Pathetic fallacy has rarely seemed quite so pathetic. Downhearted and disillusioned, Nicolas Cage’s eponymous TV forecaster wanders the rain-swept streets of Chicago contemplating the slings and arrows. Passers-by ask for his autograph or chuck soft drinks from their moving vehicles. His ex-wife (played, inevitably, by Hope Davis) is disinterested in reconciliation. His teenage son, already in rehab for smoking an entire joint, is being groomed by a paedophile. His daughter is poignantly plump and unpopular. He longs to prove himself to his father (Michael Caine), an award-winning writer who happens to be awaiting news of medical tests. Then it starts snowing and you know things can only get worse.
Improbably billed a comedy, gun for hire Gore Verbinski (The Mexican, Pirates Of The Caribbean, The Ring) strives for the all-American angst of Falling Down and American Beauty but struggles to find a consistent tone. No matter how many Big Gulps hit him in the head, Cage’s character, a TV star, with (as he reminds us and himself) an annual salary of $240,000 and a shot at Good Morning America is no Willy Loman or Rupert Pupkin.
There are some nice touches. The dynamic between Caine and Cage occasionally recalls Woody and Buzz Lightyear (“You’re not a real meteorologist”) and there’s always pleasure to be had from a running gag where someone gets soaked. Still, as an hour and a half of relentless miserabilism and heavily weathered heavy weather metaphors (“Predicting the weather is random. It’s a technical art, not a science.”) gives way to a bogus happy Hollywood ending, you can’t help but wonder who The Weather Man is being pitched at. Those banking on a tragic postal conclusion can only feel aggrieved, while anyone chasing rainbows will have long succumbed to an urge to reach for the noose. Don’t need a weatherman…