Jamie
It took me just about two chapters of Eye for an Eye to be like “ah, alright. I think I’m good.” The book is insane. Just a pure injection of Death Wish fanaticism. Now you aren’t even safe in the suburbs. And when the teen nogoodniks come a-knockin’, guess what? You aren’t even gonna get justice because the system will just let them go. Now, I know what you’re thinking. ‘Jamie, this is just what the books were like back then. The movies followed. What’s the big whoop?’ You don’t understand. Not only do these nogoodniks kill the main character’s daughter (sparing her granddaughter), but then her surviving son-in-law kills himself and the baby right after that. He is so jaded by the world and the only way he knows to protect his daughter is to kill her. At that point I threw the book out a window. No thank you. As my own child would say, “Pee-yew.” Maybe this is just a product of the book coming out in 1993… kind of the tail of the urban crime hysteria of the 80’s and 90’s… you gotta step it up. Does she really need so much motivation to take up vigilante justice? I guess the author thought so.
To recap, Karen is a housewife with two great daughters and a loving husband. One day, chatting with her daughter on the way back from work, she is horrified to hear a man break into her house and kill her! My word! Horrible. Karen is shocked and has trouble grieving. It seems like things are turning around when the clear culprit, a horrible delivery man named Robert Doob, is apprehended with DNA evidence in spades. However, things go from bad to worse when he is released on a technicality. Karen begins to attend a survivor’s group and catches wind of a group that helps people like her get justice. They will set the plan in motion, get her a weapon and the rest is up to her. She starts preparing, all the while also following Robert Doob around. She even catches him scoping his next victim, but the police, who are sympathetic, still can’t do anything. When it’s revealed that a friend from the group is an undercover FBI agent (and kind of sort of knows what she’s up to) and Doob starts following her surviving child around school, she decides to drop it all. That is until Doob strikes again. Plan back in motion! She tricks her family into leaving town without her and breaks into Doob’s apartment. Doob knows it’s her and goes to her house that night for the big climactic confrontation. Well you know how that goes. Doob is donzo and the police and her family arrive only in time to reluctantly agree that they will chalk it all up to self defense and let it lie. THE END.
It’s a little hard to be jokey with this type of material, but let’s just be clear that this film does in fact have one of the funniest scenes ever put to film. Our boy Kiefer Sutherland has a scene that focuses on his drumming along intensely to a music video, becoming bored, throwing his drumsticks to the side in favor of some ice cream (or ‘scream as the kids call it), which he eats from his apartment’s balcony. The purpose of the scene? I guess to make us laugh. Not sure. Anyway, this actually is exploitative garbage riding on the high of the OJ Simpson trial. They even show footage of the trial as part of the film. It’s really brazen and bad. I usually kind of brush off critics getting all stuffy about this stuff, but really… this is no bueno. Belongs on the paperback book stands and not really in a big theatrical release (at least not one that doesn’t at least hedge a little on the ethics of it all… things turn out pretty great for her). Anyway, thank god for the absolutely stacked cast of this garbage film. The acting is actually at times out of this world. Too bad it’s in service of Death Wish 6.
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! *gif of me drumming manically while watching a music video in my flophouse.* Let’s go!
The Good? The cast is pretty incredible. That is maybe the only good thing you can really say about the film which was (1) late to the game to harp on super criminals and indulge in vigilante justice garbage, (2) not even particularly interesting while doing it.
The Bad? Everything else, but honestly mostly Kiefer. Kiefer is not fun. Kiefer is gross and upsetting in this film. And I get that that is the point, but you really should just channel Lithgow in Ricochet when you are doing stuff like this. More phone book prison gladiators, and less extremely graphic rape scenes please.
The BMT? This is a bad movie. I never want to watch it again. It is a relic of the time it was made, which I suppose makes it of interest when I start my Media Studies PhD on the evolution of the Super Criminal phenomenon as seen through newspaper, film, and television. Otherwise I have no interest in this weirdness. Ebert said it best: one star, “Eye for an Eye is a particularly nasty little example of audience manipulation”.
The Rewatchables? What’s aged the worst? I think, as usual with films like this, the entire “super criminal” vibe the film has going. By the time this film comes out crime would have already started falling in the US. The “That Guy” Award for Angela Paton who leads the support group in this film, but is also the innkeeper in Groundhog Day. The Overacting Award has to go to Kiefer … seriously go watch the drumming scene. It is insane. And we get a wild Needle Drop in the middle of the film for the Macarena, which I suppose is appropriate given when the movie was released (January, 1996).
I’m going to start recording some great giffable moments. Cliche Gif – Ed Harris is sitting in the dark and turns on the light when she walks in the room. Best Gif – I think for like a celebratory thing at around 28 minutes the detective says “we got him” which I would change to “we got it”. A muted celebration, but it works. Craziest gif – at 48 minutes Kiefer says “pull the fucking trigger”, although the gif truly could not do justice to how weird he says it.
Love a Cameo (Who?) for Cynthia Rothrock as the self-defence instructor. And a true blue Product Placement (What?) for I think maybe like 14 times where someone drinks a Pepsi, or has a Pepsi at a party, or you see a Pepsi machine. A Setting as a Character (Where?) for Los Angeles. And Crazy Setting (When?) for the Macarena blasting during a scene setting this almost certainly 1995 or 1996. This movie is straight unpleasant and Bad.
Cheerios,
The Sklogs
Bad Movie Twins 