Seeking Justice

Seeking Justice
Director: Roger Donaldson
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Guy Pearce, January Jones
**

Cage's latest starring role sees him playing Will, a mild-mannered teacher whose wife (Jones) is brutally attacked, leaving her in hospital. While in the waiting room, Will is approached by Simon (Pearce), the leader of a vigilante organisation, who offers to kill the perpetrator in exchange for a future "favour".

Stricken with anger, Will agrees and the man is killed. But once Will learns the nature of the favour, he realises he has entered a dangerous and murky world of crime and violence from which he may not be able to escape.

The film is set in a post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, yet the director Donaldson does not seem to draw on the issues surrounding that catastrophe, nor open up a debate about taking the law into your own hands.

Although it starts off strong, with the general premise making for an interesting prospect, the film dissolves into a tame on-screen game of cat-and-mouse, with the leads struggling to maintain enthusiasm for their respective roles.

Cage appears decidedly disinterested by the third act. In a career marked with sporadic hits among many misses, and despite initial promise, Seeking Justice falls firmly into the latter category.