DVD: Nicolas Cage: Weatherman (2006)

David Spritz (Nicholas Cage, ADAPTATION) might be Chicago’s number one weatherman, but his off-camera life is altogether less successful. Not only is he desperate to impress his father--Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Spritz (Michael Caine, BATMAN BEGINS)--he also wants to reconnect with his estranged wife (Hope Davis, ABOUT SCHMIDT), save his troubled kids, and land a coveted job in New York. David's efforts to reach and protect his kids feel realistic in that they are heartfelt, but not always successful. Likewise, David's marriage contains tangible flaws that reveal themselves in interesting ways. THE WEATHER MAN contains just as much pathos as it does comedy, and does a good job of finding one in the other. Some of the film's most heartbreaking scenes are also the funniest, the best example of this being when David learns that his daughter is being called ‘camel-toe’ at school. Each time Cage's clueless and vulnerable David gets hit with a burrito, milk shake, or apple pie by some disgruntled ‘fan’, we genuinely feel for the guy. Through increasingly insightful voiceovers, viewers are taken on David's journey from the lazy desire for things to be easy to the hard realisation that things never are, and as David's wise father says early on in the film: life without struggle is meaningless.