Aiming for an Alexander Payne-style synthesis of wry comedy and unflinching character study, pic has been made with the utmost sincerity, but the frankly lugubrious material and barely compensating spasms of humor are all but impossible to warm to.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The Hollywood Reporter by Kirk Honeycutt
In The Weather Man, Nicolas Cage doesn't so much play a protagonist, warts and all, as he plays a protagonist who is all warts.
Charlotte Observer by Lawrence Toppman
The movie gives actors many chances to shine, and they do. But I went away most impressed with Verbinski.
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
The Weather Man is what indie misery looks like when re-created by one of Hollywood's big studios.
Christian Science Monitor by Peter Rainer
The film is certainly worth seeing, but it should be better than it is.
Dallas Observer by Robert Wilonsky
The Weather Man is not the wacky movie Paramount is selling, nor is it cynical Oscar bait. It's just a little movie about little people trying not to get wet or freeze to death or get burned when they walk outside, and good luck with all that.
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
This film has moments of uncommon observation and touching insight.
The Weather Man begs to be taken seriously and can't easily be dismissed; it kicks around in your mind for a good long while after you've seen it. Cage, who does his finest work since "Leaving Las Vegas," has stripped himself bare of the patented tics and mannerisms he honed in one Jerry Bruckheimer movie too many.
The scenes between Cage and Caine are by far the film's most affecting. The two men don't seem to share the same gene pool, which only helps their dynamic.
Philadelphia Inquirer by Steven Rea
The Weather Man belongs to a school of earnest, artsy Hollywood flicks that includes the Michael Douglas-goes-bonkers "Falling Down," and a lineage that goes back to revered 1970s pics like "Five Easy Pieces."