Nicolas Cage has said he believes his performance in Pig, a 2021 drama from director Michael Sarnoski, is the best of his career. I am inclined to agree: truffle hunter Rob Feld is a bleak and solitary man, whose conversations are sparse and punctuated by long moments of mournful silence. It is in those moments that Cage does his best work. It is rich with ambivalence and uncertainty. When emotion emerges – grief, rage, misery – it punctures. Pig is a little more than 90 minutes long, and sits tensely under a constant threat of violence.

Rob Feld lives in a shack in the Oregon woods, from which he gathers truffles and sells them to local food buyer Amir (Alex Wolff). Aiding him in his foraging process is Rob’s prized pig. When that pig is violent taken from him in the middle of the night, Rob descends into Portland to retrieve it.

From the basic premise you can see an entire film: a low budget, eccentric variation on John Wick, with Cage punching, beating, and shooting his way through Portland’s underground to rescue his beloved pet. It is a genuine surprise, and a most pleasurable one, to discover Michael Sarnoski’s film is something else entirely. Rob does go to Portland for his pig, and he does interact with its criminal underbelly, but from there this is something else entirely. Wherever a creative choice is made, Sarnoski – who also wrote the screenplay – makes the more interesting one. The results are not just surprising; they are extraordinarily tense. Once it becomes clear that obvious story directions have been swept off the table, Pig transforms into a bona fide masterpiece. Once the viewer can no longer anticipate the characters’ actions, the suspense ratchets up through the roof.

It is a film dominated by strong performances. Alex Wolff plays Amir as superficially slick and confident, but does wonders with the more uncertain man underneath. Darius Pierce is nicely understated as a crime boss named Edgar. David Knell makes a tremendous impact in one scene as a high society chef Rob knows from his past. Adam Arkin, who emerges relatively late into the picture, tops them all in a role that is both threatening and vulnerable in turn.

The picture is attractively shot by cinematographer Patrick Scola, employing varied styles based on location and tone. Alexis Grapsas and Philip Klein’s musical score is tremendously effective. What is truly remarkable, given the quality of the acting and production, is that the entire film was reportedly shot in 20 days.

I missed seeing Pig on its original release, and that was my mistake. Do not make the same one. This is vital, unmissable cinema.