Once upon a time, a thriller starring Kevin Spacey, embodying a charismatic stranger disrupting a small town with a hidden agenda, would have been a cinematic event. Spacey, celebrated for his portrayals of captivating villains from The Usual Suspects, Seven, and House of Cards, possessed a unique talent for Shakespearean malevolence that could guarantee box office success.
However, times have changed. I recently watched Spacey’s latest film, Peter Five Eight, a remarkably awkward and misguided project that awkwardly blends religious allegory with an anti-alcoholism public service announcement. The screening took place at a single Los Angeles theater, and I was the only person in the audience.
Even with a packed house, labeling this as a “comeback” would be a significant overstatement. Spacey appears somewhat out of practice in commanding the screen, his attempts at intimidation feeling sluggish. Sporting a slightly heavier physique and retaining a hint of the theatrical drawl reminiscent of Frank Underwood from House of Cards, Spacey’s portrayal of the enigmatic Peter is closer to a cartoonish villain than the chilling Anton Chigurh. This is further compounded by his frequent wearing of a jaunty fedora adorned with a feather.
The reasons for Spacey’s career decline are well-documented. In 2017, amidst the rise of the #MeToo movement, actor Anthony Rapp accused Spacey of making a sexual advance at a party in 1986, when Rapp was 14 and Spacey was 26. Spacey responded with a statement claiming no recollection of the encounter and simultaneously announced he was coming out as gay – a move criticized by some LGBTQ figures as a deflection tactic. Subsequently, over a dozen more individuals came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct or assault against Spacey, spanning from the 1980s to the present.
Netflix severed ties with Spacey, proceeding with House of Cards for a season without him. Ridley Scott famously removed Spacey from the completed film All the Money in the World, replacing him with Christopher Plummer and reshooting crucial scenes. Spacey’s publicist and talent agency also dropped him. In the ensuing years, two potential U.S. criminal cases against Spacey faltered – one due to prosecutors dropping charges, the other because an anonymous accuser passed away. At trial, Rapp lost his lawsuit concerning the alleged 1986 incident. However, in 2023, a U.K. jury found Spacey not guilty on nine charges of sexual assault or misconduct related to accusations from four men. More recently, Spacey agreed to a $1 million settlement in an arbitration case concerning alleged sexual harassment of younger crew members on the House of Cards set, a considerably lesser amount than the initial $31 million ordered in 2021.
Despite navigating the legal ramifications of the scandal relatively unscathed, Spacey’s public image remains irrevocably damaged. His attempts at public address, often taking the form of unsettling Christmas greetings videos where he persists in addressing viewers as Underwood with sinister undertones, have done little to rehabilitate his reputation. More recently, he has appeared to align with right-leaning “anti-cancel culture” sentiments, evidenced by his performance at an event at the University of Oxford, which garnered a standing ovation, and his latest Christmas message framed as an Underwood interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Got a new picture coming out. Peter Five Eight. Noir. Glad you asked. March 22, 2024. pic.twitter.com/t9YnvlkLH4
— Kevin Spacey (@KevinSpacey) March 13, 2024
Hollywood, however, remains hesitant to welcome Spacey back into the fold. In 2023, he had a voice-only role in the British independent film Control, playing an anonymous figure who hijacks a politician’s self-driving car. Reviews were largely negative, yet even this project arguably surpasses the truly dreadful Peter Five Eight. Written and directed by visual effects veteran Michael Zaiko Hall, Peter Five Eight is not helped by Spacey’s own promotional video bizarrely comparing it to noir classics like Sunset Boulevard and The Big Sleep. Instead, the film suffers from gaudy lighting, an overly sentimental score, and a plot that makes little to no sense, resembling a low-budget soap opera devoid of suspense. Even daytime dramas often exhibit superior sound mixing.
