Nicolas Cage sure has had his ups and downs over the last
several years. It's been a long time since he headlined a film that won
widespread critical acclaim (Adaptation?)
Cage seems content to star in lowbrow tripe like Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, The Sorcerer's Apprentice or Season of the Witch. The Oscar winning actor can't say no anymore. Not surprising,
considering he owes millions in back taxes to the IRS. The poor guy had to sell
off extravagances such as an 18th century castle in England, an
island in the Bahamas, and his copy of Action
Comics #1. I don't know what's worse, giving up a copy of Superman's first
appearance or doing Z-grade direct-to-video schlock like Seeking Justice.
Cage is Will Gerard, a high school teacher trying to enlighten
inner city youths about Shakespeare. One night, his wife, Laura (January
Jones), is attacked and raped. While waiting at the hospital, Will is
approached by the mysterious Simon (Guy Pearce), a member of a clandestine
organization meting out their own brand of street justice. Simon offers to deal
with his wife's assailant in a manner the police and the courts cannot. All he
asks in return is a simple favor to be named later. At first, the favors seem
innocuous enough - mail a letter and then observe a woman and her children at
the zoo. Next thing you know, Simon orders Will to murder a supposed pedophile.
Will and Laura find their lives in danger as they discover just how far
reaching and powerful Simon is.
Call Nicolas Cage what you want: a human medical experiment
or a living, breathing post-modern expressionist art exhibit, perhaps? Whether
it's his bizarre inflections, crazed bug-eyed looks or psychotic twitches, he
is entertaining in a unintentional way. There's bad and there's Nicolas Cage
bad. Either way, you can hardly accuse him of being boring. Unfortunately,
that's exactly what he is in Seeking
Justice, boring. Despite returning to the Big Easy, the site of his manic performance
in Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans, Cage barely registers as if he were going through
the motions until the check clears. Equally robotic is his co-star January
Jones, who delivers every line with a blank stare and a monotone demeanor, much
like her performances in X-Men First Class or Unknown. It's a wonder
how she could be as good as Betty Draper on AMC's Mad Men.
The filmmakers may have done better by replacing Jones with Dexter star Jennifer Carpenter, who says
barely a few sentences as Laura's best friend, Trudy. The supporting cast also
includes Xander Berkeley as a police detective, Harold Perrineau from Lost as Will's best friend, and IronE
Singleton from The Walking Dead as
one of Simon's enforcers.
Much like Cage, director Roger Donaldson has had a
rollercoaster career. He's been behind the camera of well-received films such
as Thirteen Days and The World's Fastest Indian. Yet, he's
also directed Species, Dante's Peak, the Alec Baldwin/Kim Basinger
remake of The Getaway, and the 80's
camp classic Cocktail. Donaldson's
last feature was The Bank Job, an
excellent heist movie that gave Jason Statham a chance to stretch his acting
muscles beyond his usual action pictures. Seeking
Justice doesn't do the same for Nicolas Cage and is so forgettable; it
doesn't even belong amidst Donaldson's weaker efforts. His direction is leaden
with random canted angles thrown in to switch up things.
The screenplay credited to Todd Hickey and Robert Tannen is
full of weak contrivances and ludicrous plot twists. The methods of Simon's
vigilante organization are needlessly Machiavellian. There's a lot of silly
cloak-and-dagger activity such as buying two candy bars from a vending machine
as a go signal or using the code-phrase, "The hungry rabbit jumps,"
which was the movie's original title. This same association employs cops,
reporters, and skilled thugs. It doesn't make a lick of sense for them to
coerce untrained civilians.
As revenge thrillers go, one can do better: Haywire, Lady Vengeance, and Harry Brown being recent examples. Seeking Justice is a second-rate potboiler
that is unworthy of even Nicolas Cage's notoriously feeble standards.
Rating: * (*****)
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