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“A Score to Settle” Variety

Nicolas Cage to Star in Action-Thriller ‘A Score to Settle’

In a pre-American Film Market deal, Nicolas Cage has come on board to star in the independent action thriller “A Score to Settle.”

Highland Film Group will introduce the project to international buyers during theAmerican Film Market, which opens Nov. 1 in Santa Monica, Calif.

“A Score to Settle” will be directed by Shawn Ku, winner of the Toronto Film Festival’s Discovery Award for his debut feature “Beautiful Boy.” The script is written by John Newman and Christian Swegal.

Cage will play a convicted mob enforcer battling a terminal illness. He’s released from prison many years after taking the fall for a crime he didn’t commit and sets out on a path for revenge against the people who wronged him.

Producers are First Point Entertainment’s Lee Clay (“Rememory”) and Goldrush Entertainment’s Eric Gozlan, who teamed with Ku on “Beautiful Boy.” Highland Film Group’s Arianne Fraser and Delphine Perrier are executive producing.

Cage recently starred in the horror-thriller “Mom and Dad,” which world premiered in the Midnight Madness section of the Toronto Film Festival last month. He is currently in post-production on “#211” and “Looking Glass,” which Highland Film Group is also selling.

Cage is represented by CAA, Link Entertainment, and Bloom, Hergott, Diemer, Rosenthal, Laviolette, Feldman, Schenkman & Goodman. Ku is repped by Paradigm Talent Agency, Field Entertainment, and Morris Yorn Barnes Levine Krintzman Rubenstein Kohner & Gellman.

 

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“A Score to Settle” The Hollywood Reporter

First Point and Goldrush Entertainment will produce.

Nicolas Cage will topline A Score to Settle, an action thriller from director Shawn Ku.

A Score to Settle follows a convicted mob enforcer (Cage) battling a terminal illness. When he is released from prison many years after taking the fall for a crime he didn’t commit, he sets out on a path for revenge against the people who wronged him.

Lee Clay will produce for First Point Entertainment and Eric Gozlan will produce for his Goldrush Entertainment banner.

Arianne Fraser and Delphine Perrier are executive producing via Highland Film Group, which will introduce the project to international buyers during the American Film Market.

Cage, who was last seen in TIFF Midnight Madness selection Mom and Dad, is repped by CAA, LINK and Patrick Knapp at Bloom Hergott. Ku is repped by Paradigm, Field Entertainment and Morris Yorn.

 

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“A Score to Settle” – Deadline

Nicolas Cage Has ‘A Score To Settle’ In Action Thriller From Highland Film Group – AFM

Nicolas Cage is set to star in Highland Film Group’s action thriller A Score To Settle, from Beautiful Boy director Shawn Ku. Cage stars as Frank, a convicted mob enforcer battling a terminal illness who is released from prison many years after taking the fall for a crime he didn’t commit. Now free, he sets out on a path for revenge against the people who wronged him.

John Newman and Christian Swegal wrote the script, which will be produced by Lee Clay (No Good Deed) of First Point Entertainment and Goldrush Entertainment’s Eric Gozlan (Beautiful Boy). Highland Film Group will present the project to buyers at the American Film Market, which takes place next month. Highland’s Arianne Fraser and Delphine Perrier serve as exec producers.

Cage, an Oscar winner for his role in Leaving Las Vegas, has a hefty slate of upcoming films including the horror comedy Mom and Dad, which world premiered at the Toronto Film Festival; action film #211; and Looking Glass, which Highland is also selling.

Cage is repped by CAA, LINK Entertainment, and Bloom, Hergott, Diemer. Ku is with Paradigm, Field Entertainment, and Morris, Yorn, Barnes.

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“Standoff”: The Hollywood Reporter Film Review

Thomas Jane defends a young girl from a murderous Laurence Fishburne.

 

Two men occupy different floors of a remote old farmhouse in Standoff, Adam Alleca’s two-hander starring Laurence Fishburne and Thomas Jane. In his first outing as director, Alleca strips the home-invasion format down dramatically after his screenwriting debut on 2009’s Last House on the Left remake, and many moviegoers will find what’s left a bit underwhelming. 3:10 to Yuma it’s not, but the macho-a-macho pic has enough B-movie bristle to scrape up a few bucks on its way to the VOD attic.

 

Fishburne is Sade, a grimly effective hitman who’s finishing up a job at a rural graveyard when he realizes a young girl (Ella Ballentine’s Bird) has taken his picture from afar. He tracks her to the nearby home of Carter (Jane), but isn’t able to eliminate the pre-teen witness before she convinces Carter to hide her while fending Sade off from the top of the stairs. As both men are wounded in the initial confrontation and neither has a clear shot, they’re left to shout threatening things at each other from a distance while nursing their wounds.

 

As unlikely as it seems at the end of the first act, this is pretty much how things stand until the movie’s end. Jane musters up his best Decent Man Beaten Down By Life — Carter lost a son in a freak accident; his marriage didn’t survive the strain — while Fishburne tosses a heap of bluster onto Alleca’s strenuously colorful dialogue, trying to scare his captive into surrendering. (Sade worries, for example, that if he were to let Bird live she’d identify him “as quick as a frog can lick flies.”)

 

Lulls in the Sade/Carter banter allow for development of a protective emotional bond between the two hostages, but the film starts to lag as it veers into armchair psychoanalysis of the grieving father. Though it sometimes seems content to wait until one of these gun-totin’ men falls asleep so the other can kill him, little subplots involving a rookie lawman and Carter’s estranged wife do move the action along to some extent. No experienced moviegoer will waste too much time worrying that the bespectacled Bird might not survive the showdown, but as for which adult’s testosterone will hold out the longest, there is some room for suspense.

 

 

Production companies: Goldrush Entertainment, Maple Leaf Films, First Point Entertainment

Distributor: Saban Films

Cast: Laurence Fishburne, Thomas Jane, Ella Ballentine

Director-Screenwriter: Adam Alleca

Producers: Eric Gozlan, Lee Gray, Tove Christensen, Michael Wexler

Executive producers: Bernard Bourret, Laurence Fishburne, Thomas Jane, William V. Bromiley, Ness Saban

Director of photography: Zoran Popovic

Production designer: Keith Bowser

Costume designer: Ton Pascal

Editor: Susan Maggi

Composer: Austin Wintory

Casting director: Stephanie Gorin

 

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