Review: The Humanity Bureau


Set in a dire straits American near future, Nic Cage stars as a Humanity Bureau agent assigned the task of evaluating the po’ folk for relocation to the promised land known as New Eden. That’s the place where the least desirable/capable citizens are sent for the rest of their lives. Sarah Lind and her young boy are Cage’s latest cases, and she’s very, very reluctant to leave her rural homestead. Cage takes pity on the duo and suggests they are not viable candidates for reassignment. This doesn’t go down well with higher-ups like the antagonistic Hugh Dillon, and before long Cage is on the run with the mother-and-son with agents (including Vicellous Shannon from “The Hurricane”) on their tail.



Cheap, obvious, and heavy-handed near-future nonsense from 2018 is pretty tired and dull stuff with a Nic Cage performance to match. Even with Sarah Lind and particularly Hugh Dillon putting in better efforts (whilst Vicellous Shannon continues to dwindle in nothing parts), this is a fairly shit Canadian blend of “Minority Report” and “Looper” for the Trump/Border Wall era (Hugh Dillon is essentially Colin Farrell in “Minority Report”, Sarah Lind is Emily Blunt in “Looper”). The big twist towards the end is completely unconvincing, too. This is partly because of Cage’s highly disinterested, disengaged thesping where at worst he looks to have a mild headache. For most of the film he looks like he knows the themes are sledge-hammered and the film is stupid. The green-screening throughout is so appalling it reminds me of the rear-projection work in 60s era Hitchcock films. It’s distractingly bad in a film with very little that isn’t bad, including the fact that Cage plays a character named Noah Kross because screenwriter Dave Schultz (“One of Our Own”, giving Canadian character actor Michael Ironside a rare lead role) saw a movie he liked once.



In theory the idea here is interesting. As directed by Rob King (who has done quite a bit of TV work) and scripted by Schultz, it’s all too heavy-handed and tedious. The dialogue is forced and unnatural, and Cage’s lead performance is especially uninspired. Lund and Dillon aren’t miracle workers. A cheapo shot in Canada, and looks every bit of it.



Rating: D+

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