Nicolas Cage is accused of showboating, but I prefer to think he swings for the fences. Sometimes he strikes out (Gone in 60 Seconds), but more often he connects (he took enormous risks in Leaving Las Vegas, Bringing Out the Dead, and Adaptation). He has a kind of raging zeal that possesses his characters; what in another actor would be overacting is, with Cage, a kind of fearsome intensity.
