Nicolas Cage has certainly seen some career ups and downs, and he seems to be in a holding pattern with Seeking Justice, a rather routine straight-to-DVD thriller directed by Roger Donaldson. Cage plays a school teacher whose wife is attacked and raped. While grieving over his wife's injuries, a close-cropped Guy Pearce approaches and offers to do in the attacker for Cage. But there's a catch -- if vigilante Pearce's people do Cage this favor, he owes 'em.
Cage agrees, the attacker is murdered, all is well (really?)... until the favor is called in. Then things start getting really hairy for poor Nick and family.
I think this one falls in the category of asking the audience to accept one "gimme" too many. That there's a group of vigilantes doing in bad guys, okay. That the vigilantes may have ulterior motives, okay. That they need to rope in a reluctant school teacher to help them further their goals -- whoa. Unfortunately, too much of the plot falls in the "dumb plan, bad guys!" category. In theory they need a patsy for some unsavory criminal acts, but whatever eventually happens, the patsy running around loose TELLING everyone he was a patsy is inevitably going to be a problem. The things that are asked of Cage seem like nefarious acts that any one of Guy Pearce's vigilante mokes could have pulled off without a peep.
But Cage remains fun to watch and January Jones (as the wife) is easy on the eyes and so I give this a marginal "catch it on streaming Netflix" thumbs sideways.
1 comment:
Funny review.
The last Nick Cage thriller I enjoyed was "8 mm", but that was over a decade ago on VHS. I did hate how the serial killer -- surely to right wing applause -- says he didn't have a bad childhood; he's just evil.
The funniest reaction to Cage was Bill Maher talking about him on New Rules:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ7eQepErvM
I think January Jones is a very good actor; I was pissed the way they used her in the latest X-Men film. She was so incredibly easy on the eyes in that, I felt kinda guilty.
By the way, as a former comic book writer, do you have any comic book adaptation favorites? I miss Singer's take on X-Men; he turned Magneto from the pure anger I remember into Ian McKellan's wonderfully condescending, mischievous character.
I also like Nolan's Batman, but his romantic drama elements always feels a bit formulaic and antiseptic, and Nolan's probably the best. None of the current crop of writers can do what the BSG gang (especially, yourself, Ron Moore, Michael Angeli, Toni Graphia, and Michael Taylor) could have done in the superhero realm.
Post a Comment