It should be said at the outset that the premise of this pic is highly attractive: a conventional whodunit built around finding out the origins of a snuff film. Even though the movie does not succeed completely, it is most entertaining, and touches on some extremely interesting areas.

Private eye Tom Welles (Nicolas Cage) is hired by super-rich widow Mrs. Christian (Myra Carter) to investigate something she has discovered in her late husband's personal safe. It seems that along with papers and stock certificates, she found what looks like a snuff film, showing the brutal murder of a teenage girl (Jenny Powell). Mrs. Christian wants Tom to determine if the film is genuine. Assuming that it isn't, she wants Welles to locate the girl. Since the widow is about to evaluate her entire marriage on the outcome of the investigation, price is no object.

Christian family attorney Longdale (Anthony Heald) arranges the monetary details, and Tom is on his way.

First stop is a missing children's center in Cleveland, which yields the girl's identity: Mary Anne Mathews of North Carolina. Posing as an agent for the center, Welles pays a visit on Mary Anne's mother, Janet (Amy Morton--giving the pic's best performance). He finds a hidden diary, that indicates the girl ran away from home to find fame and fortune in Hollywood. Finally, the film enters the promised sleaze underworld.

Once in Hollywood, Welles enlists the aid of porn store clerk Max California (Joaquin Phoenix) to find the makers of the film. Tom and Max descend deeper and deeper into hard-core S&M until they meet up with porno producer Eddie Poole (James Gandolfini). Poole reacts visibly when Tom shows him Mary Anne's picture, so he sets up a surveillance, which includes a phone tap.

After Welles makes an anonymous threatening phone call to Poole, Eddie immediately calls a New York number, that is traced to Dino Velvet (Peter Stormare--overacting), the high priest of hard core S&M. Tom wastes no time in obtaining all of Velvet's videos, and determines that his star, a masked sadist called Machine (Chris Bauer) appears in the snuff film.

The scene now shifts to New York, where a meeting is arranged between Welles and Velvet. Tom wants to commission a special film, but only if Machine would appear in it. A price is agreed upon, and the money drop is to occur in Velvet's studio, a miserable warehouse in the meat-packing district.

At this point, Tom tells Max that his services are no longer required, and he should go back to LA. Then, an armed Welles goes to the warehouse. Unfortunately, this is a trap. As soon as he walks in, he is threatened by a crossbow wielding Velvet, forcing him to drop his gun. Eddie Poole appears, and identifies Tom as the one who questioned him in LA. To further complicate matters, Longdale arrives and is revealed to have been the one who arranged the snuff film production, for the late Mr. Christian.

A masked Machine provides even more brawn as a seriously beat up Max is brought in and strung up as a hostage. Tom must turn over the film or else Max gets it! Welles is led at gunpoint to his car by Longdale and gets the film, while simultaneously palming a sharp object.

As they return to the warehouse, Welles mentions that Longdale got $1 million to produce the film, and it is soon clear that Poole and Velvet didn't even get a small fraction of that. Machine kills Max, Tom grabs a gun and kills Dino, barely escaping Eddie, and drives away fast.

While in the car, he calls Mrs. Christian and tells her everything. He then calls his wife (Catherine Keener) telling her to leave the house immediately, fearing retribution from Poole, who knows where he lives. Tom meets up with his wife at a vacation spot and tells her that he must "end it."

His plans to get Mrs. Christian's help are stymied big time when he is met at the mansion's door by a butler, who hands him two large envelopes of cash--one for Mary Anne's mother, and the other for him. There is also a message: The old lady killed herself earlier that day.

So, Tom heads to LA to take care of Eddie. Welles forces Eddie to take him to the place where the snuff film was made--a cabin in the hills. After easing his conscience with a quick phone call to Janet, he dispatches Eddie.

He returns to New York, and finds Machine, who turns out to be a psychotic mama's boy. They fight it out in a cemetery, located near his house. Exit Machine.

Now Tom returns home, and in a ludicrous scene, breaks down and cries in his wife's lap. Perhaps this was Cage's way of adding some grit to a performance lacking in emotional level. The movie ends with Tom opening a letter from the mother, thanking him for everything.

Whoa!

While 8mm steals quite a bit from Hardcore (1979) it does take us into some new areas, flawed as it is.

If Mary Anne is a tragic victim of following the yellow brick road into Oz (Hollywood) to seek her fame and fortune, what about Max California, who came to town to make it in the music industry?

Then, too, what about Eddie Poole, who surely didn't start off wanting to produce sleazy porn?

Is Tom Welles the Dorothy in this movie? He goes through some awful experiences, and then finds out that "There's no place like home."

It was suggested in the 1950's that every single film made since the release of the Wizard of Oz (1939) has been influenced by it, in at least some small way. Go ahead and fill in the blanks: Tom as a surrogate Dorothy, Max as the scarecrow, Dino Velvet as the wicked witch, and Machine as a vicious winged monkey. Would the evil Wizard be Longdale/Mr. Christian?

How big of a leap is it from "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," to getting caught up in a snuff film? In 8mm, Mary Anne, the real Dorothy, does get killed by the wicked witch.

A fable for our times.