Director: Sarah Dagger-Nickson
Writer: Sarah Dagger-Nickson (Screenplay)
Starring: Olivia Wilde, Morgan Spector, Kyle Catlett, C.J.Wilson, Tonye Patano, Betsy Aidem
Plot: After escaping her violent husband, Sadie makes it her life’s mission to help free others in danger. After months of rigorous training in survival skills, boxing, and lethal martial arts, she is back with a vengeance.
Tagline – She fights so you don’t have to.
Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Message Lost In Translation
Story: A Vigilante starts as we meet Sadie (Wilde) who is a specialist at dealing with husbands that abuse their partners, she will offer her services to make the man vanish to help the woman a chance to move on with life.
Each job Sadie does puts her through horrendous nightmares of her own experiences, though she doesn’t stop at just abuse to women, she will help children in need too, doing everything she can to help people who are left helpless.
Thoughts on A Vigilante
Characters – Sadie has been abused by her husband in the past, left her broken and their son dead, she has gone onto train herself to defend herself from ever being in this position again, helping other victims of abuse, by punishing the people that have caused the pain. We don’t meet anybody else enough to learn much about them, we hear about the abusers and each victim has their own story, but we only focus on Sadie.
Performances – Olivia Wilde does do everything right in the film, she is head and shoulders above the rest of the cast, with the pain her character is going through.
Story – The story here follows one woman who fights back against abusers in the world after surviving her own ordeal under a former partner. The story does have a clear message about how difficult spotting abuse can be and how people need to face the consequences of what they did. Where the story falls short is with how everything is handled, it tries to make it look like Sadie is a secret fighter, only it doesn’t seem to show enough of her planning or her action. The pace is all over the place and by the end you haven’t missed too much with the story.
Crime/Mystery – The crime follows the actions of Sadie taking the law into her own hands, with the mystery being more about what has happened in the past with Sadie.
Settings – The film uses the isolated settings to show how Sadie could get away with what she is planning to do.
Scene of the Movie – The showdown.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – The messy plot.
Final Thoughts – This is a simple crime thriller that doesn’t seem to put the plot in any order to make everything overly interesting, despite having a key message they want to send.
Overall: Missing too many marks.
