It's a new month, so it must be time for a new Nicolas Cage movie. I'll admit, my hopes were high when I saw that the director of this one was Roger Donaldson, a technically savvy filmmaker who likes to mix up the types of movies he does, including NO WAY OUT, COCKTAIL, SPECIES, THIRTEEN DAYS, and THE BANK JOB. And admittedly, the set up for his latest, SEEKING JUSTICE, is intriguing as a kind of update on films like MAGNUM FORCE or THE STAR CHAMBER, in which a secret society takes justice into its hands when the police can't or won't.
Cage plays New Orleans high school teacher Will Gerard, whose cellist wife Laura (January Jones) is attacked and raped on her way home one night. While anxiously waiting in the hospital waiting room for his wife to wake up, Will is approached by buttoned-down stranger Simon (Guy Pearce), who asks Will to make a decision—give the word and Laura's attacker will be taken care of immediately, or leave it to the police.
Will is torn but in the end he endorses the vigilante justice, and the price is a favor somewhere down the line. It seems Simon is part of a network of favor givers who essentially pass it forward, and it isn't long before Will is asked to kill another hardened criminal (or at least that's what he is told the would-be victim is), something he refuses to do.
Where the story goes from there isn't really important. A series of double- and triple-crosses seem completely manufactured and unnecessarily complicated. There are elements to the story that seem important in the beginning but then never pay off. Surprisingly, the one thing you can usually count on in a Nicolas Cage movie—Cage acting some degree of crazy—isn't really a factor in SEEKING JUSTICE, and that may ultimately be why I can't recommend (or event remember details about) any aspect of this movie.
I'm certainly as much a fan of Cage when he puts forward a nice dramatic part as long as it looks like he's trying, but other than a few tense moments near the beginning of the film, the man is basically sleepwalking through this one. This one is a disappointment on nearly every level. But if you wait about a month, Cage will probably have another, better movie out for you.
