John Chard

It's not what a lawyer tells me I must do, but it's what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do. After his wife (January Jones) is brutally raped, New Orleans teacher Will Gerard (Nic Cage) gets involved with a shadowy vigilante group run by a man called Simon (Guy Pearce). A favour for a favour to get justice seems viable, but all is not as it seems... To be frank it's just another in a long line of vigilante thrillers that get trundled out every other year. Rarely does one, certainly in the more modern era of film making, have something viable to say, to challenge the thought process of the viewers. Justice (AKA: Seeking Justice) starts off very promising, grabbing the attention whilst having an atmospheric texture about it. Sadly come the mid-point things just get daft (yet Cage stays ultra serious throughout) and in spite of the makers trying to add in some twisty thriller conventions, all the potential (and promise) for thought provoking depth has long since gone. That said, as an intrigue based drama it's a decent enough watch, with director Roger Donaldson (No Way Out/Thirteen Days) adept in the staging of suspenseful sequences. Yet the lack of kinetic action is sorely felt, the over all feeling being one that Donaldson and crew were not quite sure which way to take the picture. Should we keep things shadowy and suggestive? Or should we have live wire chases and dastardly peril? Justice only winds up as an uneven blend of ideas. While wasting Xander Berkeley and the New Orleans locations is a crime in itself. Not bad exactly, above average in fact, but just forgettable and another wasted opportunity to add meat to a hot topic in film form. 6/10