There is a decent story in here somewhere. The writing is atrocious though. They always say "show dont tell" but literally every piece of characterization is dont through a line of descriptive dialogue. Nic Cage peers at a woman at the bar and the bar tender approaches, "Her names Teena, husband died of cancer a few years back, has a 6 year old daughter." Partner then approaches, "Man John, you are a war hero, purple heart, no family left in town and have 20 years as a police officer...why not just retire man....full pension." It is that awful. I mean one scene of Nic Cage taking his badge and gun off at his home would show us all we need to know about him...we never get that scene. Where does cage live? No clue. How'd his wife die? No clue. Does he have sons? He says at one point, "I never had a daughter"...kinda an odd thing to say if you dont have sons. This is just awful screenwriting. I mean there is literally no arc for any character. Cage shoots a criminal dead and is emotionless about it in the first scene...movie winds up with him killing criminals with no emotion. Never really get to know the woman well enough to see her do anything and the daughter is portrayed as strong throughout and never really changes. She tells her mom off, says no to drinking without a thought, she fights the criminals, fights one of the criminals sister, takes care of everything. Also she is 12? In real live 2 year olds have been interviewed to identify killers...a 12 year old with a broken arm isnt believed...which leads me to the most egregiously infuriating part of the movie...
There is a decent revenge tale in there, but it doesn't work with the comically bad plot, based on everyone in the town of Niagara being insane. A pretty single mother goes to a party at her boyfriends house and has a couple of beers. She walks home pretty much totally sober with her daughter. 4 guys jump out and beat and gang rape her repeatedly while her daughter watches. They leave her in a pool of her own blood and unconscious. They have DNA and the daughter positively identifies the men. Teena gains her memory back after coming out of her COMA and positively identifies them. Open and shut case clearly right? Nope. Whole town thinks Teena...the widow, whose lived in town at least since high school and was married to a factory worker in town, who is dating seemingly a popular guy in town and who is shown in her first inexplicable scene with a friend in a bar, who was with her daughter who has a broken arm and whose face is beaten and bruised...was a whore. Yep the defendants went with the, "She willingly had sex with us, and then the 100 lbs woman attacked us and we beat her to a bloody pulp after we all had sex with her." Their literal defense was "she was so drunk she doesnt remember" Uhh...even their defense describes a rape. If she is so intoxicated that she cant remember or control her actions...she is too intoxicated to consent.
Teena's boyfriend disappears for some reason (never explained) and makes a small cameo later when one of the rapists tells him in a crowded bar, "I am going to do to you, what i did to your girl." Yep...dead serious that happened. The rapists cat call the victim in the court room and the court cheers when Don Johnson (their lawyer) calls her a whore and says she is guilty of child abuse for having drunk consensual sex in a park in front of her daughter...Dont worry, the judge would surely step in and in no way allow a defense attorney to approach a rape victims child and call her a whore...nope wrong again...the judge corrects Nic Cage on his grammar, tells a woman who just got out of a coma to take off her sunglasses, overrules all objections to a lawyer calling a rape victim a whore in the court room and then later engages in an ex-parte hearing with Don Johnson...Yep, the whole towns gone insane. Thats the plot. Girl gets raped, Entire town is insane,Nic Cage kills the rapists in the least painful ways imaginable...bullets to the head...Half the people you want him to kill live at the end and the people he kills goes out so painlessly and effortlessly there is neither drama nor satisfaction. At one point Cage calls one to lure him to a hotel and there is a woman's voice on the line...its never explained if cage did a female voice, had a female talk or what the heck happened. The screenwriting is insane. I love Cage, but this was the worst written hack piece of trash I have ever seen. I watched it all because there were so many people i wanted to die in horrible ways and I kept thinking, "Maybe they just made all these people awful so Cage has more to kill", but nope...Doesnt happen
There is a decent revenge tale in there, but it doesn't work with the comically bad plot, based on everyone in the town of Niagara being insane. A pretty single mother goes to a party at her boyfriends house and has a couple of beers. She walks home pretty much totally sober with her daughter. 4 guys jump out and beat and gang rape her repeatedly while her daughter watches. They leave her in a pool of her own blood and unconscious. They have DNA and the daughter positively identifies the men. Teena gains her memory back after coming out of her COMA and positively identifies them. Open and shut case clearly right? Nope. Whole town thinks Teena...the widow, whose lived in town at least since high school and was married to a factory worker in town, who is dating seemingly a popular guy in town and who is shown in her first inexplicable scene with a friend in a bar, who was with her daughter who has a broken arm and whose face is beaten and bruised...was a whore. Yep the defendants went with the, "She willingly had sex with us, and then the 100 lbs woman attacked us and we beat her to a bloody pulp after we all had sex with her." Their literal defense was "she was so drunk she doesnt remember" Uhh...even their defense describes a rape. If she is so intoxicated that she cant remember or control her actions...she is too intoxicated to consent.
Teena's boyfriend disappears for some reason (never explained) and makes a small cameo later when one of the rapists tells him in a crowded bar, "I am going to do to you, what i did to your girl." Yep...dead serious that happened. The rapists cat call the victim in the court room and the court cheers when Don Johnson (their lawyer) calls her a whore and says she is guilty of child abuse for having drunk consensual sex in a park in front of her daughter...Dont worry, the judge would surely step in and in no way allow a defense attorney to approach a rape victims child and call her a whore...nope wrong again...the judge corrects Nic Cage on his grammar, tells a woman who just got out of a coma to take off her sunglasses, overrules all objections to a lawyer calling a rape victim a whore in the court room and then later engages in an ex-parte hearing with Don Johnson...Yep, the whole towns gone insane. Thats the plot. Girl gets raped, Entire town is insane,Nic Cage kills the rapists in the least painful ways imaginable...bullets to the head...Half the people you want him to kill live at the end and the people he kills goes out so painlessly and effortlessly there is neither drama nor satisfaction. At one point Cage calls one to lure him to a hotel and there is a woman's voice on the line...its never explained if cage did a female voice, had a female talk or what the heck happened. The screenwriting is insane. I love Cage, but this was the worst written hack piece of trash I have ever seen. I watched it all because there were so many people i wanted to die in horrible ways and I kept thinking, "Maybe they just made all these people awful so Cage has more to kill", but nope...Doesnt happen