Decoding Peter Five Eight: Biblical References and Narrative Misdirection
The title Peter Five Eight immediately signals a deeper, perhaps thematic intent, referencing the Bible verse 1 Peter 5:8: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” The film, however, interprets “sober” quite literally, introducing us to Sam, a real estate agent portrayed by Jet Jandreau (also a co-producer), who is decidedly not sober. Set in the Californian mountain town of Dunsmuir (also the setting for Hall’s 2022 directorial debut), Sam struggles to sell property and argues with her inept husband, Travis, with both resorting to alcohol to cope. The portrayals of intoxication are cartoonish at best, with Jandreau occasionally missing her mouth as she dramatically pours liquor, reminiscent of the comedic “drinking problem” gag in Airplane! Adding to the distraction is her affected Mid-Atlantic accent, seemingly intended as a nod to 1940s noir films, which becomes increasingly strained and hysterical as she realizes her past is catching up to her.
The source of this “haunting” is Peter, played by Spacey, who arrives in Dunsmuir and begins to stalk Sam, albeit in a remarkably conspicuous manner. Within twenty minutes, he buys the house directly across from hers and openly questions locals about her, including a stereotypical gas station attendant who demands $100 in Bitcoin for information. (This is not the film’s only perplexing nod to cryptocurrency.) Peter exudes an air of pretentious self-importance, informing a neighbor inquiring about assisting him that she is incapable of helping because he is a “fallen soul,” adding he is “doomed to play the villain’s part.”
Spacey’s performance in Peter Five Eight seems to want to have it both ways, simultaneously embracing a caricature of himself as a predatory monster while also delivering moralizing pronouncements about the necessity of “accountability for the things that we’ve done.” Sam harbors a dark secret – the very thing she is fleeing – and Peter has been contracted by an unnamed wealthy figure to ensure she cannot escape her past. However, the specifics of Peter’s mission remain frustratingly vague. Despite clearly being a hitman, he refrains from attempting to kill Sam, instead lingering in her vicinity, guilt-tripping her with veiled references to her undisclosed crime while the townspeople remain completely unaware.
After Peter sabotages Sam’s real estate dealings by causing a gas leak at a property she is showing (resulting in a scene where characters stand around in a kitchen panicking about the fumes instead of evacuating), he then proceeds to seduce her coworker, Brenda (Rebecca De Mornay, deserving far better material). Their affair contributes nothing to Peter’s already convoluted agenda but generates awkward dialogue intended to evoke classic hard-boiled romance, culminating in one of the least convincing on-screen sex scenes in recent memory.
Sam, meanwhile, descends further into turmoil as she desperately tries to get rid of Peter – without ever confronting her own conscience or the nature of her past transgression. When violence finally erupts towards the film’s climax, Peter inexplicably manages to kill several irrelevant characters instead of Sam’s actual friends or loved ones, seemingly contradicting his supposed objective. At one point, he pursues Sam across a small lake in a canoe chase so devoid of excitement it plays like a deliberate parody of thrilling action sequences.
“We all exist in this sort of absurd chaos,” Peter declares in a moment that feels like Spacey directly addressing the audience, Underwood-style, commenting on the nonsensical narrative he is trapped within. Right up to the final scene, which suggests Peter’s character might represent a form of immortal evil, if not the Devil himself, Peter Five Eight mishandles its themes of repressed guilt and Spacey’s over-the-top portrayal of a villain that is more tiresome than terrifying. It is conceivable that after appearing in a few more low-budget films of this caliber, larger studios and directors might deem it “safe” to re-employ him.
In this light, Peter Five Eight could be interpreted as a clumsy allegory about the fleeting nature of “cancel culture,” a phenomenon that rarely endures in our culture of short attention spans and forgiveness. Alone in the theater, I chuckled at one of Peter’s many feeble attempts to intimidate Sam, before recognizing it as a genuinely menacing message from anyone ostracized from their industry for alleged misdeeds: “Ta ta,” he says to her, “for now.”
