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Posts Tagged ‘Jennifer Lopez’

Call Me To Escape

Posted in General Comments, Movie Review, Movies, Reviews, tagged A Vigilante -- movie review, Atomic Blonde, Ava, Charlize Theron, Domestic Violence, Enough, General Comments, House, Jennifer Garner, Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Chastain, Justice, Krav Maga, Moderate To Strong Movie Recommendation, Monster, Morgan Spector, Olivia Wilde, Peppermint, Queen Latifah, Reviews, Spousal Abuse, The Equalizer, Tron on May 30, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Today’s review is for the 2018 female action / drama film: “A Vigilante” staring Olivia Wilde as Sadie (abused wife / “vigilante”) and Morgan Spector as Sadie’s husband (abusive husband / villain).

Background: I bought this movie as one of a group of random-pick “action” movies. I knew nothing about the film and assumed it was going to be similar to Charlize Theron’s “Atomic Blonde” or Jessica Chastain’s “Ava“. In fact, it turned out to be more like Jennifer Lopez’s “Enough” or Jennifer Garner’s “Peppermint“. That is, more of a female revenge / action film, but this movie is long on troubling story (drama) and short on action (Queen Latifah in the TV show “The Equalizer” – lite, but an even “lighter” version).

Plot: After escaping her own violent domestic relationship and seeing her son die at the hands of her husband, Sadie dedicates her life to help victims of domestic violence escape from their abusers while also tracking down her own abusive spouse “for justice”. She trains in martial arts for some unspecified amount of time, joins a support group to gain leads to women she can help and then proceeds with her “mission” of delivering justice. Sadie helps both women and children victims of domestic violence. She doesn’t “ask” for payment, but she accepts whatever the person helped can give her. Sadie lives out of a room in a run-down motel and keeps a map of a national park on the wall. The map contains a grid map of the park and she colors in each grid square as she completes a search of that grid.

The movie is slow! Intense, but slow. Most of the movie is spent in the support group meetings to provide the background “justification” for Sadie’s violence. Sadie promises herself she will never kill anyone, but after beating up an abuser she threatens that if he / she ever goes near the victim or a child, she will kill him / her (sometimes the abuser is female). She ends with: “I WANT to kill you.“

In a flashback to one of the support group meetings, Sadie opens up to her therapy group about her husband, a brutal / violent, manic survivalist, who stabbed Sadie repeatedly, and killed their son when the son tried to protect her from the knifing. There is a another flashback to discovering a book about Krav Maga (a martial art) and leaving a note for the group counselor saying Sadie will help other women if they are referred to her in confidence.

Unknown to Sadie, she is recognized in her park-search by her sadistic husband, who tracks her back to her room, overpowers her and takes her back to the his cabin in the wilderness / park for continued torture / abuse. Sadie escapes and (ultimately) kills her husband. Sadie is called by her attorney, who tells her the police found her husband’s body but no other evidence of an obvious murder and they don’t intend to look further into the case. With a body “found”, her life insurance claim is processed, and she leaves the attorney to go back to helping others.

Is the movie any good? So-so for me. If you need an introduction to (or a reminder of) the subject of domestic (spousal or parent-to-child) abuse, this is a profound (if disturbing) movie. If you are looking for an “action” movie where the bad-guy gets justice meted out, this ain’t it. If I were just reviewing this film as an abuse “faux-doc”, I’d say the movie was outstanding to excellent. But, I am not, and it isn’t. It is ridiculous (IMHO) to give folks (particularly women) the impression they can learn a martial art from a book in a short period of time with no training partners or and with no experienced trainer. To get around this, the movie has only two “fights” which combined total about one minute (maximum). Not to belabor the point, but the climatic fight with her abusive spouse never happens. One second they are facing off and the next they are on the ground and she crushes his throat. There was NO fight shown AT ALL.

What about the acting? I have never seen Spector in anything else but he makes quite a creditable maniacal / threatening abusive spouse. In my mind, it is Wilde who makes or breaks this movie with her performance. Precisely because there is so little martial action in this film, it has to be evaluated by the performances of the women in the support group sessions and (by extension) our ability accept Wilde in this role. The supporting cast of women are excellent and Wilde is on a “near” Theron / “Monster” level in this performance. Seriously! Wilde is THAT good. Other than the “House” TV series, TRON (sequel) and some Rom-com (I don’t remember), I don’t recall seeing much of her work. I will definitely need to re-evaluate any future roles with this one (film / role) as her new standard.

Final recommendation: moderate to strong. This movie is rated “R” – appropriately, for subject matter, not for violence (little), sex (none) or language (a little swearing). If you can get past the disturbing nature of the subject (domestic abuse), all of the supporting role performances are very good to excellent. And, again, Wilde in particular is excellent. I am a bit surprised I’d heard nothing before about this film or her performance. As background for this review, I noted the “professional” critics generally felt it was (to that date) the best performance of her career. The general audience reviews seem to have been less impressed. I’m not sure why, except that it’s definitely a “drama” movie and not an “action” movie, so it may have been just audience expectation. One last observation: This is not “great” cinema. It’s slow-ish, a bit disjointed in the timeline / flashback scenes and unrealistic in the “action”. But I was surprised by Wilde’s performance and moved by the women’s stories in the support group meetings. In other words: the movie is moderate for entertainment, but the performances are strong for emotional delivery.

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