Directed by:
Johnny MartinCinematography:
David StragmeisterComposer:
Frederik WiedmannCast:
Nicolas Cage, Anna Hutchison, Talitha Eliana Bateman, Don Johnson, Deborah Kara Unger, Joshua Mikel, Elena Sanchez, Michael Papajohn, Emily Sandifer (more)VOD (3)
Plots(1)
On the Fourth of July, after a late-nite lawn party, Teena Maguire (Anna Hutchison) and her twelve-year-old daughter Bethie (Talitha Bateman) stroll home in the moonlight under the glimmer of a few stray fireworks still popping in the air. They decide to take a shortcut through a popular hotspot Teena frequented in high school. It's a bad choice as they are met with a gang of thugs who violently, sexually assault Teena as Bethie watches in horror. First on the scene is Detective John Dromoor (Nicolas Cage), who met Teena just previously and made a connection. He is a widower and war vet and takes it upon himself to see justice made, especially after the gang hires slick, hard-knocking attorney Jay Kirkpatrick (Don Johnson), who seems able to clear the men. (HBO Europe)
(more)Reviews (3)
I guess I have a fetish; every now and then, I search for Nicolas Cage movies and then tell people that they’re not that bad. But he has a bit of a problem these days. He’s been shooting awful B movies. But these B movies are aware that they’re B movies and so they’re not so bad for a B movie in general. Just like this one. What can you expect from a movie with such a stupid name that it specifically has to tell you that it’s both a love story and a vengeance… Nicolas, however, is completely okay and since he begins to take revenge, the movie gets into some pretty solid levels of vengeance, therefore delivering what the title has promised. And since I noticed that Nicolas has produced this movie as well, I almost feel as if he specifically aimed to shoot similar movies. I don’t know about him, but in my opinion, this was one of the better movies of his unsinkable five-movies-a-year ship.
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I'll admit to having a sadistic weakness for these low-budget B-movies that try to be terribly serious and an ambitious director vehemently tries to weave a whip out of manure, but the manure falls through his fingers, crumbles to the floor, and when it sticks together, doesn't snap at all like it should. Vengeance: Never Go Full Retard Name has some spectacular, uncompromising scenes and shots that make it clear that, unlike the rest of the crew, at least the director was taking the whole project at least a little seriously. So the opening (and otherwise completely unnecessary) shot of the villain or the execution of the last villain, for example, will having you nodding your approval. The rest of the film is a terrible mess, with terrible direction of poor quality actors (whoever cast the mother of the rowdy brothers should surrender his casting card), a bizarre order of scenes, and absolutely no gradation. But seeing Nicolas Cage in something like this again after a long time is a treat comparable to visiting a museum of torture instruments, so I'll live with it.
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I just like revenge movies, and when the bastards are really portrayed as bastards, I like it even more. Nicolas Cage is getting older, but he still pulls it off, and when he takes down the first one, it's just a fantastic scene. I don't care if this could realistically happen because it's entertaining enough to watch.
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