The Weather Man

Nicolas Cage is "The Weather Man", a TV weatherman in Chicago whose professional career is about to reach new highs just as the rest of his life continues to find new lows. Did you catch my weather joke there? His relationship with his ex-wife is anything but a relationship, his two kids have major issues, and to top it off his father (Michael Caine) has cancer. On the plus side, he's been offered the top spot on a Today-type morning show.

Cage is great at playing the down-on-his-luck martyr, finding ways to get the audience to laugh at his otherwise depressing life. You can't help but feel sorry for him, but laugh at the same time, as Chicagoans take pleasure in throwing random objects at him when his forecast is wrong. His middle school-aged daughter is overweight and smokes, his teenage son is spending too much time with his drug counselor, and he can never seem to impress his father. Again, usually not topics that make for a comedy, but Cage and his narration pull it off.

On the other hand, all of this makes for a fairly lacksidasical story. There's not a whole lot of excitement going on. Of all the relationships that we watch struggling to survive, I never cared for his wife (Hope Davis) or his desire to reunite with her. As solid as the kids and father are at displaying their emotions, hopes and fears, the wife fails.

Overall, I was drawn to the story, but apparently I take pleasure in the hardships of others. The parts meant to be funny are, but the rest of the movie is just kind of there. Maybe that's the difference between partly sunny and partly cloudy. I saw more clouds than sun and give "The Weather Man" a B.

"The Weather Man" is rated R with a running time of 101 minutes.