Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | Film | September 25, 2026
David O. Russell is a horrible person , but he used to be a horrible person that made good movies. That has not been the case in well over a decade, and yet, he is still being given sizable budgets and fairly big movie stars are still willing to put up with his abuse for the chance at awards recognition.
There will be no awards recognition for Madden, except from the Razzies. I’ll grant that Christian Bale is a convincing Al Davis here, but Nic Cage’s John Madden is … wow, bad. When you’re playing a real-life person, there’s typically two approaches: An impersonation, or your own version. Nic Cage somehow seems to be stuck horribly in between the two. A much better approach for Cage would’ve been to go full Nic Cage, but this is … this is like local-commercial impersonator level.
Did David O. Russell yell so much at Nic Cage that he gave up? Or did he not yell enough? Because this is frankly an embarrassing trailer, and I’m embarrassed for everyone in it, except for Mulaney who somehow makes his moment work. It’s bad prosthetics, bad acting, and bad everything.
Madden streams on Prime Video over Thanksgiving, because Amazon at least understood that this movie has no theatrical prospects.
