Seeking Justice

Remember: always either whispering or shouting

"Would you cross the line for vengeance?"

Hey gang, you're most of the way to the exits for the week, and I'm here with the Tagline to ease the transition with a movie where Nicholas Cage seeks revenge etc. etc. you've heard this story before. Mr. Cage is a high school English teacher in New Orleans named Will Gerard whose wife is brutally raped by a stranger on the way home one night. Will is then approached by a man named Simon, claiming to represent a group of 'concerned citizens' willing to 'take care' of the man who raped Will's wife, by 'murdering him' with a 'gun' (they're a shadowy group of vigilantes okay?). After waffling over it for a little while, Will agrees to make a deal with this suspicious man he has never met who works for a group of shadowy criminal murderers. This seems like a good idea for exactly 0 seconds. It isn't long before Simon is back, looking to have Will do some favors for him. For starters its just dropping off a letter, and other cryptic instructions, but soon after he asks Will to push a guy off a bridge into traffic.

Always trust mysterious guys in hospital lobbies.

Will is understandably (and uncharacteristically for Nicholas Cage) hesitant to murder some guy, even though he is a rapistmurderer (supposedly). He attempts to worm his way out of the deal, which leads to a spiral of threats leveraged at both him, and his wife (played by January Jones I didn't mention, who also was Emma Frost in X-Men First Class). Finally Will is more or less forced into a situation where he is attacked by his proposed mark, and accidentally sends him pitching over a railing. Now Will is up for the frame for murder, and still attempting to evade the secretive group that put him up to the murder, because Will's been snooping and that makes them really want to kill him.

Buy a gun, shoot some guys maybe. GOOD PLANS.

The plot isn't exactly Earth shattering. It's not terrible either though, and it is at least a kind of interesting, and not totally ridiculous premise. A group that has random people murder the attackers of OTHER victims in ways that look like suicide, and maybe have a cop or two in on it, BOOM pretty convincing idea for crimes that go unsolved. Also notable is that Nicholas Cage turns in what for him is a very restrained performance. He barely screams at anyone for no reason, and only punches a single innocent bystander, and even apologizes after! (the person in question is a delinquent student in his own class, man what a teacher am I right?) Still, compared to the screaming, absolutely bonkers capers he normally gets up to, this all seems in rather good taste comparatively.

If only he was in a bear suit am I right?

I agree with the consensus, this is by no means a great movie, it falls pretty safely into the 'eh okay' range, but unlike the movie I reviewed on Tuesday (btw Jennifer Carpenter plays a secondary character in this movie) it is actually entertaining enough to warrant actually watching (especially if you have Netflix and can do so for no additional investment, save some time). Apparently this movie was released last March, but I honestly don't remember it ever being in theaters, making me wonder if it never saw a wide release (just looked it up, it was released widest in 231 theaters nationwide, none of them anywhere near me, mystery solved). If you have nothing to watch, consider giving it a shot.

That's all for today, I'll see you all next week!