria Gottuso, age 37
Negative—Me and my friends decided to rent a movie on a saturday night, of course we spent a good deal of time browsing through the store and finally came across “Weatherman,” we usually look up a movie review before watching movies, but since this is a movie about a weatherman, how bad can it be right? wrong… It started off really depressing, there was a lot of humorous scenes that seemed almost staged, and a lot of foul language, which was really random and completely unnecessary! And then it hinted that there was a relationship between a teenage boy (Nicholas Cage’s son) and his much older male counselor, or at least that the boy was a little wary of it and trying to steer away, but the man was insistent… and the weatherman’s daughter was shown smoking and trash talking, at age 13?… So already our opinion of the film was falling, fast! And then to top it off there was a disgusting scene between this weatherman and some random _____ he sees at a park where he’s volunteering for a festival… she is quite endowed, we quickly hid our faces in complete shock… scrambling for the remote, but it was too late, we had seen enough already, we turned the movie off when it panned to the next scene with the son and the older man… it was clear what was coming and we had had enough! This movie seemed pointless and disgusting, don’t waste your time or money on it!
My Ratings: Very Offensive / 2
Sarah, age 17
Movie Critics
…tries to take an indie subject—alienation and anomie—and make a Hollywood film out of it. But the result is dull and pointless…
Entertainment Weekly, Lisa Schwarzbaum
…This is one glum outing… This is a movie you might be able to put up with if you’re in a certain mood…
USA Today, Mike Clark
…midlife crisis film… predictable but dreary story …
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Duane Dudek
…The forecast for viewers checking out “The Weather Man”: a warm front moving up from your insides, resulting in a high chance of tear showers. …
Arizona Daily Star, Phil Villarreal